"An Old-Fashioned Revival" Jonah 3 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, good morning.

I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Jonah.

Jonah to the third chapter this morning for a time in God's Word together.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer one more time before we begin.

Father, we do pray for your grace to be evident in our lives and in our hearts and in our ears and our minds as we turn to your word now.

We know that your grace is supernatural and that it does its work in us.

And so we pray this morning that your supernatural resurrection grace that we read about in Jonah would be evident to us.

That would you open our spiritual eyes to behold truth from your word that we would otherwise be unable to see, and that you would imprint this word on our hearts.

We ask you to do this because you're the author of this word, you're the maker of our own hearts, and so pray that you would bring those two works together this morning.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let me read for us from God's Word, Jonah chapter 3, 10 verses.

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breath.

And Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

They called for her fast and put on sackcloth, 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 sat in ashes.

And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh.

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 turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster he had said he would do to them.

And he did not do it.

This is the word of the Lord.

In our own country's history, the greatest revival or time of spiritual awakening in our past was in the 1740s, what we call the Great Awakening.

It started really in the 1730s with Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached at Enfield, up there in New England.

And from there the gospel began to catch and spread like wildfire throughout the colonies, even down to the south.

You had George Whitfield, who'd went up to Boston and preached there, and then did most of his ministry down in the south, and the Wesleys who were preaching through Georgia and the Carolinas, and there was massive amounts of conversion and spiritual awakening.

Stories from that time describe whole cities, whole villages coming to faith in Christ.

Benjamin Franklin estimated that there were over 20,000 people that came to hear George Whitfield preach when he preached in the Boston Park Square there.

And the population of Boston at the time was about 12,000.

So more people came to hear him than even lived there.

Many made professions of faith and left a lasting influence in our own nation.

Of course, our nation's history fabric, as sectarian as it is, comes back to how it was woven together back then during the Great Awakening.

But even at the height of the Great Awakening, at the climax of the Great Awakening, it was probably only 15% of Americans that had made professions of faith, that had identified with evangelical Christianity.

Such a small fraction, and yet it's known as the Great Awakening.

This morning I want, as we look at Jonah chapter 3, to view the greatest awakening in world history.

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

This is the greatest revival that has ever taken place that we just read about.

And what takes place in this chapter that makes it so great.

It's outrageous what city it happens in.

It's amazing what prophet God uses.

It's an incredible means that God uses, not just the prophet, but the grace that He uses.

You can look at these one at a time as we just go through these first few verses.

First, God tells Jonah in verse 2 to go to Nineveh.

This is a city that the revival will sweep through.

Nineveh is not just your average city.

It was one of the most remarkable cities in the world.

It was built upon violence and arrogance.

We talked about this before, but Nineveh and the whole Assyrian Empire had their domination through fear and intimidation.

They would, there's graphic depictions of some of the kings and how they would slaughter their opponents.

They would take the skin of the warriors and cover the city walls with the skin of those they defeated.

They would make mounds of the skulls of soldiers that had fought against them outside of the city gates.

They would sell the children into slavery.

They would uh usually execute the slaves and the women, would build ditches around the city and fill them with hands and feet from the people that had lived there.

This was Nineveh.

They controlled much of the ancient Near East through fear and intimidation.

It's known as a mighty city or as a great city, it says in verse 2.

That great city.

You know, the word great is everything in the book of Jonah.

The most common word in the book of Jonah is Yahweh, used in just about every other verse.

The second most common word is great.

Everything is great.

It's a great storm, it's a great fish.

Nineveh is a great city.

They're about to have great repentance.

You first encounter Nineveh in the Bible back in Genesis chapter 10 is the first reference of Nineveh.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

Nineveh, in the sense, predates Abraham.

And even back then in Genesis 10, it says Nineveh was founded by Nimrod, who is a mighty warrior, and he made Nineveh into a great city.

When you first are introduced to Nineveh back in Genesis, Moses lets you know it is a great city.

It straddles the Tigris River in modern-day Iraq.

From that place, Nineveh spread out its influence, bringing in much of the Anirius under its power through its fear and intimidation.

That's the city that Jonah is going to go to.

It's not just a remarkable city where this revival takes place, it's a remarkable means that God uses.

Jonah.

Jonah, who has thoroughly disqualified himself from ministry, he's literally renounced his prophetic charge.

God called him to be a prophet, and Jonah agreed to be a prophet, probably with some kind of vow you learn at the end of chapter two.

And then Jonah violated that vow.

He renounced that vow.

He decided he would no longer be in the presence of Yahweh.

He'd no longer be God's messenger.

If God wanted his word to go into the world, he'd have to find somebody else to do it because it would not be Jonah.

Then he runs away from God.

And of course, as we've learned in the last few weeks, you can't run away from God.

God will fish you back in.

He'll reel you back in.

And that's what he does with Jonah.

He brings Jonah back.

And in a sense, this book would have been full and complete at the end of chapter two when Jonah is vomited back up onto the shore.

We don't know what shore, but somewhere along the Mediterranean, Jonah is puked back up and is left beleaguered, exhausted on the Mediterranean coastline.

He's renounced his word of the Lord.

He's renounced to being in the presence of the Lord.

He has no longer any desire to be a prophet, no longer any capacity to be a prophet.

And yet, verse 1 says the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time.

And it should be convicting to you.

It should encourage your heart as well that God speaks to anyone a second time.

You know, God speaks the universe into existence.

When you read the book of Genesis, chapter 1, God doesn't have to say anything twice.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Did you notice?

He creates the world by speaking a word.

He separates the light and the darkness by a word, the dry land from the seas by a word, the sky from the ground by a word.

He creates animals by a word.

And they don't rebel.

You know, he doesn't say cow and kind of a cow comes out.

Let's try this again.

Cow.

Moo.

He doesn't say dog and a poodle comes out.

He speaks clearly.

And everyone obeys immediately.

It's not in God's character, you would think, by the end of Genesis chapter 1, for him to have to say anything twice.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And yet God does.

Imagine how agitated you would be as a parent.

If you've had to fetch your kids from the playground, let's say, in a crowded park, and there's a bit of parenting pride at play there.

You call your child and you want your child to come.

It's time to go.

Let's go.

You don't want your child to be the one in the playground when you say it's time to go, and your child says, No.

Or why?

Well, because I said it's time to go.

Do you need the calendar?

No, let's go.

I don't want to.

Well, do you have to go get him?

So you make a move towards the slide and your child runs the other way.

Heading through the soccer field.

It's in this hypothetical analogy, it's happening over there.

Heading through the soccer field.

Do you have to go chase him down?

It's like Spankingville at our house if that happens.

And yet God, in his kindness, pursues Jonah, catches Jonah, who's been thoroughly disqualified from ministry at this point.

And then the word of Yahweh comes to him a second time.

This is an amazing display of God's grace.

John Newton wrote a poem about it where he described Jesus as the God of the second look.

And I love that phrase.

And in Newton's poem, the first look is Jesus bearing sin on the cross, looking at the Father, wondering how he could bear the penalty for sin.

But then his second look is at those in the crowd for whom he's dying.

He knows the first look that he's bearing there, penalty, but with the second look, he wants to use them to bring the news into the world.

And that's the look that Jonah receives here.

And I'm so thankful that God speaks to us a second time.

For some of us, a third time or a fourth time.

People get confused with the book of Jonah because they, you know, Jonah is still disobedient in chapter four.

And so people wonder, I mean, could he have really been converted in chapter two or was he converted earlier?

And there just seems like an amazing amount of disobedience.

And the counter to that is just look at your own lives.

Were you perfectly obedient after your conversion?

Has God ever had to tell you anything twice?

But praise God that he uses people that have forfeited their right to be used.

Otherwise, none of us could be used by God.

If God didn't speak to us a second time, I'll tell you what, this pulpit would be empty, that's for sure.

But God in his grace sends his word over and over again.

When it comes to Jonah, it's the same language that he got in chapter 1, verse 1.

This is the sequel, and it starts out the same way.

Jonah, go to Nineveh.

There's a new little phrase here.

Call out against it the message that I tell you.

That's a little jab at Jonah here.

Go to him and tell only what I tell you to say, Jonah.

Don't go off script here.

I'm telling you what to do.

Go there and say what I give you.

We have no idea how much time goes between chapter 2 and chapter 3.

In some of our minds, Jonah is put back on the shore, and right away God's word comes to him a second time.

I don't know if that happened that way.

It doesn't seem the flow of the story mandates that.

In fact, it seems almost more climactic here if Jonah does go back, if Jonah does have to wrestle with confusion, if Jonah does have to wonder, what am I supposed to do with myself?

Am I supposed to go back to Israel?

After all, he had renounced being an Israelite.

He had renounced being in the presence of Yahweh.

There's no second coming for prophets that went out to Nineveh, or even more so, prophets that fled God's presence and disobeyed him and went the other way.

I mean, how could he go back to even Israel now?

What's he supposed to do?

Maybe he wrestled with that.

But at some point, God's word comes to him and tells him exactly what to do.

And it's to go to Nineveh.

So Jonah goes there.

He rises up and he goes there.

Notice verse 3, the phrase in the middle, according to Yahweh's word.

He's doing everything that God told him to do.

He is obeying.

His recalcitrance has been broken down.

His reluctance from chapter 1 has been washed away with the sea.

Now his obedience is immediate.

We don't know how much time goes between his first call and his second call, but we know how much time goes between his second call and his obedience.

None.

He hears the word of the Lord and he arises and he goes.

Exactly what God tells him to do.

He obeys instantly, he obeys immediately, he obeys completely, he does what God tells him to do.

Now, Nineveh, as we mentioned, was an exceedingly great city, a massive, impressive city.

As Jonah would have approached the city, he would have crested one of those washes there that surrounds the city, and he would have seen it from a distance.

His horizon would be up there.

He would see temples, he would see a city wall, more massive than anything he'd ever seen in his life.

They have no city walls in Israel like they had in Nineveh.

Religious buildings going up, idols, temples, as I said, spires, perhaps, even from some of their pagan deities.

It would have been a sight unlike anything else in the world at that time.

And it's supposed to remind you of what Daniel saw when he approached Babylon for the first time.

Never a city like that in the world.

Well, this is before that, by several hundred years, but the sight of it would be impressive, nevertheless.

There is nothing like this in Galilee where Jonah comes from.

A city would be looming large on the horizon as he approaches it.

They have no idea what they're getting into as Jonah comes towards the city.

Jonah has no idea what he's getting into as he's going there.

He, in a sense, is hoping he's still a vehicle of judgment for Jonah, for Nineveh.

And he approaches.

They had no awareness.

There was a great cloud of judgment hanging over the city.

Only Jonah knew about that.

What made Jonah the effective minister to Nineveh was that God had crushed him.

Had he obeyed the first time, I don't think he would have had the effect on Nineveh that he had.

But now having gone through suffering, now having gone through chastisement from the Lord, a corrective discipline, which of course was a form of God's grace, having been inside of the fish, having been inside of the hurricane, having suffered.

Now when he approaches Nineveh, he had to suffer to get there.

By the way, it would take at least a month, probably, to get to Nineveh from anywhere along the Mediterranean coast.

I mean, it is in the middle of Iraq.

He would have journeyed there, broken down, wearied.

This, I think, is what Jesus means in Luke chapter 11, when he says, God gave to Nineveh the sign of Jonah.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

In fact, the the Greek translation of it would be, Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh.

When Jesus describes it, he puts the focus on Jonah.

Jonah himself became the sign.

Now I think that's likely his death and resurrection in the fish, that he had gone into a death, he had descended into the sea, and then he had been resurrected onto the shore.

Now remember, I don't think he literally died.

I think it's a it's a big sign, a big arrow, a type of Christ.

Nevertheless, it transformed him into a sign that the people of Nineveh apparently knew about.

They had heard the story of this man.

And so as he approaches the city, imagine the cloud of expectation that's hanging over it from their perspective.

What is he doing here?

It says it's a the ESV translates it, it's about three days' journey in breadth.

And that's not really what the Hebrew says.

The Hebrew literally says it's a journey that requires three days.

And that's an idiom from the ancient Near East.

If you visited a royal city, you would have a three-day visit.

If you were a dignitary visiting a foreign country or a foreign king, you would have a three-day visit.

The first day would be to announce your arrival, to let everybody know that you're there.

Remember, they didn't have, you know, there's no flight tracking apps on the phone back then.

They didn't know when the dignitary would arrive.

And so there might be rumors of him coming, but his first day was for him to enter the city and announce that he's there.

And that lets the king of the city you're visiting hear about it and decide what he's going to do and prepare to receive you.

So the king would prepare.

And the second day, you would be received by the king.

So your first day as you're entering the city, the second day the king would welcome you into his palace, and that's where the business would take place.

That's where the negotiations would take place, or whatever the purpose of your visit would be, that would take place on the second day.

And the third day would be a time of celebration and departure, and you would announce publicly what had happened.

And remember, especially in the way they did time in the ancient Near East, that third day begins on the night of the second day.

And so the to put it, to Americanize it, you might arrive in the morning on a Monday and announce your arrival in the city and the Secret Service or whatever would take the president around, and everybody would be aware that the dignitary is there now.

The second day you would meet with your counterpart on the other side, the leader of that other nation, and the two of you would meet together and you'd hash out whatever deal you had or whatever negotiations had to take place, and then the night of what we would call the second day, the Jews would call it the third day, that next night would be the festival, the party, the banquet, where you would celebrate what took place, and then you would leave the next morning.

That's what it means.

When it says this Nineveh required three days, it's not talking about the size of the city, I don't think.

I think it's talking about this protocol.

That Jonah is going there.

He's the sign of Jonah.

He's going there, and this is a formal visit.

He's going to meet their king.

He's going to be bringing business from his own king.

And by the way, he does not mean his own king, Jehoiakim or whoever's ruling in Israel right now.

He means Yahweh.

He's going there on behalf of Yahweh with business to transact.

It's supposed to be three days.

Now, I think the best way to view this is that God took Jonah and used Jonah there for this reason because of the remarkable grace Jonah himself had just experienced.

Jonah himself was given for dead.

Jonah himself deserved death, and yet God raised him from the dead, so to speak.

God used his resurrection grace and gave Jonah the second look, the second voice, the second time, has given him a new lease on life, a new calling in life, and has sent him there transformed.

I call this resurrection grace.

And I want to give that as your outline this morning as we get into the rest of this chapter.

How we see God's resurrection grace in the story of Nineveh, the history of Nineveh here.

Resurrection grace is seen first in repenting sinners, and second in a relenting God.

In repenting sinners and a relenting God.

Let's look at the first one first.

Resurrection grace is seen in repenting sinners.

The word had spread through Nineveh.

Look at verse 4.

Jonah began to go into the city.

This is his first day.

Notice it says going E day's journey.

So his first day here, that's the day for arrival.

Jonah just enters the city.

He's just announcing his arrival.

He's not ready for the king yet.

The king's not ready for him.

On his first entrance there, he calls out 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

They're working ahead of schedule here.

That's the point of the narrator saying that.

Just the first day Jonah gets there, he begins speaking, and the people begin believing.

Now, I think it's helpful for you to understand what God had used in the Ninevehes' life to prepare them for this message.

The year 765 before Christ, 765 years before Christ, Nineveh had been hit by a massive plague.

Much of his population had died.

764, the next year, they were hit by a famine, of course, with many of the people dead.

Famine sweeps the land.

763, two years after the plague, they were hit by a solar eclipse, a total solar eclipse, which, you know, we know about, and we buy glasses and you make all kinds of things, and kids like it, and it's a celebration for us.

Not back then.

They took this as a sign of judgment and God's wrath on them.

762, in light of the eclipse and the plague and the famine, there was a massive revolt.

The king was forced out of Nineveh.

He took up residence in a different palace across the river.

And it's a few years later when Jonah arrives.

So Jonah's walking into his City, the most powerful city in the world at the time, nevertheless, a city that is reeling from plague, reeling from a famine.

They have this huge sense of expectation that God is angry with them.

And now comes this Israelite prophet bearing the sign of Jonah, who is made into a sign that they knew about.

And he walks into the city.

And notice his language that he uses when Jonah gets there.

Nineveh is going to be overthrown, he says, in 40 days.

Start the clock.

40 days, and you guys are done.

This is Jonah's message.

He's preaching a message of destruction.

He hides from the Nineveh so much about God's character.

Do you notice this?

He does not tell the Nineveh that God is a gracious God.

He doesn't tell the Ninevites what he tells God when complaining in chapter 4, verse 2.

Look at chapter 4, verse 2 with your eyes, real quick.

The middle of that, Jonah says, I knew you're a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster.

Jonah does not say what he knows about God.

He doesn't tell the Nineveh, oh, God's grace is more than your sin.

He doesn't say that.

He appropriates God's grace for himself, keeps it for himself.

He takes his second commission.

He does not share that with the Nineveh.

Instead, he tells the Nineveh, you guys are going down.

And I'm sure Jonah is hoping for that.

You know he's hoping for that in chapter 4, too.

He wants them to be destroyed.

And he tells them 40 days.

40 days would, in Jonah's mind, know that God means business.

That's how long it rained on the earth before God destroyed the earth.

In Jonah's mind, this is equivalent to that.

It took the 40 days of rain to flood the earth.

It's going to take 40 days of preparation for Nineveh, and it will be destroyed.

They might not realize it in Jonah's mind.

These Nineveh might not realize it, but it is over for them.

God means business with them.

And he tells them they will be destroyed.

Now the response of this is incredible in verse 5.

And this is the most remarkable revival, as I've mentioned, in world history.

The people of Nineveh believed God.

Notice that even though Jonah is the sign, they didn't believe Jonah, they believed God, it says.

They believed Jonah's God.

They called for a fast.

They put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

Ninevehites don't wear sackcloth.

It's an established part of Israelite mourning.

The Israelites would wear sackcloth if somebody died or mourning.

Ninevehites don't.

Ninevehites don't mourn.

Sackcloth is, and they put they cover themselves with ashes, you'll see coming up.

I mean, it's supposed to make you look somber.

Ashes streak in your tears, they wipe down your face, they get you dirty, and you're covered wearing sackcloth.

It's really a grotesque thing.

It looks ghastly to see someone covered in ashes and sackcloth.

That's what the Ninevehites do.

On the first day, Jonah is there.

He hasn't even got to go meet the king on the second day.

The first day they covered themselves in sackcloth and ashes.

All of them.

Now the word reached the king of Nineveh.

He arose from his throne.

He removed his robe.

He covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat down in ashes.

This man is contrite.

Now, is this how God wants people to respond to threats of judgment?

When God tells you that you're in sin, does he want sackcloth and ashes?

Well, that's not what the Bible commands.

In fact, there's even some places where God says, rend your hearts, not your garments.

He tells, he speaks to the prophet Joel.

He says, When my people repent, I don't want them wearing sackcloth and ashes.

I want them rending their hearts.

But Jonah does not convey that to Nineveh.

So they are they're grasping here.

They're desperate.

As you read this description of what they do, understand that this is the act of desperate people who believe that God is going to destroy them and are beseeching for any kind of mercy they can put their hands on.

Verse 7.

The king issues a proclamation and publish it throughout Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water.

Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth.

Let them all call out mightily to God.

Do you see their desperation?

Forty days they're not going to eat.

Forty days they're not going to drink.

Forty days they're going to withhold food and water from their livestock, from their sheep and their goats and their cattle.

You know what happens to sheep that don't drink for 40 days?

They die.

That's what he's doing here.

They're issuing a death verdict on many of their animals.

They would rather die in desperation.

So let that ring in your ears when he says, let everyone, even the animals, cry out mightily to God.

You know they're going to be actually doing that.

You know, your dog might start barking if you forget to feed it.

Your cat might start meowing if she doesn't get her food or water on time.

Imagine what a city filled with livestock would sound like on day three of this or day four of this.

Bleeding and crying and screeching and making horrible sounds, I'm sure.

To say nothing of the people.

This is a city gripped by desperation.

They are terrified of the judgment of Yahweh.

They believe that Yahweh will destroy them in 40 days, and they are grasping at anything.

I mean, if you really believed you would die in 40 days, how would you respond?

Because of your own sin.

How would you respond?

If you had a death verdict on you because of your own sin, and God is angry at you and sent a prophet to you and told you you're going to die, and you believed him, you have to imagine what would your response be like.

I mean, I don't think he gets more extreme than what the king does here.

He's not missing anything here.

Everybody's desperate.

But notice the key thing what the king gets right here at the end of verse 8.

Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Notice the particular sin the king is aware of.

It's a sin of violence.

That is the sin of Nineveh.

Nineveh is a city given to violence.

Some cities might have their own besetting sins, some cultures might have their own besetting sins.

For Nineveh, it's the sin of violence.

And the king knows it.

And he calls everybody, not just to give up food and water, but he calls everybody to give up their violent ways, to repent from the sin that they so love.

And here's where it's important to remind you that the first word of the gospel, so to speak, is not even believe in the New Testament, it's repent.

The most famous preachers in the Bible always began their sermons with that word.

Jonah, in this sense, calls for repentance.

Solomon, 1 Kings chapter 8, says that when Israel's under judgment, perhaps they might repent.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

1 Kings 8, verse 48.

1 Kings 8:48

Joel, Joel 2, verse 12 says that when Israel's in trouble, they need to repent with all of their heart.

Joel 2:12

And then with fasting and weeping and mourning.

In fact, Joel 2.13 is the one that says, Rend your hearts, not your garments.

The idea is that you repent in your heart, not with your clothes.

Luke, Luke, Jesus in Luke 24, verse 46 says, I'm giving you this gospel.

Luke 24:46

It's the gospel of repentance.

Go and preach it to all of the world.

Jesus calls it the gospel of repentance.

Peter's very first Christian sermon, Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The crowd responds, What must we do to be saved?

And Jesus is, and Peter's response to them is, You must repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

When the Holy Spirit moves among the Gentiles and opens their eyes and they get saved, the church gathers together and wonders, what are we supposed to do with the Gentiles?

This is in Acts 15.

What should we do with them?

And then it says, the apostles saw, and the early church council saw that God had granted through his Holy Spirit, he had granted the Gentiles repentance that leads to eternal life.

Just marvel at that language.

When the apostles started understanding that God is saving Gentiles, they put that in the category of repentance.

They must have repented.

Paul and Mars Hill preaching.

He says in previous times, God had it pleased God to let all the nations go their own way.

God just let them go.

From Babel forward, he let them go their own way.

Now at this time, Paul says, Acts 17, God is commanding all men everywhere to repent.

So God had let them go their own way.

Now God's calling them back through telling them to repent.

This is very counterintuitive to the kind of gospel message that I fear is so often taught or that we so often trust.

We often think that the best way to win somebody to Christ, to win a non-Christian to Christ, is to stress the good things about Christianity.

Stress it'll help your family, it'll help your parenting, it'll help your marriage, it'll give you a happier, a better life.

And that's not the way the gospel is often proclaimed in the scriptures.

And I fear that if people come to Christ thinking that it will make their life better, it will only produce a false convert.

It'll produce somebody that tries it out for a while and then leaves when it does not, in fact, make their life better.

In fact, it gives them new enemies.

It is difficult for them to say no to certain sins.

It is just hard for them.

They're no longer living for themselves.

They have to live for somebody else.

That's hard to do.

But if the gospel begins with the call to repentance, that sets you up.

The people who walk through that gospel door know that they're repenting from living for themselves.

That's what happens to the king of Nineveh here.

He's repenting from living for himself.

He wants his people to repent from living for themselves.

And that's what's caught up with the whole command to fast for 40 days.

You're doing a very public declaration that you value God's judgment of your life more than your own food, more than your own hunger, more than your own thirst, more than your own animals.

And notice why.

Notice just how, at the one hand, how solid this king's hope is, but on the other hand, how shadowy it is.

He doesn't have a clear view of what Yahweh is like, because look at verse 9.

This is what the king says.

Who knows?

Who knows?

I mean, you can almost hear the desperation in this man's voice.

Who knows?

Perhaps, maybe, God may turn and relent from his fierce anger, and we may not perish.

He does not have any guarantee.

Jonah didn't tell him to do this.

Jonah didn't say repent and God will relent.

Jonah just said 40 days and you're going down.

And this king says, We've got to try something.

Let's try repentance.

Let's try crying and wailing and mourning.

They're broken over their sin.

Let's try that.

Maybe that will work for God.

Now, what's interesting, we're going to see in a few minutes here, it was not the noise that worked for God.

It was not the prayer and fasting that got that got God's attention.

God did not take notice of Nineveh because of the sound of their animals.

He did not take notice of them because of how loud they were or because of the sackcloth and ashes.

God's eyes were not going to and fro throughout the earth and falls on Nineveh's king and goes, Whoa, that guy's wearing sackcloth and ashes.

Let me see what's going on here.

God takes attention of them for one reason, verse 10 says, that they turned from their evil way.

God saw that they repented.

And so God takes notice of them.

This is the first way you see God's resurrection grace.

God's resurrection grace causes repentance, it brings repentance with it.

When God shows resurrection grace to people, it provokes them to repent.

That is what you see with Jonah.

That is what you see with the sailors.

That is what you see here with Nineveh.

This is the kind of grace that only God gives.

We're not talking about common grace that God gives the world.

God gives the world common grace.

The world can have milkshakes and marriage and football and whatever thing you think is like, oh, this is God.

The world is so incredible.

Look at these kind things God has given us.

That's common grace.

God gives it to everybody.

Law enforcement is common grace.

Government is common grace.

And again, milkshakes is common grace.

Did I mention that one?

It's important to me.

Those are common forms of common grace, but those do not lead to repentance.

God's resurrection grace leads to repentance.

When God gives new life, when Jonah is put out of the whale, that provokes repentance.

The grace that God is showing Nineveh.

What grace is God showing Nineveh, you might ask?

He sent Jonah to them.

He gave them the sign of Jonah.

He sent this prophet from so far away to bring them a message.

This is a remarkable display of God's grace.

And so, of course, it's accompanied with this repentance that is wrought in the hearts of these people, and they do turn from their sin, and God takes notice of them.

I mean, how radical was the conversion of these Ninevehites?

They repented in every way imaginable.

This was such a radical display of conversion, the animals got saved.

Do you notice that?

The animals are wearing sackcloth and ashes.

You know, I've sometimes preached what I, in my mind, is a pretty good sermon, but nobody has ever said that sermon was so good.

I was listening to it at home, and my dog got saved.

Well, that's what happens to Jonah's sermon.

Much to his chagrin, too.

Jonah is not psyched about this.

Jonah does not want them repenting, remember?

He wants them suffering.

He probably sees the goat wearing sackcloth and you know kicks the goat.

Bleeding to God, knock it off.

This is radical conversion.

Well, first.

First sign of resurrection grace is repenting sinners.

Second sign of resurrection grace is a relenting God.

A relenting God.

You see this down in verse 10.

When God saw what they did.

Now, what is it that God saw?

Their repentance.

How they turned from their evil way.

The word repent literally means to change their mind.

It's an internal action, of course.

It's not just they cease from violence.

It's God can see in their heart.

God can see in their mind.

He sees that their hearts have been changed.

God relented of the disaster he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

No.

God sees their action and does not carry out his punishment on them.

This provokes the question I'm sure is going through many of your minds.

Does God change his mind?

Is it possible for God to change his mind?

And the short answer to this question is no, it's not possible for God to change his mind because God's knowledge is complete.

God doesn't learn something new.

God's will is complete, he acts perfectly.

This is the doctrine of immutability, which means God's not changeable.

It's a basic part of Christian theology.

God is always the actor, he's never acted upon.

God is always the author, he is never the receiver.

He receives prayers, but it doesn't alter what God is doing.

We pray to God because it transforms our hearts, and often because our prayers are the means God uses to bring about his will.

Now that can sound convoluted, and this is why I love this verse, because it gives you a great example of this.

Was it God's will to forgive the Ninevites?

Absolutely.

You know it was.

Jonah knew it was, and Jonah is the last person who wants to agree with that, right?

And he's gonna say in chapter 4, I knew you would forgive them.

Just like you, God, to go around forgiving sinners that repent.

I knew it.

So clearly there's not a change in God that takes place in this.

When God's main opponent in this in this narrative, after God does his relenting, says, That's exactly what I knew you were gonna do, it doesn't even make sense to say that's God changing his mind.

So why did God tell Jonah to say 40 days and then you'll be overthrown?

Because God is sovereign not only over the ends, but also the means.

The proclamation of destruction is the means God uses to cause the Ninevehes to repent.

And this, by the way, is why we pray as well.

Often our prayers are the means God uses to change events.

Prayer does work, prayer does change things.

Now, this doesn't change God, but it's the means God uses to bring about his will.

And you see this all over the Bible.

For one example, let me put on the screen for you, Jeremiah 18, verse 7 and 8.

Jeremiah 18:7

If at any time, this is Yahweh speaking, I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster I intended to do it.

In light of that verse, do you see why it doesn't make sense to say God changes his mind when he forgives people?

It's no changing of the mind.

If God says, before he does it, this is what I'm going to do.

It'd be like you telling your child, I'm not going to give you any dessert unless you eat all your vegetables.

Then they eat all their vegetables.

I've changed my mind, you can now have dessert.

Well, you did, I guess, but in a real sense, you didn't change your mind because your will was perfectly clear beforehand.

I'm in the parenting mode right now with the kid analogies, as you can tell.

Belief in God's immutability, believing that God does not change, does not negate the importance of repentance or of prayer.

And you see this with other verses as well.

Genesis chapter 6, same phrase used.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

God repented, or God was sorry that he made mankind on earth because he had to flood them out and destroy them.

Nevertheless, again, he sends Noah out to repopulate and subdue the earth.

So he didn't really change his mind because he does the same thing over again.

1 Samuel 15, he says, I'm sorry that I made Saul king.

But nevertheless, he lets Saul go on being king.

It's not that he really changed his mind, it's that he was grieving over the punishment of flooding the earth, over the punishment the Israelites would have to endure that grieved God.

And that's why Samuel says in the middle of 1 Samuel 15, God is not a man that he should ever change his mind.

Even though it may appear that way to us, it just ain't so.

Rather, Jonah's preaching was the means God used to convert the Ninevehes.

It's not a changing of mind, but it is.

It is very much a relenting.

It is very much a relenting.

There is judgment stored up for Nineveh, and the judgment does not fall on Nineveh.

Instead, God relents from it.

He said he would do it to them, and he did not do it, verse 10 says.

Instead, they're converted.

Instead, they're brought into God's family.

You know they're converted because Jesus says they're going to be judging some people in heaven.

John 10, verse 16, Jesus says, I have sheep and other foals also.

John 10:16

I'm going to go gather and bring them in.

That's what you see here.

Now, on the one hand, you could see this would be a happy ending here in Jonah 3.

The Ninevites got converted, they repented, God rescued them.

That's great.

That's great.

But is God still just in doing that?

Put yourself in the sandals of Nineveh's enemies.

Put yourself in the sandals of those who were victimized by Nineveh's violence.

What if you had a loved one who was murdered by a Ninevehite and now God simply forgives them because they went without food and water for 40 days?

So, okay, God's not going to punish them for their sins.

Is that a sufficient answer?

Does that still defend God's justice for him to say, never mind on the punishment?

And the answer is no, it can't.

God can't, he's too holy to simply overlook sin.

And this is where you have to have the perception, you have to have the New Testament understanding of this, that whenever people repent of their sin and God relents from the judgment that is due to them, it's because God pours out the judgment on Christ instead.

That Jesus is going to suffer and die the judgment that the Nineveh deserved.

The Ninevehes deserved hell for their violence, and instead God pours out that wrath on Jesus.

And so the Nineveh can be saved because Jesus is going to die on the cross, bearing the sins for Ninevehes.

This is what Jesus means in Luke 11, verse 32, when he says, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

Luke 11:32

Because this generation, the Ninevites, repented at the preaching of Jonah.

Notice again, Jesus stresses their repentance.

They heard Jonah, they repented.

And then Jesus tells the crowd, I tell you something greater than Jonah is here.

So I have some questions for you this morning.

Have you repented from your sin?

Have you repented from your sin, or are you still in the running mode from God?

Because remember, the point here in Jonah is that you cannot outrun God.

God will pursue his children, he will find them, and he will bring them back.

You cannot outrun him.

But I know sometimes there are people in the running mode, where they got their running shoes on from God, they're living a life of sin, a living a life of disobedience, they feel like they cannot turn back to God because they're too far gone.

And this is where Jonah 3 comes into play.

Jonah 3 should echo in your ears saying you're never too far gone because the punishment for your running, the punishment for your sin is given to Christ instead.

And God is always the God of the second look.

He will still keep looking after you.

He will still come and find you.

He is always there with arms open saying, if you're running from him, you can stop and you can turn and you can come to him and he will receive you.

God receives repentant sinners.

He receives them.

He never drives them out.

That's the point of this chapter.

The point of this chapter is not a treatise and can God change his mind or not.

The point of this chapter is that if you are a sinner, you can turn back to God.

If you turn from your wicked ways and you turn towards God, the punishment for your sin is removed and it is poured out on Jesus instead.

And so God always stands with his arms open, ready to receive repentant sinners.

And you need to believe that if you turn to God in faith, believing that Jesus died and rose from the grave for your sin, that not only does God receive you, but he relents from the disaster he had appointed for you.

That it is appointed for man once to die, and then comes the judgment, Paul says.

But when you turn to God in faith, he removes that judgment from you, giving it to Christ, and he relents from the disaster he had appointed for you.

With that in mind, it makes no sense to avoid coming to Christ.

It makes no sense to run from Christ.

It only makes sense to stop running and to turn and ask for forgiveness, to turn in your hearts, to turn from your evil way, to use Jonah's language.

If the Ninevehes, these wickedly acting people, entrenched in all of their sin and evil, if they could repent from their sin, at the preaching of Jonah, how much more should you repent from it at the preaching of Jesus?

Lord, we pray for hearts that are here this morning and pray that you would cause hearts to turn to you.

Lord, we know that you are a loving God with arms wide open.

You are the Father in Luke 15.

You desire to save, you desire to forgive.

And so I pray for anyone here this morning who has never turned from their sin.

I pray this morning they would turn from their sin and turn towards you.

We know we can't face both sin and you, so Lord, cause us to choose.

I pray that the hearts here today would choose you, would look to you and be saved.

We know that you are a gracious God, abounding in loving kindness and mercy.

Slow to anger and eager to forgive.

Jonah wouldn't tell the Nineveh that.

They had to just guess and hope.

What a demonstration of your grace and mercy.

We give you thanks for our Savior.

In his name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuel Bible.church.

If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.