Jonah Sermon 4. The Sign of Jonah Part 2 – When the Wicked Repent
You can
watch the video of this sermon here.
Introduction
Last week we
looked in some detail at how Jonah points to Jesus. Jonah is, in a very real
sense, a type of Christ. That is, he points to Jesus in a very clear and
powerful way. This is not true with his whole life of course, because he was
not perfect, but there are aspects of his life which point clearly to Jesus. For
example, we saw how powerfully his own experience in the bowels of hell points
to Jesus, because just as Jonah was in the fish for three days, so too was
Jesus in the grave for three days. We also saw that even more than this Jonah’s
own Psalm about his experience in the belly of the fish, points to Jesus. Almost
every point in his Psalm finds a correlation to Jesus’ experience in his
suffering and death. Which is remarkable.
Note, this
teaches us something too, doesn’t it: when you are in distress cry out to God,
and when you are still in the midst of that distress glorify God. Cry out to
him and praise him, the words of that great Casting Crown songs capture this
sentiment really well, “And I'll praise You in this storm, And I will lift my
hands, For You are who You are, No matter where I am.”[i]
Both Jonah and Jesus teach us this very well.
We also saw
that in essence all of the prophets point to Jesus, some more explicitly than
others. But the way in which they all consistently point to Jesus is that they all
tell people to repent and trust in the Lord, and Jesus is the Lord that people
should trust in. All of the prophets have the same message at the end of the
day. They might have different situations, but whether the flood is coming, or
the plagues are coming, or the Nephilim are coming, or the Assyrians are
coming, or the end days is coming, as God’s people, what should you do? Repent
and trust in God. As pagans who have no history of belief in Jesus, what should
you do? Repent and turn to God. It is a pretty simple and consistent message.
From the days of Noah till today the message has not really changed all that
much.
And this
leads us to our sermon today, The Sign of Jonah Part Two – When the wicked
repent. I want to show you one other way in which the book of Jonah points
to Jesus, and this is actually every bit as important as the sign of the three
days and the three nights. And it is a vital message that we need to be
continually reminded of. So, let’s begin where Jonah picks up his ministry,
Jonah
Goes To Nineveh (Jonah
3:1-5) – After rejecting the call of the Lord, after his ordeal in the storm,
then in the belly of a big fish, Jonah finally does what he should have done
all along, he goes to Nineveh,
“1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second
time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it
the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according
to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days'
journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey.
And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And 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.”
This is what
a prophet is meant to do. We see way back in chapter 1, that God said, “2
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil
has come up before me.” And we know that Jonah rejected the call of the
Lord, completely, and did the absolute opposite of what God wanted him to do. But
now he does what he is told. “3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh,
according to the word of the Lord.”
I remember when
I was back in Bible College, and the lecturer was reading through one of the
gospels, and Jesus did a miracle and then something interesting happened. Jesus
told those there to tell no one. It was a passage like this, Mark 7:35-36, “35
And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And
Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more
zealously they proclaimed it.” I remember asking my lecturer, “What
would have happened to those who disobeyed a command of Jesus so openly?” He
responded, “Haven’t you just as openly ignored the commands of God?” I was
like, “Good point.” And ouch.
Don’t just
skip over what happened with Jonah here. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh and
he was going to get him there. It was just a matter of how. If you have the
Holy Spirit in your heart, then you know that when you are going against the
word of the Lord, that he is not going to make it easy for you. He is going to
prompt you, he is going to bring you back around to his will. He may even bring
hardship upon you, till you take heed of him. That is part of the role of the
Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, in different measure, was still active in the
lives of believers in the Old Testament.
But also
note this, God used Jonah’s rebellion, not just for good, but also to forge him
into a great witness and testimony to Ninevehites, the Israelites, and to us.
Without Jonah running from the Lord, we would not have this wonderful Psalm
from Jonah, this image pointing to Christ, and so much more. God does this a
lot in the Scriptures. He turns what man meant for evil into good, again and
again. This does not mean man’s evil is ok, it just shows how far above it all
God is.
God uses the
sinfulness of his people in the Scriptures as great lessons for us, but also he
uses our sinfulness as great lessons for us, if we will humbly listen to him.
God is in the business of refining us, but he is patient, and he works with us,
despite all our flaws. What he is looking for is repentant people who know how
to overcome their faults, as we covered several weeks ago. This is evident in
God’s heart for the Ninevehites as well. So let’s look at that now.
The Great
City (vv.2-3) – There
is something incredible here in God’s perspective of this Ninevehites, and this
will help us eventually see how this book points to Jesus, so, let’s look at it
again, “2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it
the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according
to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days'
journey in breadth.” In verse two, God described Nineveh as “that
great city” and then again in verse 3, it is described as an
“exceedingly great city”. How should we read this?
One person
might think well, it is just talking about its size. After all, it is the most
prominent city in the world after all. And it would take about three days for
Jonah to reach everyone with his message, and he only get’s a third of the way
through the city.
Another
might mention, well it’s the dominant city in the world, so God is just
referring to its reputation as the great city. But is God swayed by the
reputation of men, let alone pagan men who do not know him? Remember how God
mocks the Tower of Babel, the great tower meant to reach the heavens, by saying
that he has to come down from heaven to come see it? We don’t see God
recognizing the greatness of human cities like man does. I think Jonah is saying
something else.
What is
fascinating about what Jonah says here is that the Hebrew word behind
“exceedingly” is actually “elohim.” What does “elohim” mean? It is the plural
for God, it can mean gods in some contexts, but in this context it means “mighty
God.” So, it means something like this: this city was “a great city to God.” In
fact, if you read the NASB, you will see it has a footnote, which translates it
precisely this way.
The reason some
commentators translate it “exceedingly great” is because this can be also be a
Hebrew idiom meaning as such. But we already know from the context that God has
great regard for this city. Not because he thinks it is so big and awesome, he
is far bigger than it. Not because he cares about its reputation, because God
is no respecter of man, and regards no man’s reputation. No, it is because God
cares about this city.
Greatly
Considered - This
city is great in God’s eyes, because it is filled with people, he tells us this
directly, Jonah 4:10-11,
“10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which
you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night
and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in
which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from
their left, and also much cattle?”
God is
concerned with this city not because it is the most powerful city in the world,
not because it has a great reputation, but because there are so many men and
beasts in this city which face destruction if they do not repent. He cares
about this pagan city. He has concern for it, compassion for it. Enough so that
he sends one of his top men to go and warn them.
The Warning (3:4) – Hence the warning, God told
Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevehites whatever he told him to preach, now
that Jonah is repentant and ready to obey, this is exactly what he does,
finally. And this is what he proclaims: “4 Jonah began to go into the
city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown!” The shortest and most effective sermon ever.
Really simple isn’t it. It is almost as succinct and means much the same thing
as the old movie sidewalk prophets sign, “Repent, for the end is nigh!”
What a message, a short message. Jonah
warns the Ninevehites that destruction is coming. No big illustrations, no
meandering, no side-issues, no pleading with them. Just a straight up warning
about the coming wrath.
This is also how we know that God
loved the Ninevehites: he really wanted to warn them about their coming
destruction. This is the key linchpin to understanding this whole passage, this
whole book. In reality, this is the key linchpin to understanding the word of
God: God cares. God does not want people to perish, he does not want people to
be destroyed. As God tells us in Ezekiel 18:32, “32 For I have no
pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
The fact that God wants to warn the sinner shows that he cares.
Why do you warn someone about the
danger that is coming? So that disaster will not happen. So that they can be
rescued from it. Warning someone of danger can sometimes be the most obnoxious
thing they experience from you, and it is often a necessary act of love. One
that might even make them hate you.
This allows me to address a serious
issue that many Christians face in the world today. Some Christians, and this
is terrible, think that when you have a non-Christian friend who chooses a
destructive way of life, or a dangerous path of life, that the best thing to do
is just be nice to them and love them no matter what, and affirm them, no
matter what. These Christians think this is loving.
The reason they think this is loving,
is because the world’s definition of love is affirmation no matter what. In
fact, the world will say that if you do not affirm their way of life, their
every decision, their sexuality, their greed, their gluttony, their arrogance,
their narcissism, their gender identity, or whatever, you are hateful, bigoted,
or evil.
But the truth is to affirm
destructive behaviours is hateful. Because it helps move the person towards
destruction. Would it have
been loving for God to affirm the evil ways of the Ninevehites? No, because
this would have guaranteed their destruction would come sooner. So, we can see how clearly God cared
about this city, so much so that he warned it. This is how God acts, this is
how God even extends mercy to the most wicked of cities, before he is going to
judge a city he will warn them again, Amos 3:6-7, “6 Is a trumpet blown
in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless
the Lord has done it? 7 “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his
secret to his servants the prophets.”
God did the
same for Sodom, Lot was there to warn people. God did the same for Egypt. God
did the same for Moabite and Edomite cities. God even warned Babylon in many
ways before it was judged. He did this a lot for Jerusalem.
You could
even argue, that such is the mercy of God, that the more wicked a city is, the
more concerned he is to warn it. Imagine how he feels about our transgender
affirming, abortion promoting, war-mongering Australian cities? God will
continue to send people to warn this nation until he decides it is time to
judge it.
When The
Wicked Repent
(vv.5-10) – And as we all know these wicked, evil and powerful people actually
repent,
“5 And 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. 6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne,
removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he
issued a proclamation and published through 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, 8 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. 9 Who knows? God may turn
and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 When
God 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.”
It is hard
to get across, just how monumental an event this conversion was. And we know it
is a genuine conversion, because Jesus affirms that the people of Nineveh will
be vindicated on the day of judgement. Perhaps helping you to understand some
of their evil might help.
The Assyrian
empire was the most terrifying force in the ancient world. It was so evil and
so brutal, the eventually many of their allies and enemies joined together to
turn on them. And they destroyed their cities completely, wiped them from the
face of the earth.
When the
Assyrians captured a city, if you resisted, they would brutalize the captured
people. We read this in Amos 4:2, “2 The Lord God has sworn by his
holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you
away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.” This is not
metaphorical. This is what the Assyrians actually did to prisoners of war; stripping
them down, putting big hooks through their mouths or noses, and then chaining
them to their fellow prisoners, to march them into slavery. This happened to
Manasseh, the King of Judah at one point,
“10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but
they paid no attention. 11 Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders
of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound
him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:101-11).
No cruelty
or humiliation was kept in reserve when they were punishing their captives.
Reading the ways the Assyrians tormented their captives is like reading an ‘R’
rated horror movie script. Dismemberment, flaying’s and worse. Think Aztecs or
modern day Mexican drug cartels.
The book of
Jonah does not ignore this violence, when the King tells everyone to repent, he
says this, “Let everyone turn form his evil and from the violence that is
in his hands.” It is not like their level of violence was acceptable
according to the standards of their day, they went above and beyond. As we
noted three weeks ago, they even painted, in detail and carved in detail what
they would do to you on their palace walls if you were defeated by them. Can
you imagine what living amongst those violence scenes did to their souls? It
would be like living in a horror movie.
And yet - And yet they repented. They
genuinely turned from their bloody and violent and evil ways, and sought the
forgiveness of the Lord,
“5 And 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. 6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne,
removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he
issued a proclamation and published through 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, 8 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. 9 Who knows? God may turn
and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
If you ask
people what the most remarkable miracle in the word of God is, I am sure they
would think of the resurrection, the 10 plagues, Elijah calling fire down from
heaven, the feeding of the five thousand. But few would probably list this one,
even though it is up there with some of the most remarkable miracles in
history.
This is as
remarkable as if all of Hollywood repented and destroyed their idols and
repented of their evil ways. This is as remarkable as if Stalin had have turned
to the Lord, and all of Communist Russia had repented as well. Imagine the
celebration of the angels as this wicked city repented. When one lost soul
turns we read this, “10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the
angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). How much more
joy when over 120,000 sinners repent in a couple of days?
God rewarded
their repentance – “10 When God 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.”
Why did the
king of Nineveh repent, because he thought, maybe God would change his mind and
relent from destroying them. But when you think about it, this is not really
God changing his mind, because forgiving the sinner is actually God’s default
position. Not destroying us when we deserve it, is his default setting. Not
giving us what we deserve is his default setting. Not writing off sinful man,
is his default position.
The Sign
of Jonah Part 2 (Matthew 12:38-42) – But we have come all this way, and you must be wondering, ok Matt, this
is great to see, but how does this point to Jesus. Well turn again to Matthew
12, verse 38 and read with me,
“38 Then some of the scribes and
Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39
But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but
no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so
will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and
condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is
here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”
We focused
on the first part of this passage last week, showing how the 3 days and 3
nights image points to Jesus, but how else does the sign of Jonah point to
Jesus?
Well, who
repents in the book of Jonah? The wicked pagans. Don’t miss this. The
Israelites at this point were ignoring the word of God and the prophets, but
the most wicked pagans in the known world heard it and repented.
The sign of
Jonah, therefore, also points to the fact that God’s own people would mostly
reject Jesus’ message, and this is exactly what happened. On the final day the
Ninevehites will judge the Jews of Jesus day, because they rejected Jesus.
This should
be a big warning to us, as believers today, because it is often the case that
the people of this world understand the mercy and grace of God, better than
those of us in the Church. This was true in Jonah’s day, it was true in Jesus’
day, and it is true today still. We need to be constantly reminded to repent
before the Lord, and also to extend his mercy and grace to each other and to
the lost. The one who is forgiven much loves much, but the one who forgets what
they were forgiven of can start to get a calloused heart.
Application
– So, how do we
apply what we have learnt today?
-
Recognize God’s great heart for the lost.
-
Have God’s same heart for seeking to warn the lost. It is not loving to fail to warn the
lost, if you have the opportunity. You cannot affirm the sinner in their sin
and call it love, biblically that is hate.
-
Be careful, you don’t stagnate in your faith and miss the grace of God. God will always move to new
wineskins, if the old become dry and useless. Seek the Lord to refresh your
Spirit often.
Conclusion
– Jonah points us to
Jesus in so many ways. And most of all in this passage we see God’s great heart
for the lost. Pray that if you first love, your love for sharing Jesus has died
off, or quietened down, that you would get it back again. Pray it happens
before God decides you need a testimony like Jonah. Let’s pray.
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