Running Rebel (Part Seven): The Recommissioning

Transcript

JROT 24
1/28/2024
Running Rebel (Part Seven): The Recommissioning
Jonah 3:1-5
Jesse Randolph

We are back in the book of Jonah this evening and we’re going to be turning to chapter 3 of this minor prophet whose words and whose lessons pack a major theological punch. Chapter 1 you’ll recall was all about this rebellious prophet from the northern tribes Israel, Jonah, who was on the run. On the run from God somewhere in the middle of the 8th century B.C. Chapter 1 was this fast section moving of narrative as we saw Jonah receiving this commission from God and getting this commission to go to Nineveh to “cry out against” the wickedness there. We saw Jonah’s initial fleeing from God as he boarded a ship in Joppa to take him to Tarshish which was about as far from Nineveh as a person could get in those days. We learned of this great wind and storm which Yahweh “hurled” upon the sea that was enveloping this ship that Jonah was on that had deported there from Joppa.

We know from the narrative that the storm that hit the sea there was threatening to break up the ship, to literally rip it to shreds. Then, we saw Jonah’s interaction with these pagan sailors and the pagan sea captain on that ship who were these unfortunate and panicked bystanders to this brewing conflict that was developing between Jonah and his God. We saw these pagans first crying out to their pagan gods as a way to calm the storm. We saw them casting lots to figure out on whose behalf this calamity had befallen their ship. We saw Jonah sleeping soundly in the hold of the ship only to be roused and confronted by the ship’s captain. We saw Jonah beg the sailors to throw him into the sea, not as an act of humble self-sacrifice I contend. Not as a pre-figurement of the later atoning death of Christ on the cross I’d contend. But rather as an “easy way out.” A way to get out of what God had commanded him to do. A way to defy God’s command to Jonah to “go to Nineveh.” We saw the sailors’ ultimate compliance with Jonah’s request as they tossed him overboard. We saw the sailors’ eventual repentance as they, these pagans ultimately called on the name of Yahweh and cried out to Yahweh and prayed to Yahweh and made vows and sacrifices to Yahweh. Then we saw that the Lord, Jonah 1:17, “appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.”

All of that was in chapter 1. Last time, in chapter 2, which we took in one fell swoop the last time we were in this book, we encountered the prayer that Jonah prayed while he was in the stomach of the great fish. As we saw last time, Jonah, chapter 2 marks really the second act of this divinely decreed drama where we start to see Jonah’s eyes open up, at least in some ways, and of all places, from inside the growling pit of the stomach of this great fish.

As we saw last time, chapter 2 of Jonah is bookended in narrative. The narrative portions are found in Jonah 2:1 and Jonah 2:10. But sandwiched in between verses 2 through 9 is a prayer, and in those verses, we see the prayer that Jonah prayed while in the dark recesses of the fish’s stomach. However, as I mentioned last time, this was actually a prayer he would have recorded later after the fish vomited him up onto dry land. In fact, to get us oriented again, let’s revisit Jonah chapter 2. I’ll go ahead and read the whole thing just to give us a running start for this evening. It says “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, ‘I called out of my distress to the LORD, and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. So, I said, “I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward Your holy temple.” Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple. Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD.’ Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.”

Now, as I mentioned last time, I don’t believe that the words we just read there from Jonah 2 can compellingly be called a prayer of salvation. Rather, what we have there in chapter 2, and this fits not only the prayer itself, but this fits the book of Jonah as a whole is a prayer of thankfulness for deliverance. Like a foxhole prayer offered during wartime. Or the prayers that are routinely offered by those who escape a brush with death. Jonah here was praying to God and praising God for physically delivering him. For physically rescuing him from death and drowning in the depths of the ocean after he had been thrown overboard by the pagan sailors.

Now as we turn to chapter 3, we find ourselves at another transition point. An important transition point in this book. Another turning point which is marked by this new scene. We’re going to cover the first half of this new scene in chapter 3 tonight. We’ll look at the first five verses together. Then we’ll look at the rest of chapter 3 a week from tonight. But take a look with me if you would, at Jonah 3:1-5. God’s Word reads, “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’ So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.”

What we see here, amazingly, is that after all that has been described thus far, especially, in the narrative portions of chapter 1 which I think are safe to say, littered with statements about Jonah’s disobedience and Jonah’s waywardness and Jonah’s rebellion. What we see here now in chapter 3 is God giving Jonah a second chance. He’s giving him another opportunity to fulfill the mission God had originally given him which was to go to Nineveh and proclaim judgment against that wicked city.

The title of this evening’s message is “The Recommissioning,” which I believe, reflects the realities of what’s happening in these verses as God instead of moving on from Jonah sticks with Jonah and recommissions Jonah as the man and as the prophet that He wanted to proclaim His message to the people of Nineveh. The results of Jonah’s preaching, as we’re going to see from this text, were nothing short of incredible. Indeed, this section of Jonah that we’ll be in this evening is really a high point of this book. Arno Gaebelein, commenting on this part of Jonah’s prophecy, once said this, what we’ll be in tonight. He said, "Heretofore the emphasis has been upon the prophet’s preparation; tremendous as the miracle of Jonah’s preservation in the sea monster has been, it is more a preface than a conclusion. Now the veil is drawn aside, and something of the strange purpose of the Almighty in dealing with his prophet is revealed. If the miracle of the fish is great, that of this chapter, chapter 3, is greater. For here is the record of nothing less than the greatest mass conversion in history. Though generalities must always be used with caution, we may say that never again has the world seen anything quite like the result of Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh.”

I’ve been saying it all along, which is why it is so nice to have Gaebelein confirm it here, that the book of Jonah isn’t about a fish. The book of Jonah isn’t even ultimately about Jonah. The book of Jonah is about God sovereignly working out His purposes through some admittedly unconventional means to carry out His perfect will. Yes, Jonah was a running rebel. But God was, and God is a pursuing God. He pursued the sailors in Jonah 1. He pursued Jonah in Jonah 1 and 2, and as we’re about to see, he pursued the people of Nineveh here in this chapter.

With that we’ll pick it up in verse 1 of chapter 3 where, again, it begins this way. “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you’.” As we saw at the end of chapter 2 last time Jonah was “vomited” out of the fish onto dry land. Then after some undetermined period of time, the text doesn’t really give us a specific time referent here, Jonah receives this second command. Now, many will be tempted to "major on the minors” here and they’ll want to know with what velocity was Jonah thrown out or “vomited” out by the fish. What beach did he land on? What was he covered in? What color was his skin? Was he somehow bleached from the time he spent three days in the belly of the fish? The text doesn’t tell us any of that. God has withheld that information from us, and we need to be OK with that remembering Deuteronomy 29:29, “secret things belong to the LORD.”

What God has shown us, though right here in His Word is just how similar the command he gave Jonah here in Jonah 3 was to the command he gave Jonah back in chapter 1. In fact, look back at the initial command of Jonah 1:1-2 where it says, “The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me’.” The repetition here, the first command being repeated nearly verbatim in the second time is telling us something. What it’s telling us is that in Jonah 3 is that the rebellious prophet was being offered a new beginning here, a second chance. The fact that there was a second time, the fact that there could possibly be a second time for Jonah magnifies the far-reaching forbearance and the magnificent mercy of almighty God. In spite of Jonah’s earlier refusal to do so, in spite of all of the inconvenience and the wreckage and the trouble he caused, God here was giving Jonah a fresh opportunity to fulfill His divine commission. Jonah really was fortunate to receive such grace. He really was fortunate to receive this type of favor from God because when we survey the Old Testament, we see that not all prophets were given “second chances.” There’s the instance of the disobedient prophet in 1 Kings 13 who was mangled and mauled to death by a lion. Not a second chance there. We think of Elijah who, after he fled from Jezebel in I Kings 19 Yahweh had him anoint Elisha immediately as his successor. No second chance there. Unlike those men Yahweh patiently gave Jonah here a second chance. Which reminds us of the broad theological truth here that God has always shown mercy. But He’s always seen fit to show mercy to whom He will show mercy. Jonah was shown mercy here. He had looked death in the face in those watery deeps after being swallowed by the fish or before being swallowed by the fish and even later after being swallowed by the fish. Now he’s being called again to fulfill his commission as God’s divine messenger. He had been restored to God’s service. He was being given a second chance.

With that, we get to the heart of God’s second command to Jonah here, his “recommissioning ” of Jonah, as it were. Look at verse 2, where we see these words recorded. “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’” Now, a major theme of what we see happening in the first two chapters of Jonah, Jonah 1 and 2 is Jonah’s descent. Jonah’s downward drift. His downward decline. That’s picked up in the language of the text of the first two chapters. That’s picked up really in the language of chapters one and two. I’ve alluded to it before. He went “down” to Joppa. He went “down” into the hold of the ship. He was sinking “down” into the depths of the sea when the sailors threw him overboard before the fish swallowed him up. But now, in Jonah 3:2, with the use of this word, “Arise,” we are given this literary clue as to this important shift that’s happening now in the story. Note it’s not just “Arise,” as in, “arise from where you are sitting in that moment, maybe on that sandy beach on which the fish vomited you out. No, it’s “arise, go to Nineveh,” which is identical to the command back in Jonah 1:2.

You see it there as we keep on reading in Jonah 3:2. Nineveh is described as “the great city.” “Arise, go to Ninevah the great city.” This is one of three times in the book of Jonah that Nineveh is referred to as “the great city.” We see it back in Jonah 1:2, “arise, go to Ninevah the great city.” We see it here in Jonah 3:2, same words. Then if you go to the end of the book, to the very last verse of the book of Jonah, look at Jonah 4:11 you’re going to see it referred to again where God says, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

So, what is meant by this description of Nineveh getting back to Jonah 3 that it was not only “a great city,” but you see the definite article there, it was “the great city.” Why is Nineveh described in that way as “the great city”? Well, we’ll get into more into Nineveh’s layout as we get deeper into our text but what I can share with you now is that this city was surrounded by both an inner wall and an outer wall. The huge inner wall was about 50 feet wide, the width of the wall. It was about 100 feet high and about eight miles in circumference. That was the wall that protected Nineveh proper as a city. Then there was this outer wall that went further and further out and that encompassed various fields and small surrounding towns and cities. In fact, if you go to Genesis 10, you’re going to see that when Ninevah was founded and built by the guy named Nimrod, I can’t help but make a reference to it. But when Nimrod established Ninevah in Genesis 10 he established various other cities and those would all have been within the same outer wall that protected Ninevah.

In Jonah 3 here though, Jonah’s instructions from God, they were simple. They were simply to travel to Nineveh. A journey which would probably have been something like 500 to 600 miles from his likely starting point and then once he got to Ninevah to preach to that city the Lord was going to give him at the appropriate time; and that’s how it’s phrased here in verse 2. “Go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” Now Nineveh was an exceedingly wicked city. The Ninevites were an exceedingly wicked people. God here by this point in history is at the end of His rope with him and Jonah was the man He had appointed to send into this heart of darkness to kick at the hornet’s nest of iniquity that this place was as he called on them to repent.

Now, interestingly, and I just alluded to this, in his recommissioning of Jonah here, note that God doesn’t repeat the reason for this proclamation or for this mission. Here in Jonah 3:2, there’s no hint from God as to what He wants Jonah to say to the Ninevites as He did back in Jonah 1:2. Rather, it simply, “go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” You look back in Jonah 1:2 and there was a more specific command. “Go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But now in chapter 3, the tone varies slightly as what is given here by Yahweh is a clear command by God to Jonah to render to Him, to God, total obedience no matter what the message might ultimately be. In other words, God here was humbling Jonah and molding Jonah. He’s saying to Jonah here in a sense, “You are going to preach the message to Ninevah that I give to you. You’re not going to preach your message, the gospel according to Jonah. You’re going to preach My message.”

So, the stage is set. After going through all that he went through on the ship, with the sailors and then the sea, in the stomach of the great fish, Jonah was given his second chance. He was recommissioned.

As we turn to the first part of verse 3 we are told what Jonah did with this second chance. Look at the first part of Jonah 3:3. It says, “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD.” Now earlier in this prophecy in Jonah 1:3 Jonah disobeyed the Lord, and he went west, in the direction of Tarshish. But here his response is totally different. He obeys the Lord and makes his way northeast to Nineveh. Jonah’s ready compliance here with the Lord’s command is emphasized by those words there, he “arose” and “went.” Back in Jonah 1:2, we saw that he “rose up to flee to Tarshish” and then he “went down to Joppa.” He did the exact opposite of what’s described here. But now he’s being described as arising and going. He “arose and went” to the very place he was called to all along, Nineveh. Then look at this next part of verse 3 and this is so important, “He arose and went to Ninevah according to the word of the Lord.” The first time around when the word of the Lord came to Jonah telling him to go to Nineveh Jonah ran away. The second time around, though, having been recommissioned and having learned the consequences of running away, and having learned the costs associated with being a “running rebel” he obeys. The response we see here from Jonah, by the way, is something that we each should be striving for and each be aiming at as followers of Jesus Christ. This is where we take the scene in Jonah from all those thousands of years ago and migrate it over to the church today. That attitude of doing according to the word of the Lord, that’s a timeless truth. That applies not just to ancient Israel. That applies to us today. Did God say it? Did God order it? Did God direct it? Did God decree it? Then we need to do it. Like Jonah, we need to do “according to the word of the LORD.” By the way, what an amazing epitaph that would be for any follower of Christ here this evening. Here lies Joe. Here lies Susan. He did, she did ‘according to the word of the LORD,’ date of birth, date of death, end of story.

So here is Jonah now in quite the turn of events, in verse 3, now doing “according to the word of the LORD.” There might be other interesting details we would like to know more about like how long did his journey to Nineveh actually take. By what means did he travel, foot or donkey because that would vary how long his trip lasted. Which route did he take? Where there any hurdles or obstacles he faced in trying to get to Nineveh? Again, those details aren’t given to us. Rather, what’s been revealed to us is the most important part of this account is that Jonah was now acting in obedience. In fact, what we see here in Jonah 3:3, is exactly what we would have expected and anticipated we would have seen back in Jonah 1:3. That Jonah would have heard the word of the Lord about going to Ninevah and he actually would have gone to Ninevah.

So, why this change in attitude on Jonah’s part? Why this change of course? Why was the disobedient prophet now suddenly obeying? The answer, I believe, is a residual heart of gratitude. A residual heart of gratitude for what he had just been taken through. There’s this famous story about Martin Luther and I was trying to remember, I think I told this story here. I’m at the point now in my ministry here at Indian Hills, I guess I’m repeating stories. I think I’ve told it. But there’s a story about Martin Luther who, in 1505, during his earlier Roman Catholic years was riding on horseback through this torrential downpour. He was so terrified of the storm and losing his life in the storm that he cried out to St. Anne, who in the Roman Catholic church, believe it or not, was the patron saint of, among other things, horseback riders. Good think he called on that one and not like one of the other patron saints. But anyway, young Luther makes this deal with St. Anne in 1505 that if she would just deliver him from the storm, he would become a Catholic clergyman. Well, Luther did survive the storm and it wasn’t because of St. Anne. It was because of almighty God. But he goes on to enter the monastery in fulfillment of his promise as a pledge of his gratitude. That appears to be something like what Jonah’s doing here. He wasn’t delivered from a rainstorm. He was delivered from the sea, and he was delivered from a fish but that same residual heart of gratitude over his deliverance led him to this place of obedience now in Jonah 3:3 where it says, “Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD.”

Now we come to this next statement in verse 3 as we keep reading through it, where he says, it says “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.” Now that expression, about Nineveh being an “exceedingly great city” is Hebrew idiom. It’s the literal translation of the Hebrew here would be “Nineveh was a city great to God.” “Nineveh was a city great to God.” It’s a superlative expression to say that Nineveh was “God-sized.” It was a large city, to be sure, but more significant, to say that it was God-sized means that it was a city of significance and importance in God’s sight. Put another way, God cared about Ninevah and why was Nineveh important to God? Well, it was important as we’re about to see because He had some of His people there. People that He was going to turn to Himself as they repented.

Now, what are we to make of that “three days’ walk” language there at the end of verse 3? Then “Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.” Now, some will try to argue, some have argued, that that’s a precise measurement of the time that would have taken Jonah or anybody else to walk from one side of the city to the other. It would have literally taken three days to go from this end of the city to that end of the city. Of course, liberal critics have jumped all over that by saying Nineveh was not big enough in terms of its diameter and its size to take three full days to walk across. Others have taken the position that the reference here to the city of Nineveh is not to Ninevah proper but to one of the other surrounding cities I mentioned earlier that are mentioned in Genesis 10 so that the reference to “three days’ walk” is not reference to Nineveh literal city environment with the inner wall but rather extends to the whole metropolis surrounding Ninevah. Having just come back from Dallas, from a short vacation, we understand the concept here. It’s one thing to say I’m going to Dallas. It’s another thing to say I’m going to go to the Metroplex. You can get around Dallas fairly quickly. To get from one end of the Metroplex to the other, the greater DFW region takes you much much longer. So that’s that second theory here, that this refers to a three days walk not across Ninevah only as the city but across the whole metropolis. A third option is to take this “three days’ walk” language describing the fact that it took three days to walk all over Ninevah in sort of a crisscross pattern. That this is not the idea of walking straight from one end of the city to the other as though that’s how we would get around the city. Or to walk around the circumference of the city but rather as Jonah was strategically making his way from point to point within the city to get the gospel out to all parts of the city, it would have taken him three days to get all over. I mean, I think it would take us at least three days to see all of Lincoln, right, if you went that manner. If I was to walk from 84th street all the way across town in a straight line, I could definitely do it in far less than three days but if I wanted to strategically get all over Lincoln to share the gospel it would take me at least three days. That’s the idea here. I go with that third view. I think it makes the most sense about Jonah’s goal in moving extensively through the city preaching at various places in Nineveh as he gives this God-decreed message of judgment to the Ninevites.

Now these remarks that we’ve just worked through in at the end of verse 3 here about Nineveh and its size and its greatness and its importance, they give us a bit of an interlude in the narrative between the departure of Jonah for Nineveh at the beginning of verse 3 and his arrival at Nineveh at the beginning of verse 4. In fact, why don’t we turn there to his arrival. Look at verse 4 of Jonah 3, it says “Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’” So, in verse 3 we’re told that Nineveh was “an exceedingly great city,” “a three days’ walk” and I’ve given you my interpretation of that. Now here in verse 4, we are told that “Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk.” What does that mean? What does “one day’s walk” mean? Some have taken it to mean that Jonah sort of waited around for a day to start preaching. You know, he got to Ninevah and he just sort of seeing the sights, doing what people in the church age will call pre-evangelism. You know, just hang out at some coffee shops and visit all the restaurants, you know, “doing ministry” before you actually open your mouth and share the gospel. I don’t think that’s what this means at all. Rather, when it says here, that “Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk” what that’s referring to is that, that Jonah was on what he anticipated to be the first leg of his preaching tour all throughout Nineveh. We just saw in verse 3 that to make it throughout Nineveh would be a “three days’ walk.” In verse 4, what’s being described here is that he was on leg one of that journey. What’s being conveyed here, in the context, is that right then and there, on that first day, he got about the work of preaching. You see it there in verse 4. Right after indicating that “Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk” it says, “and he cried out.” In other words, he got right to work right there on day one. Now note, there is no mention here of a day two or a day three of Jonah’s ultimate preaching tour through Nineveh and presumably, that’s because of the response he received which we’re going to get to in verse 5.

So, on that first day there in Nineveh Jonah got right to preaching and we’re given the contents of what he preached at the end of verse 4. It says, “and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

When you look at how much of the book of Jonah is focused on the various efforts to get Jonah to Nineveh, the initial command of God. The storm, the sea, the sailors, the fish, and now, the second command of God. the “recommissioning.” It’s pretty remarkable to think of how little of Jonah’s actual activity in Nineveh is recorded here. It’s all relegated to this one verse here in Jonah 3:4. Everything about his ministry in Nineveh proper, in the city of Nineveh, is put in this single verse, verse 4. Again, his message, you see it there, his sermon you could say, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The message God gave Jonah to give to the Ninevites was the threat of complete destruction of their city within 40 days. Some have said and some have argued that Jonah must have said more than that. More than the eight words that we have in our English bibles. More than the five words in Hebrew that these words represent. Whether he did or not the message that Jonah proclaimed to Nineveh was direct, and it was simple, and it was clear. There could have been no doubt among the Ninevites as to what he was saying. Again, carrying that forward to our day and our age, that’s a good reminder to every one of us in our evangelism, in our Bible teaching, in our talking about the Word in small groups around the dinner table which is that our God-given task is simply to clearly and directly and plainly unfold God’s truth to those around us. God may use us as He pleases but we have a responsibility to make His truth as clear and accessible as possible. Not only was there a clarity and a simplicity to Jonah’s message, there was a holy boldness to his proclamation. His audience there in Nineveh was a dangerously pagan crowd. I mean, could you imagine going up to North Omaha or the
Southside of Chicago or to drug infested streets now in Ecuador and then just go down there and stand in front of the people on a soapbox or a crate and just say, you know, unless you repent judgment is coming upon you. I mean, we’d expect rejection, possible ridicule, maybe a bullet in the chest, loss of life. Well, that’s exactly what Jonah here is running headlong into. In doing so I’ve got to say, he’s actually operating not all that differently from what we are called to do as Christians. As Christians we ought to be willing to go to North Omaha if that’s where the Lord calls; and go to the Southside of Chicago and go to the dangerous drug infested streets of Ecuador to call on sinners in any one of those environments to repent of their sinful ways and to put their faith in world’s only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jonah spoke with clarity and courage and conviction as he went about his task there in Nineveh and we as followers of Christ today are called to do the same as we go about sharing the message, the gospel.

Now, getting to the substance of Jonah’s message to the Ninevites, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Let’s begin with the “forty days” reference there. Why “forty” days? Well, it certainly was no arbitrary figure. That number forty we often see associated with judgment in the Old Testament. We think of the rainfall associated with the Flood in Genesis 7. Genesis 7:12 says “The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:17 says “Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days.” Or think of the number of days Israelites spied out the land, which then translated into forty years of punishment in Numbers 14. Numbers 14:34 says, “According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition.” Moses was on Mount Sinai with Yahweh for forty days and nights praying that Yahweh would not destroy Israel for the golden calf incident. Deuteronomy 9:18 says “I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke Him to anger.” Or Deuteronomy 9:25 says “So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and nights, which I did because the LORD had said He would destroy you.”

Here in Jonah, Jonah chapter 3 Jonah’s “forty days” message was one of impending doom. In the context of this message of warning and its meaning would have been quite clear. That meaning, being that Nineveh’s destruction was in the near, not distant future. The words Jonah uses here to describe Nineveh’s threatened destruction are also significant. You see them there at the end of verse 4. It says, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Now, that verb there “overthrown” is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to describe the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 19:24-25 says, “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” Lamentations 4:6 says, “For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment.” Amos 4:11 says “I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” Now, while this verb for “overthrown” here in Jonah 3:4 can have that meaning as we see there in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah of overturning, toppling, wrecking, knowing down. But it can also have the meaning of “turning around” or “transforming.” The range of meaning of that verb there is broad enough depending on the context to mean either a toppling or a turning. As we can see here as we read on this is really one of these Holy Spirit inspired brilliant word choices here in the book of Jonah. Because if Nineveh failed to heed Jonah’s message, if it failed to repent, it would be toppled, it would be overthrown just like Sodom and Gomorrah. But if the warning was heeded, Jonah’s warning was heeded, and repentance was the result Nineveh would not be overturned but it would be turned around and turned to God and spared. That’s directly in line, by the way, of those two options of what God states elsewhere in the Old Testament in warning peoples to turn to Him, in light of His warnings about their judgment and destruction if they don’t turn to Him. For instance, Jeremiah 18:7 the Lord there carefully delineates the conditions under which He would relent if they would repent. Jeremiah 18:7 says, “If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted,” that sounds like Nineveh, “torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.”

What a turn of events. Getting back to Jonah here, that we’ve seen here already in chapter 3. As Jonah goes from being the sheepish and sulking prophet, the one who wanted nothing to do with proclaiming the message God had given him to now making his way through Nineveh preaching boldly to the people there about the coming destruction that was about to fall on their city. In our day each and every one of us, many of us on a second chance, like Jonah, need the boldness that the prophet showed here. You don’t need to enter into the stomach of a great fish to know that the reality of God’s judgment on the disobedient in this world is coming. You don’t need an audible voice from the heavens to tell you what to proclaim. No. In sitting here today, sitting here this evening, you have God’s Word written in your language, telling you, telling me, telling all of us, telling anybody in the age in which we live that the reality of God’s judgment on sin is a certainty. Not just in Nineveh and not just in Nebraska, but globally. You also live on this side of the cross. Meaning, you know not only what Jonah was delivered from the stomach of a great fish, but you also know that “the One who is greater than Jonah,” Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Christ was delivered from the earth and conquered death and rose from the grave. You know that those who believe upon Jesus Christ and upon His death and upon His resurrection can receive God’s mercy and the forgiveness of their sins. You know that the same God who delivered Jonah from the grip of death is the same God who rose Jesus Christ from the tomb for the benefit of sinners; and He is the same God who offers grace and mercy to individuals who would otherwise be condemned. You know that what sinners need to hear is that if they humble themselves and come to Him through their trust in Christ they will fully and forever be saved. There aren’t many times, I can assure you, as we go through the book of Jonah, you’ll hear me saying, “you need to be like Jonah here.” But this is one of those moments. You need to be like Jonah here. Look at the clarity and the boldness with which he proclaimed the Ninevites their need to repent. We absolutely need to be like Jonah in that respect.

Now, as we turn to verse 5, which is where we’re going to end this evening, we’re going to see that the people of Nineveh did in fact respond to the message they heard. Look at Jonah 3:5. It says, “Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.” That verse gives us a summary of Nineveh’s astounding response to Jonah’s message and then all the details of their response is given to us in verses 6-9. Verses we’ll look at next week. I’ll go ahead and read them just so we see where it’s going to go. Look at Jonah 3:6, “When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. “But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. “Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

Going back to verse 4 for just a moment where it says that “Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk” and where it says he “cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown’,” one has to wonder as Jonah started on that course in this new city, in this big city, this menacing city, what was he thinking? Was he worried and wondering if the Ninevites would laugh at him? Would they mock him? Would they turn against him and persecute him and maybe even kill him? Well, none of that happened. Look at verse 5. Apparently, as he spoke, as he cried out, the people of Nineveh stopped to listen. Whatever they were doing they stopped doing. The commerce of the city died down and rapt attention was given to this Hebrew prophet about his stern warnings and words of warning and judgment. Not only did they pay Jonah attention, though. And not only did they hear his message. They believed it. Look at the first part of verse 5, “Then the people of Nineveh believed in God.” Now, that’s not the first time in our study of Jonah that we’ve seen a pagan ultimately believing in Jonah’s God. Look back at Jonah 1:14. Back in chapter 1 there’s that reference to the pagan sailors that Jonah was interacting with on the ship as they were going to Tarshish. Jonah 1:14, after all that Jonah put them through, look what it says. It says, “Then they called on the LORD and said, ‘We earnestly pray, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for you, O LORD, have done as You have pleased.” Or down the page in Jonah 1:16, it says “Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.” Like the pagan sailors in Jonah 1 that were aboard the ship on the way to Tarshish and ultimately trusted in the Lord, the pagans of Nineveh as we go back to Jonah 3:5, apparently came to believe in Jonah’s God.

That’s an astounding turn of events. What happened here was truly remarkable. Think about it. Especially when you compare what happened here with Jonah and the Ninevites with Jeremiah. Jeremiah, a prophet to the south preached a similar message of judgment to his own people. In fact, why don’t you turn over with me to Jeremiah 26. Head over to the left for a few pages to Jeremiah 26. A much bigger book and much easier to find. Look at Jeremiah 26 and we’ll just start in verse 5. The context here is Jeremiah is preaching to his people in Judah and look at the response he gets. Jeremiah 26:5, actually I’ll go up to 4. It says, “And you will say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD, ‘If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you,” these are the words Jeremiah was preaching to the people of Judah, “to listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have been sending to you again and again, but you have not listened; then I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth.” It sounds a little like Jonah’s preaching against Ninevah. But then look at the response in Judah to Jeremiah in the very next verse, Jeremiah 26:7. It says, “The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, ‘You must die!’” Jeremiah preaches judgment against his own people, and they seized him and seek to kill him. Jonah, on the other hand, preaches judgment against a foreign people, and a scary foreign people, the Ninevites, and they “believed in God.” Jonah might have been expecting doubt. Expecting questions. Might have been expecting incredulous sneers. But that’s not what we see here. We see that they “believed in God.” Jonah 3:5

That distinction between Jeremiah and Jonah and the respective responses each prophet received to their preaching not only highlights the astounding and I think we can say miraculous work that God did here in Nineveh as this city full of pagans came to “believe in God.” It also highlights the sovereignty of God in salvation once again. How many times have we heard this story. You know, “I preached the gospel to my kids all through their upbringing, all their life, they never responded but once they got to college, they had that one friend who shared the gospel with them, and wouldn’t you know it? Then they got saved. Or think of every pastor or preacher that says I’ve preached the gospel each and every week behind this pulpit, every Sunday, but then God saw fit to use some other pastor or some other leader or some other ministry worker to lead that person to Christ. Great. The point is God is sovereign in salvation.

Now, there are some who look at this passage, verse 5 here, and they’ll describe it as the singular greatest revival in all of world history. Then there are others who are on the total opposite end of the spectrum who will argue that the Ninevites here actually did not “believe in God” as the text indicates but rather at most, they “believed God.” The distinction being they believed that Jonah was being sincere in saying that God was in fact going to destroy their city but but there actually wasn’t a genuine heart change or repentance or resolve to follow the God of Israel but at best, a desperate desire to be spared judgment. At that point, what folks on that side of the argument will do is they’ll go to the book of Nahum. Let’s go to the book of Nahum. Let’s see who finds it first. It’s two books to your right, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. Those who will say that the Ninevites didn’t actually repent, that they didn’t actually have belief, they’ll go to the book of Nahum which is really a sequel, of sorts, to the book of Jonah written somewhere around a hundred years after Jonah. A book that chronicles the fact that, during Nahum’s day Nineveh had returned to its idolatry, and its pride, and its violence. Look at Nahum 3. Chapter 3, verse 1. It says, “Woe to the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage; Her prey never departs. The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of the wheel, galloping horses and bounding chariots! Horsemen charging, swords flashing, spears gleaming, many slain, a mass of corpses, and countless dead bodies—they stumble over the dead bodies! All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the charming one, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her harlotries and families by her sorceries. ‘Behold, I am against you,’ declares the LORD of hosts; “And I will lift up your skirts over your face and show to the nations your nakedness and to the kingdoms your disgrace. I will throw filth on you and make you vile and set you up as a spectacle. And it will come about that all who see you Will shrink from you and say, ‘Nineveh is devastated! Who will grieve for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?” As the argument goes looking at the words of Nahum there, people will say “See, Nineveh’s repentance in the days of Jonah wasn’t real because we can see that it was only a matter of time, that they were blasted here by God in the book of Nahum.” Which I would counter by saying, “The Nineveh of Nahum’s generation was wicked. But that doesn’t mean that the Nineveh of Jonah’s generation, a century prior, didn’t actually repent.” Are you going to want people, by the way, writing your history based on what your great-grandfather did, or based on what your great-grandchildren may do? It doesn’t add up. Not only that the words, back to Jonah of Jonah 3:5 very clearly parallel the language, familiar language of Genesis 15:6 which says, speaking of Abram, that “he believed in” God, “believed in the Lord; and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” The sentence construction in Genesis 15:6 and Jonah 3:5, Abram “believed in” the LORD” and the Ninevites “believing in” God is identical. Here’s the final piece of evidence that I would push back on to those who would say there wasn’t genuine repentance in Ninevah; and this one, I think, is the clincher. This deals with how Jesus viewed this incident. Turn with me to Luke 11. For the sake of time, I won’t set up the whole context here. We’ll just get right into the relevant passage but look at Luke 11:29 says, “As the crowds were increasing, He,” Christ, “began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation.” It seeks for a sign and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation.” Skip down to verse 32. It says, “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” Over in Matthew 12:38-41 for another cross-reference, more from the Lord Jesus on what happened in Ninevah during Jonah’s day. Look at Matthew 12:38 says, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. “The men of Nineveh,” this ought to sound familiar, “will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” There is no better commentary on Scripture than Scripture. Within that category, of Scripture interpreting Scripture there is no surer interpreter of Scripture, there is no safer ground upon which to stand than the very words of our Lord. How did Jesus describe what happened in Nineveh in Jonah’s day? He described it as repentance. The people, the Ninevites “repented at the preaching of Jonah.” That settles it.

Back to Jonah chapter 3. Not only was there belief on the part of the Ninevites as we see at the end of verse 5, but there was also this change in conduct which matched their belief. Look at the rest of verse 5. It says, “and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.” Now, “fasting,” in this part of the world at this time was a well-known symbol of affliction of the soul and an intense mourning of in heart, and that supports the fact that the Ninevites spoken of here in Jonah 3:5 had truly believed with hearts of repentance accompanying their belief. Not only that, but it also says they “put on sackcloth.” “Sackcloth” would be a coarse cloth made usually of goat’s hair which was not only the customary dress of the poor in these days, but the customary dress of those who were in mourning. We think of Jacob in Genesis 37 expressing his grief for the loss of Joseph by putting on sackcloth. We remember Job who is bemoaning his sad condition in Job 16 by putting on sackcloth. We know that king Ahab when denounced by Elijah responded in a similar fashion, in 1 Kings 21.

Back to Jonah though, by “putting on sackcloth”, the Ninevites were expressing, showing contrition; and as we read on we see that no one in Nineveh was excluded from this public display of repentance and contrition. It says the practice was practiced “from the greatest to the least of them.” From royalty to commoners, from nobility to peasants, from the aged to the youth, from the powerful to powerless. All “the people of Nineveh believed in God.” This city was shaken to its core by a single sermon given by a foreign prophet who had recently been recommissioned and given this second chance by God.

Does this part of Jonah’s book here, this prophecy encourage you? It really should. In this section we’ve seen Jonah being given this second chance. We’ve seen Jonah responding immediately to God’s clear command. We’ve seen him acting “according to the word of the LORD.” We’ve seen him crying out against the wickedness of the city Nineveh. We’ve seen him declaring with clarity and simplicity God’s message. We’ve seen the response of the people of Nineveh to that simple and clear message. We’ve seen that that they “believed in God” and immediately showed their repentance and their contrition. These are encouraging developments. These are encouraging truths in these five verses that any follower of Christ ought to be able to say praise to God for and cling to today. Again, this might be the only time you’ll hear me say this in reference to this prophet Jonah, the “running rebel,” but may we strive to be like Jonah as he was here as God’s faithfully recommissioned and obedient prophet.

Let’s pray. Lord thank you for our study of the book of Jonah. It’s been a study that has had so much darkness and bleakness to it as we’ve seen so much rebellion on the part of Jonah, so much strong-willed behavior, so much opposition to You, God, so much pride. We need those sections to be sure to know the character that You despise and the character that we are not to have today as followers of Christ as we’ve seen Jonah run and be rebellious in various ways. May we never be that way. May we strive to run away from that type of behavior. But thank you God that tonight we have been able to look at this more encouraging development in Jonah’s life in his ministry to Ninevah. I do pray that we would be able to take the positive lessons of obedience and following through and preaching with boldness and clarity to the lost and ultimately entrusting the results of our teaching and our preaching and our evangelism to You who sovereignly calls and chooses and elects and brings who You will into Your family. God, I pray that in this time together this evening we have been both encouraged to be remined that this is Your timeless Word given to us so many years ago but still so profitable and still so rich and still a treasure for us today living as Christians all the way across the world. God, I pray that we would be reminded again of Your goodness, Your sovereignty, Your justice, Your love, Your patience both with us and with the world around us. May You be glorified in us this week as we seek to honor the name of Christ and live faithfully for Him. In Jesus’ name, amen.