3:1 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,1 three days’ journey in breadth.24 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.
The People of Nineveh Repent
6 The word reached3 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.
Footnotes
[1] 3:3 Hebrew a great city to God [2] 3:3 Or a visit was a three days’ journey [3] 3:6 Or had reached
3:1 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,1 three days’ journey in breadth.24 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.
The People of Nineveh Repent
6 The word reached3 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.
Footnotes
[1] 3:3 Hebrew a great city to God [2] 3:3 Or a visit was a three days’ journey [3] 3:6 Or had reached
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Collin Hansen:
If you would, please open your bibles to Jonah. We're gonna be in chapter 3 tonight. Jonah chapter 3. If you have an ESV, that's not the ginormous study bible. It's on page 774.
Collin Hansen:
Bless you. I don't say that in some, like, superior way, but not bad, but over sneezing, I do have the power to bless. Jonah chapter 3. Jonah chapter 3. We're gonna continue, the past 2 weeks.
Collin Hansen:
We we looked at Jonah chapter 1, Jonah chapter 2, and fittingly, we will be in Jonah chapter 3 tonight. And so I will I will be reading all of chapter 3. Let's listen very carefully for this is the word of God. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the 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 the Lord.
Collin Hansen:
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. 3 days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 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.
Collin Hansen:
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 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, 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.
Collin Hansen:
Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. When god saw what they did, how they 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. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry. Pray with me.
Collin Hansen:
Almighty God, we thank you for your word. Right now we are humbled at the fact that the one we are praying to now is the one who spoke to Jonah. The one who called out against Nineveh and the one who relented with great mercy. It is you. You who have been faithful throughout the generations.
Collin Hansen:
And father, we need to hear from you. So that we father we ask in this time that you would teach us that by your spirit you would challenge and change us and that we would leave this place more like your son, Jesus Christ. Not because of behavior modification or determinism, but father because of your spirit. We ask these things in our desperate state tonight. We ask it in the name of Christ and we ask it for his name amongst all the nations.
Collin Hansen:
Amen. Stories like Jonah are so epic. They're so huge. They're so grand. They're legendary.
Collin Hansen:
This is stuff that movies are made out of. And so I feel a very large disconnect when it comes to the life of Jonah. Because I don't feel so legendary. I was at a conference 2 weeks ago in Louisville, Kentucky and Paul David Tripp, who is a a minister at 10th Pres in Philadelphia, he said that we only make 3 or 4 big decisions in our lives. 3 or 4.
Collin Hansen:
Everything else in our lives, everything else is made up of millions of tiny decisions. And then when we sin and we say, oh, it was just this small thing, really we live in the small things. That's where life happens. In the millions of tiny decisions. And so if we pause and we really take a step back when we're looking at the story of Jonah, we realize that it's about sin and repentance and mercy.
Collin Hansen:
And in those things, in those things we we can relate, we can connect to the story. You see it's not all about big fish and big storms, but it's about sin and repentance and mercy. And so that's where we are going to start tonight. We're gonna look at Jonah 3 in 2 different parts. 1, the call to repentance, and then secondly, the call to the city.
Collin Hansen:
Now in chapter 3, and some of you might even have them to where you don't have to turn pages and stuff. So if you can we're gonna go back and forth a couple of times. So look at the words in chapter 3 and chapter 1. Look at chapter 3 verse 1. And then the word of the lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.
Collin Hansen:
Now look over at chapter 1. Now the word of the lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. Now look at verse 3 in chapter 1. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And now go to chapter 3 verse 3.
Collin Hansen:
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the lord. So many of the Hebrew words there are exact parallels. This is Jonah's second call or his second chance. But in this time, Jonah, in verses 3 of chapter 1 and chapter 3, the words there are the same. So Jonah arose.
Collin Hansen:
So Jonah arose, but in one, he gets up to flee and the other to go. To go to Nineveh. Here, Jonah obeys the lord. And we will know in chapter 4, which I read verse 1, and we will look at more deeply next week, that Jonah still hates the Ninevites. He hates them.
Collin Hansen:
This will come up throughout tonight as we look at this. Keep in mind, Jonah hates these people. He is not going with compassion, he is going hating them. And as we know from chapter 2, that Jonah does see God as all powerful. He sees him as merciful and the one whom salvation belongs to.
Collin Hansen:
Jonah does obey God because of who God is. This is obedience. Whereas before he was in rebellion, but he does not care about the people of Nineveh. He hates them. And and God's mercy is offensive to Jonah.
Collin Hansen:
But Jonah went to the city and he began to preach. Jonah knew God's message of destruction was to elicit repentance. You see, if it had just been, god is going to destroy you in 40 days and that was it, Jonah would have been on his way in chapter 1. But he knew that that going to proclaim destruction to them, that that was to bring about repentance. And like I said, that was very offensive to Jonah.
Collin Hansen:
I want us to look at 2 lies before we dig in any further that come up as as people that have been in charge, we have been entrusted with as ministers of reconciliation, as Christians we have been entrusted with the gospel, there are two lies that come up very often for us. And the first one is this, that god is in desperate need of us to carry out his plans. This is a lie that attacks us. You know, we are responsible ambassadors for Christ, but but if we if we start to think that God is weakened by our failures and rebellion, and we dismiss the truth that God is completely sovereign and almighty in every time and every situation. God was not limited by Jonah's rebellion.
Collin Hansen:
God did not lament Jonah for inhibiting his plan. He was not wringing his hands wondering what we will mess up next. He is sovereign in the midst of our rebellion. His decrees will be accomplished. He is sovereign in the midst of our rebellion.
Collin Hansen:
The second lie is this, that if we are not perfect, God will not use us. This second one is very, it's very prevalent in our culture. I grew up hearing it stated like this and maybe you have heard it before. God will not use a broken vessel. God will not use a dirty vessel.
Collin Hansen:
First, it's a very odd metaphor. I don't know how many vessels you have or you refer to them as vessels. I mean, it's just kinda strange. However, it comes from second Timothy, what what is one of the primary places that we go to with this. And and this is not to dismiss that we do have honorable uses where we are to be pure and set aside as holy, to be holy as our father in heaven is holy.
Collin Hansen:
That is not to dismiss that. But hear hear these words from a prominent evangelical pastor. Gospel believing, in an essay that he wrote called, what it takes for God to use you. You can Google it if you'd like. He says this, God uses all kinds of vessels, but there is one kind of vessel God will not use.
Collin Hansen:
He will not use a dirty vessel. If you're going to be used by God, you're going to have to do a little cleanup work first. Jonah hated the Ninevites. Hated the Ninevites. The very people he was called to preach to and the very people that he went, second call in obedience to preach to.
Collin Hansen:
He hated them. God is not waiting for you to get your junk together. Sin loves to remind us that we are dirty vessels. I hear it every Sunday. Maybe you do too.
Collin Hansen:
You're not fit to lead anything. You're not fit to lead a Bible study for 2nd graders. You are not fit for this. You are not fit to stand up and sing. You're not fit to read the word aloud.
Collin Hansen:
You're not fit to be known as Christian. This is all true. But you have been redeemed. This is God setting you apart as holy, not because of the value that you have, but the value that he has given you. Because of his son, Jesus Christ.
Collin Hansen:
He hated the Ninevites. They were wicked people that had been evil to the people of Israel. And 200 years after this, they will be destroyed. But god has called Jonah to preach to them. And in obedience to god's call, but in rebellion to god's heart, Jonah preaches.
Collin Hansen:
Going back to that thought that keeps coming up. If you're thinking that god doesn't use the dirty vessel, it is probably because you have already fallen for that first lie that it all depends on you. You see, if it all depended on Jonah, this would have been a huge failure. But it didn't depend on him. It did it was not it was not based upon how righteous was Jonah.
Collin Hansen:
It's how merciful is God and how powerful is he. And we see this happen when it says that Nineveh believed in God. They didn't believe Jonah, They believed in Yahweh. And that is significant. God certainly uses broken and busted vessels.
Collin Hansen:
He used Jonah. And in Jonah's filthy hatred, God called people to repent. And they did. Look at verse 4. Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Collin Hansen:
Verse 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. And then watch what happens in verse 6. The word reached the king of Nineveh. Follow these words.
Collin Hansen:
He arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in the ashes. He goes from the throne to the ashes, from his robe to the sackcloth. This is mourning. This is mourning. Now in this book called Jewish literacy, which is a pretty interesting read, it's by Rabbi Joseph Tushkin.
Collin Hansen:
He recognizes what happens with the people of Nineveh. He sees that as they have turned from their sinful living and they have become moral again. This section of of Jonah is read, on the day of atonement. Every year this is read. And this is read along with some some words from Micah, because it has to do with repentance.
Collin Hansen:
But but listen to what he says about this turning towards moral living. The sole criterion for assessing Nineveh's repentance was moral. If the book of Jonah had appeared in the new testament, the undoubted proof of the Ninevites' repentance would have been their conversion to Christianity. The Hebrew bible makes a considerably more restrained appeal to the non Jewish world. Just that people refrain from evil behavior and do good.
Collin Hansen:
This is religion at its most impotent. What a weak call. Do good, Behave better. Be moral. See this is not the gospel call.
Collin Hansen:
See, that's a call to act differently. The gospel is a call to be different. And this is something we cannot do. See we can we can change the way we behave, that's behavior modification. Rang.
Collin Hansen:
See, we can do that. That's easy. We give a negative stimuli or a positive stimuli, and we can change a behavior. We can do that with rules. Somebody can yell at you when you're in high school, don't have sex because you'll get pregnant and God will hate you.
Collin Hansen:
And you're like, done. Okay. And then you break that rule, you're like, god hates me now. And then you're like, well, I guess I could I could repent and I can get rid of this guilt, the stimuli that's that's bad, the negative stimuli that that's that's guilt. And so I get rid of that and then I turn and then God loves me again for now.
Collin Hansen:
Doesn't work. That's what religion is. That's just behavior modification. And God calls for something bigger, something deeper. Not just to act differently but to be different.
Collin Hansen:
This is what Paul calls metamorphosis, metamorphuste, transformation. That we would be transformed. What David called creating a new heart, a clean heart. This transformation. And so what I what I'd like for us to consider are 4 questions that I I think come out of what we see Nineveh doing.
Collin Hansen:
Four questions. If you wanna write these down and look at them later. As I spend time on this, I realized that this is something that I I need to come back to. So we'll look at them as 4 questions when it comes to repentance. The first one is this, do I believe We see this in verse 5.
Collin Hansen:
Do I believe God and believe that I have transgressed against him? It's a remarkable verse. Their sin was presented to them and destruction was preached and everyone from the greatest to the least to from the wealthiest to the poorest, they believed god. They believed that there was a god, that they have sinned against him. And not just that people have been hurt, that that feelings have been hurt, but that God was transgressed against.
Collin Hansen:
And I think often we believe that we have hurt someone's feelings or damaged a relationship because of our sin. I don't think we always believe that God has been sinned against in those 1,000,000 tiny decisions. Is it God that has been sinned against? This belief is required for repentance. The second question, do I mourn?
Collin Hansen:
We see this in 5 through 9, the sackcloth, the ashes, the fasting, this was mourning. We see this in other places in in the Old Testament where sackcloth was put on as a sign of mourning, a sign of turning away from the luxuries and saying, I see what I have done. And I will mourn this. The people of Nineveh, they put this sackcloth on and they fasted. We will be sad that we have been caught.
Collin Hansen:
We will be sad because of the consequences that we will have to endure. But often we do not see, like with number 1, in believing that we have sinned against God and the fact that we should mourn that. I don't see this, often I'm just I'm sad because of the consequences, I'm sad because I've been caught And I might even be sad that I have hurt someone's feelings in my sinning. Rarely do I slow down enough. I just want to patch up whatever relationship got busted up.
Collin Hansen:
I want to handle the consequences. I want to do maintenance on those things. But I do not want to slow down enough to see that I have sinned against almighty God. David saw this. He saw that all sin was against God and God alone.
Collin Hansen:
There are other people that are impacted by our transgressions And there are consequences that we will have to live out. But ultimately, all sin is against God alone. The third question, do I turn from my sin? Sometimes we rush to this one for what repentance is. But if we have not believed, if we have not mourned, then our ceasing of bad behavior is just behavior modification.
Collin Hansen:
We're just changing our actions. And the last question is this, do I turn to the lord and trust in his grace and salvation? If we have believed and we have mourned and we have turned from our sin, we must turn from that sin towards god. And then we might we might be able to enter into that trust. Trusting in his grace.
Collin Hansen:
And some of you might be refusing to do that. Sometimes if we have mourned, we want to hang on to that. And we hang on to that sadness. We hang on to the sackcloth and the ashes. And usually that that has something to do with not trusting the sufficiency of Christ.
Collin Hansen:
See we have to come back to that. That it comes back to the sufficiency and the supremacy of Christ. We want to keep going back to the significance of our sin, the depth of our sin. But will we come back to the depth of his mercy? Hear these words from acts 13 verses 38 and 39.
Collin Hansen:
Let it be known to you therefore, brothers and sisters, that through this man, Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. You should see this tension when we read Jonah. This tension of the fullness of the gospel not being at play. Notice I didn't give you a citation in chapter 3 for this one.
Collin Hansen:
There is that tension that when we come to the fullness of the gospel, Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended. When we come to that, where we are able to see the freedom, talked about there in Acts 13. Freedom that did not come from the law, that comes only through the cross. And that we can repent in fullness, turning from that sin, not just to stop behavior. That's where the sadness comes in to that book of the rabbi.
Collin Hansen:
That sadness. Turn to the living God. Accept the forgiveness and walk in it. Acknowledging the mourning but not living in it. The call to repentance requires that we believe the Lord.
Collin Hansen:
Not only that we are sinful, but also believe that he is sufficient in the sacrifice of Christ to justify us before himself. The central issue in trusting God's grace is not the depth of our sinfulness, it is the supremacy of Christ's sufficiency. And now the call to the city. And let me say this, kind of intense sentence and then with the rest of our time, we'll unpack it and then we will close. It is possible to have a heart for the city and bypass having a heart for god.
Collin Hansen:
Let me say it again. It is possible to have a heart for the city and bypass having a heart for God. In fact, that is probably it's a it's a really significant risk in a socially Christian culture that we live in. We can emphasize the city and good works to such a degree that we can begin to believe that we are called first and foremost to love others rather than to love god in such a way that he transforms our hearts to be as his. This is the subtle twist that traps many Christians into a gospel of love, rather than the gospel of God.
Collin Hansen:
In fact, even these terms are so overused that the perversion of this, it's it's hard to see. Stated simply, God calls us to himself and in him there is a great love for his people, those whom he is redeeming. Having a heart for God, which is received by grace through faith. Having a heart for God transforms us ending into having a heart like God. Say it again.
Collin Hansen:
Having a heart for god transforms us into having a heart like god, and that is found only in him. And we have access to him only through Christ. That is the gospel. It's easy to fault Jonah. He ran from god and from the call to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh.
Collin Hansen:
But when he repented and went to Nineveh, he still did not have a heart for the people, which is that he did not have a heart like God. I would venture to say that it is better to have a heart for God and no heart for people than to have a heart for people and miss having a heart for God. And I would go further to say that it is impossible, at least long term, to truly have a heart for god without having a heart for his people. There's a beautiful and inevitable byproduct that loving god will lead us to loving his people. Keep in mind that the Ninevites were not given an opportunity to be seekers.
Collin Hansen:
They were not presented an appealing environment where they could ponder the idea of God until they agreed with it. They were told that destruction awaited and it was because of their wickedness. And because God's goodness and his grace, he turned their hearts and allowed them to repent. This is the good news of the gospel. This is why it is good news.
Collin Hansen:
God is calling people through his kindness to repent. And God cares for Birmingham. Now I hesitate to say that, because it sounds egotistical or it it sounds arrogant. What makes us so special? How can I say something like that?
Collin Hansen:
Really I have one piece of evidence. One, it's not wealth, it's not that you can go and and come to a place of worship freely. It is not because we, have doctors that you can go see and that that there is food in the city. This is why. This is the evidence that I have that God cares for Birmingham.
Collin Hansen:
Because God has put Christians in it. He has put his church here. Christians who, because of his grace, will preach the gospel in this city and will call people to repent and turn to him. This is how we know God's heart for our city, because he has put his church here. If we only minister to the people that we like, the people that we love, we will be like Jonah.
Collin Hansen:
Loving God and missing God's heart completely. And this is how we know that God cares for his world, that he is equipping his church to go out and to go to other cities where perhaps no Christians are. And this is my prayer, that the Lord would allow us to repent and believe and believe in his forgiveness. That we could love him so deeply that he would transform our hearts to be like his, and love the people that he's redeeming. Will you pray with me?
Collin Hansen:
God, in this book you have called us to a task that is so much greater than ourselves. In the story of Jonah, we see what repentance is. That it's not just changing our behavior, which is something that we can do. But it's a call to be transformed, which only you can do. Father, teach us to pray for repentance.
Collin Hansen:
Teach us to pray for transformation. And father, in that transformation, give us a heart like yours. A heart that loves. A heart that is merciful. And father, as we look upon your offensive grace, teach us to love like you.
Collin Hansen:
Teach us that we were enemies of you. And that with the abundance and richness of your grace and mercy, you have redeemed us by grace through faith. Lord, teach us what that what that means more clearly. That as we go out into the city, we can proclaim your gospel. Not of act better, not to behave differently, but to be different, to be transformed.
Collin Hansen:
Father, teach us to pray. We ask these things in the name of Christ. Amen. Now in this time, there's gonna be some music playing. And often we, we shift gears really quickly.
Collin Hansen:
It seems like such an easy thing. Music, scripture, preaching, music. We can just shift the gears and then get out of here. But I want to invite you into a time of reflection. If you wrote these questions down or you have an excellent memory, think, think through these things of what it means to repent.
Collin Hansen:
Think through what it means to have a heart like God for the city. These things don't just happen. So take this time. Consider these things. Seek transformation.