Thank you, Scott. That is our
hope. Every time we open God's word
that he'll be pleased to reveal more of Christ to us. And we know that in the volume
of the book, it is written of him. We know that all scripture
points to Christ, but how independent we are for the Holy Spirit to
give us eyes to see that. And if you would like to open
your Bibles with me to Jonah, the book of Jonah. I mentioned
last Wednesday night that I wanted to bring a message from verse
nine tonight, but I think we'll save that for Sunday. There's
so much in chapter three, chapter two of verse nine, there's so
much in chapter three about Christ This is every believer's story
in Jonah chapter three. And it's been a great encouragement
for me to be able to think about that and read these words and
see the sign that it is. We're reminded of how Jonah is
a sign. It's a sign that points us to
Christ. Here in chapter three, we have
a picture of God sending a gospel preacher to a pagan nation and
showing mercy upon them. And the Lord giving this nation
a king who ended up having a heart for God and his faith was was what caused everybody else
in Nineveh to believe God. The king believed the message
that Jonah brought. And as a result of the king believing
it, everybody in the city believed it. They followed their king. And whatever faith the Lord gives
us, it is from his faith. It is from the faithfulness of
our king, believes his father perfectly. And the irresistible
call of grace comes when we're brought to look to Christ and
to believe what he believes, to believe what he believes.
That's what Jonah chapter three is about. The king in this story
represents our Lord. And Jonah is bringing a word
from God And everyone in the city believed what the king believed. Let's read these verses together.
Jonah chapter three, beginning of verse one. And the word of
the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go
unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching
that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went unto
Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was
an exceeding great city of three days journey. I've read the interpretation
of that to be a day's journey about 20 miles and this city
could have been as much as 60 miles in width and it was a large
city. And Jonah began to enter into
the city a day's journey and he cried and said, yet 40 days
and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed
God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest
of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the
king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and he laid his
robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed
and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and
his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock,
taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered
with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn
everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in
their hands. Who can tell if God will turn
and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish
not? And God saw their works that
they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil
that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. First thing that strikes me in
this story is the Word of the Lord coming unto Jonah the second
time. Chapter 1 begins with the Word
of the Lord came unto Jonah, verse 1. We know what happened. Jonah was disobedient. was rebellious toward God. And
his disobedience and his rebellion was because of his resentment
and his vengeance. He was a very vengeful man. He
didn't want God to have mercy on Nineveh. And in spite of the
fact that Jonah went the other way, the Lord never left him. The Lord pursued him. How foolish
it is when we think that we can do better than God. How foolish
it is when we choose our way over His way, and yet how merciful
He is, brethren, to pursue us. The Lord was with Jonah just
as much when he was running to Tarshish and in that boat and
down in the belly of the whale as he was when Jonah obeyed the
Lord. And the word of the Lord came
to Jonah again. How needful we are for the Lord
to bring his word to us again. We need daily bread. Yesterday's
manna is never good enough. We've got to have, we've got
to be fed from heaven again and again and again and again. And however blessed we are to
be able to sit and hear from our Lord in the past, we need
the word of the Lord to come to us again. How oftentimes we
have found ourselves like those soils in the parable of the soils,
having the word of God plucked from our minds and having forgot
the things that he taught us, or having the word of God choked
out by the thorns of this world, or having the word of God fall
on shallow, rocky ground. And I know that parable was given
in order to show how the gospel is received by the world. But
we can see in our own experience these things happening to us,
can we not? And how dependent we are for
the Lord to make our hearts fallow ground, that the word of God
would grow and be fruitful in our hearts. And yet, even when
it is, we've got to have the word of
the Lord come to us again. Again. He that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee. Oh, how comforting it is to know
that the Lord always gets his way, and he always brings his
children back, and he always speaks to them again. It doesn't matter how disobedient
and how rebellious they've been, the word of the Lord came to
Jonah again. The Lord tells us that when we
believe not, he remaineth faithful, for he cannot deny himself. He
cannot deny himself. His people are his body. His people are his children.
is his bride. This is the whole hope of the
child of God is that the Lord has hold of me even if I lose
hold of him. And he brings his word to me
again. After Moses died and Joshua was
so afraid to lead the children of Israel. The Lord tells Joshua,
as I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee. Fear not. Don't be afraid. I'll not leave
you and I'll not forsake you. When we forget, when we disobey,
when the word of God loses its influence in our lives, here's
our hope. The word of the Lord came into
him again. Again. The other thing that comforts
me in this story is how our Lord never hides the flaws of his
children or of his of his chosen prophets. You know, we have a
man here who clearly disobeys the Lord. And yet, just like
with so many other of the men that God uses, the Lord corrects him, rebukes
him, brings him back, and speaks to him again. If God using me or you was dependent
upon our abilities, what hope would we have? No, it's dependent
upon his, well, the scripture says that we're earthen vessels
and within this earthen vessel is a precious treasure and that
the power might be of God and not of us. And so here's our
hope. that though we be men of flesh
and though we have no ability, by the grace of God, Paul said,
by the grace of God, I am what I am. I am what I am. The Lord tells us to go into
all the world and preach the gospel. And then he says, and
lo, I am with you always. I'm with you always. As foolish as Jonah was and as
foolish as we are in thinking that we know better than God,
the Lord pursues us and always accomplishes his purpose. The power of the gospel is not
in the person and it's not in the personality, it's in the
gospel. It's in the gospel itself. Jonah was a chosen vessel of
God, as are all of God's people, chosen vessels, sanctified, the
scripture says. And when God took those very
common elements of the temple in the Old Testament, the Lord
said, sanctify them to my use. I'm gonna set them aside. I'm
going to use them for my glory. And there's our hope that it's
the Lord. It's the Lord that sanctifies
us. It's not our abilities. It's not our gifts. We're but
clay vessels. So many of God's saints in scripture,
in the Bible, failed in so many ways. You know, we think about
what Peter did. We think about what David did.
Think about what Abraham did. God sent Abraham down to Egypt
and he was afraid Abimelech was gonna kill him and steal Sarah,
so he denied that Sarah was his wife and said, she's my sister.
And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because Isaac years
later goes down to Egypt and does exactly the same thing with
Rebekah. Denies his own wife to save his
own skin. And yet the Lord stopped him
and stopped Abimelech. But here we have it. Elijah running
from Jezebel. John Mark forsaking Paul and
running back to the safety of Jerusalem because of all the
persecution that took place. And yet the Lord used Mark to
record the gospel of Mark. The point here in this story
is that God doesn't need a fit perfect vessel in order for him
to accomplish his purpose. Here we have a man who's full
of flaws and yet the Lord tells him the second time. The second time. Notice in verse
2, Arise and go into Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto
it the preaching that I did thee. It's not our place to change
the gospel. The gospel's the same today as
it was in the days of Jonah. We preach the same gospel that
they preached in the first century. The gospel hasn't changed. We
are but ambassadors for Christ. bidding people to be reconciled
to God. That's what the gospel does. And it's not our place to try
to add to it or take away from it. We just declare, we herald,
cry unto her. That's what the Lord told Jonah. That means to herald the
gospel. We don't have to defend it. We
don't have to debate it. We just declare it. And we declare
that the gospel is God's work. It's God's work in saving his
people through the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would we, why would we want
to change it? It's too perfect. It's too perfect. How could anyone ever devise
a way for God to maintain his justice and his holiness and
have mercy on sinners? For God to be just and justify
at the same time. There's no other way that could
happen. other than for the Lord Jesus Christ to bear our sins
in his body upon that tree and satisfy God's justice by the
sacrifice of himself. What greater message could there
ever be? How could that be improved on? The world changes. Man's need don't Man's needs
don't change. He's still lost in enmity with
God. He still has sin that has to
be forgiven and put away. He still is in need of a righteousness
to stand in the presence of a holy God. He doesn't know God. He's without
God in this world. And the gospel is the only message
of salvation that reconciles man to God. And so the Lord says
to Jonah what he says to us as a church. He says, you go and
you cry and you tell them what I bid you to tell them. How do
we do that? Well, we go to scripture, don't
we? Because that's what the Lord's bid us to tell the world. We herald and we declare that
which is in the scriptures. Turn with me to 2 Timothy, 2
Timothy. You know, God doesn't change.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said, I am the
Lord and I change not. Oh, what comfort it is to know
that our God is immutable. And all the changes that we experience
in our own lives and all the changes in this world, we have
a God who changes not. And he has a gospel, a message
of salvation that changes not. And that's all we do, we just
tell the old, old story. Look what Paul says to young
Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter four, verse one. I charge thee
therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge
the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Timothy, preach the word. Just preach the word. I have
not hid, Paul tells the elders in Ephesus, I've not kept anything
from you. I've declared the whole counsel
of God. Preach the word, be instant. Even when it's convenient and
when it's not convenient, in season and out of season. When you're preaching to those
who rejoice in what you say and when you preach to those who
hate what you say, preach the same thing. because whether they
hate it or whether they love it, they need the same message.
Jonah, the word of the Lord came to you again, and you go and
you cry unto Nineveh, that which I bid you. How comforting God's word is. It is the means by which we have
faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God. When the Spirit of God takes
the Word of God and applies it to the hearts of God's children,
how encouraged they are, how blessed they are. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all long-suffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own loss, they
shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables. But Jonah, Timothy, You watch
in all things, endure whatever afflictions might come, do the
work of an evangelist and fulfill, make full the proof of thy ministry. To make full the proof of his
ministry, of the ministry that's been given unto us. We have this
ministry given to us. To fulfill it is to be faithful
to whatever it is God says. And to have faith is to believe
whatever it is God says. Let's go back to Jonah chapter
three. Jonah began, verse four, to enter
into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, yet 40
days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown, shall be destroyed. Like God
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord's going to destroy this
city in 40 days. Interesting, the number 40 in
the Bible. The children of Israel spent
40 years in the wilderness. Our Lord spent 40 days being
tempted of the devil in the wilderness. This number 40 is a picture of
a generation. And the Lord is saying when this
generation is over, judgment is coming. This is a warning. How oftentimes we find that the
preaching of the gospel begins with a warning. It begins with
a warning. When the Lord first spoke to
Adam and Eve in the garden, it was a warning. You cannot eat. of the tree, of the knowledge
of good and evil. This is the first time God spoke to them,
written in scripture audibly. For in the day in which you eat
of it, you shall surely die. You're gonna die. This is the
warning. The warning is judgment. And we just read in Psalm 36
that the natural man has no fear of God in his heart. That's the
reason why Our friends and neighbors and relatives aren't interested
in the gospel. That's the reason why. They have
no fear. They believe that they can stand
in the presence of a holy God and that they can justify themselves
before him. They believe that somehow that
God's going to accept them based on something that they've done.
What is your fear of God? What is the believer's fear of
God? Standing in the presence of God
without the Lord Jesus Christ as my advocate. Standing in the
presence of a holy God and having to answer for one of my sins. Not having a righteous savior
to stand in my stead and represent me before God and present himself
before God on my behalf. The thought of that grips my
heart in fear. The need for that is what causes
me to hear his word again. And every time I lose sight of
him, I'm reminded, oh, how I need a savior. I need a substitute. I need one who can justify me
before God. Judgment is coming. God will
not clear the guilty. When the Lord called the prophet
Ezekiel, he called him a watchman. A watchman, a man on a watchtower
that is to blow the trumpet and alert to the city. He said, warn
them, warn them of the enemy that's coming. So when we preach
the gospel, we do what Jonah's doing. We're warning men that
in 40 days, in a generation, at the end of life, however that
might be, however long that might be, There is a God with whom
we must do. And he's not gonna let one sin
pass. And either I'm gonna have to
answer for my sin, or I'm gonna have one who is
able to present himself before God on my behalf and say, his
sins have already been answered for. They've already been answered
for. He'll not allow the guilty to
go unpunished. Every sin's going to be punished.
It'll either be punished in our substitute, in Christ, or it'll
be punished for all eternity on the Day of Judgment. Here's
the warning. If men believed, here's the problem,
that men have this view of God, the natural man, we would have
it. You thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself. And men
think that, you know, well, God's obligated to love everybody.
And certainly, you know, God's not gonna send somebody like
me to hell. And what's the child of God know? What do we believe?
We believe that but for the grace of God, we are deserving of God's
wrath and judgment. And outside of Christ, we have
no hope. If we're not found in him, not
having our own righteousness, but having all of our righteous,
having him as our righteousness, we have no hope. Here is the warning when the
gospel is preached. We see it at the very beginning
in Genesis chapter two. We see it in all the prophets
who were to warn the people of the danger. We see it in Luke
chapter four when our Lord began his public ministry. You remember
he went into the synagogue in Nazareth and he opened up the
scroll and he read from Isaiah 61 and then he closed up the
scroll and he said, this day, this scripture has been fulfilled
in your sight. And they wondered at the gracious
words that proceeded out of his mouth, and they thought, could
this be? And then he spoke a warning. He said, you're going to say,
physician, heal yourself. And a prophet has no honor in
his own country. And then he interprets Isaiah
61, and they wanted to murder him. They wanted to murder him. But he began that sermon with
a warning. When Peter, after the coming
of the Holy Spirit, preached on the day of Pentecost, he told
his audience there in Jerusalem that they had crucified the Son
of God. And he says to them, that God has made this same Jesus
whom you have crucified, both Christ and Lord, or both Lord
and Christ. And what did this warning do
for them? They were pricked to their hearts and they said, what
should we do? How are we gonna be saved from this? We have a
fear of God now. We see what we've done. And what did Peter say? Repent. Have your mind changed. You thought
that he was a blasphemer. Now you know that he's the Christ. You thought you had a righteousness
before God. Now you know that he's your only
hope of righteousness. Repent and believe. on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But Peter's first message
was a warning. When Paul met with those Ephesian
elders in Acts chapter 20, he said this, he said, by the space
of three years, I ceased not to warn every one of you with
tears day and night, day and night. The preaching of the gospel
is a warning. But the natural man, because
he has no fear of God, he thinks that God will accept him on something
other than the righteousness of Christ. And he has no concern. He's made
a covenant with death, Isaiah chapter 28. With hell, he's in
agreement. I'm not going to hell. Child of God, you see this story
in Jonah chapter three is a picture of a God sent preacher, a prophet,
declaring the message that God bid him to declare to a city
that is massive. And there we have the church,
multitudes upon multitudes. And the essence of the message
is that in 40 days, At the end of your generation,
at the end of your life, however many days that might be, this
is figurative language. There's going to be destruction.
There's going to be a fiery judgment that's going to come. And all the people in that city
believed what they heard. They believed it. They put on
sackcloth. Oh, turn with me to Hebrews chapter
four. Hebrews chapter four. Look at verse 11. Let us labor,
therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after
the same example of unbelief. Now, the Lord has just used those
unbelieving Israelites in the wilderness 40 years. 40 years,
here's the connection. And they didn't fear God. They
were stiff-necked people. And now the Lord's speaking to
us. And he's saying, learn from their unbelief. Don't be like
that. For the word of God is quick,
and it's powerful, and it's sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the divide in the sun, to the soul, and the spirit,
and the joints, and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. And what does God say about our
hearts? They're deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know
them? And when the gospel comes, the
Lord reveals to us what sinners we are and how we could never
stand before God based on the sincerity or the sorrow or the
goodness of our heart. You can never stand before God. That's why we don't talk about
giving Jesus your heart. Our hearts are wicked. The Lord said, this is what the
word of God does. The word of the Lord came to
Jonah again. And it comes again and again
and again. And Lord willing, this Sunday
we'll meet again and we'll preach again the word of the Lord. And
again, the Lord will use that his word as a sword to divide
us, divide our hearts from our flesh and show us the two natures
that we have. and how that old man is nothing
but sin and can never be improved upon and how the new man created
in Christ Jesus is perfectly righteous before God. This is
what the word of God does for the Ninevites who believe the
word that's been sent. Verse 13. Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things
are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do."
40 days, God's coming. At the end
of this generation, at the end of your life, when the fulfillment
of time comes, there's gonna be a fiery judgment. Verse 14. Seeing then that we
have a great high priest that has already passed into the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. What is our profession? Christ
is all. It is finished. Salvation is
of the Lord. He's my righteousness before
God. This is our profession. Christ
is our profession. He is the way, he is the truth,
and he is the life. And what is it that caused us
to believe that? We heard the word, and we were
warned. And that warning met a place
of faith in our hearts. And now we're looking to Christ. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
This one who's seated in the heavens, he knows the flesh. He knows all the sins that we
deal with and struggle with. He felt them. far beyond anything
that we've experienced. The sorrow for sin, the shame
of sin, the separation that sin causes from God, the weakness
of sin, he knows it all. We have a high priest seated
in the heavens who went through all of that for us. Let us therefore, let us therefore
brethren come boldly, come confidently, before the throne of grace that
we might find help in our time of need. We are needy people,
we are sinful people, but we have a savior. Here's the message
of salvation. And this message is repeated
as we've already looked at several times, over and over and over
again. It begins with a warning, judgment's coming. And those for whom God is pleased
to call, they hear that warning and they know, they know that
they are worthy of that judgment. They know that. So they look
outside of themselves to a savior and they come confidently to
the throne of grace because they don't want to have anything to
do with the throne of judgment. that white throne judgment of
God when he comes and destroys this world in fire and casts
the unbeliever into a devil's hell, they don't want any part
of that. So the only hope they have is not to clean up the outside
of the cup, not to whitewash the tomb, not to try to make
themselves better and improve their, this is not a moral reformation. They look to Christ. He was the
one who passed into the heavens and he was accepted before God
based on his work. And they know that their only
hope, their only hope is to come before God in him. And that's
what we have a picture of in the rest of this story. Let's
look quickly, go back with me to Jonah chapter three. There's sackcloth, there's repentance,
there's sorrow. Yes, all of those things the
believer experiences. They see that they are nothing
but sin. They come before God looking
for mercy. And the word of the Lord, verse
six, came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne
and laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and
satin ashes. What a glorious picture of the
incarnation and the crucifixion and the glorification of Christ.
He left his throne, he put on sackcloth. The word of God was
made flesh and he dwelt among us. We have a savior who was
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, born of a woman, born
under the law to redeem those who were cursed by the law. Here's
our king. He comes off the throne, he comes
into this world, he puts on the sackcloth of human flesh, and
where does he go? He sits in ashes. What are ashes? Ashes are the remnants of fire.
So now the fire is out. He quenched that fire. The fire
that fell from heaven on our sin-bearing substitute at Calvary's
tree, put that fire out. The Lord Jesus sits. in true
repentance before God. He's the only one that felt the
sorrow for sin. He's the only one that satisfied
God's requirements for shame and separation and judgment.
He's the only one that suffered hell and the wrath of God in
order to be able to put away sin. Here he is sitting in ashes. And the whole city of Nineveh
believed because the king believed. because of what the king did,
they followed the king. And the scripture says that our
faith goes from faith to faith. It goes from his faith to our
faith. We look at what our king did
and we believe everything he believes. Whatever God says,
that's what we believe. That's what we believe. He caused it to be proclaimed
and to publish throughout all of Nineveh by decree. This is
God's sovereign decree. He sends out his gospel and his
word doesn't return to him void. He brings every citizen of Nineveh
under the sound of his voice and he causes every one of them
to join him in sackcloth and ashes over their own sin and
to look to him for the hope of their salvation. Verse eight, but let man and
beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea,
let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence
that is in their hands. Now, if repentance of sin is
quitting all of our sin, we're going to have a hard time finding
any hope of salvation because though the Lord does restrain
the sins of his children and thankfully, Thankfully, he keeps
us from being able to fulfill all the wickedness that we have
in our minds and hearts. But we know that God looks at
the heart, and that though man might look at the outward appearance,
God's looking at the heart and all. All that sin's still there,
still there in our flesh, still there in our thoughts, still
there in our attitudes. So what is it to turn from the
evil way? What is the evil way? Well, the
Lord Jesus said that He is the way. He said, I'm not gonna show
you a way, I'm not even gonna show you the way, I am the way.
I am the way. He's gone into the heavens, And
the only way that we can get to heaven is in Him. In Him. He doesn't look behind
Him and say, you know, you follow after me. We get into heaven
by being in Christ. He's not leading the way or showing
us the way. He is the way. And any way outside
of Him is an evil way. There is a way that seems right
unto man, but in the end, that way leads to death. Lord, show us the way, isn't
that what Philip said? When the Lord told them, I go
and prepare a place for you in John chapter 14, and Philip said,
Lord, show us, show us the Father, it suffice that they show us
the way, and the Lord Jesus said, I am the way. I'm the only one
that can enter into heaven by my works. And my works are gonna
go before me. And if you're gonna enter into
heaven, you're gonna have to be found in me. Because I am
the only way. And everything else is an evil
way. And that's what repentance is.
When God gives us faith in Christ, we believe We believe that every
other way outside of Christ is an evil way. And that he is the
only way. And that if he doesn't save me,
I won't be saved. And if I'm not found in him,
I won't be accepted before God. And look what the king says in
verse 10, verse nine. Who can tell if God will turn
and repent and turn from his fierce anger that we perish not? Salvations of the Lord. This
king is showing true faith because he's not making any claims on
God. He's saying what that leper said. Lord, thou can if thou will. Lord, we're in your hands. Another way, man's way, is to
say, well, God wills to save everybody, but he can't unless
we let him have his way. What is this king saying? Perhaps
the Lord will have mercy. If he's willing, he can save
us. He can save us. And that attitude
did not lead to a fatalistic position. It did not lead to
one who just said, well, you know, nothing we can do. We'll
just wait and see if God does it. No, it, it set his heart
as it sets every believer's heart to seek the Lord's mercy. And God saw their works. What are our works? This, what work can we work that
we might work the works of God? This is the work of God that
you believe on him whom he has sent. That's the work of God
to believe on Christ. God's works were finished in
Christ before the foundation of the world. And then Christ
finished the work of redemption on Calvary's cross when God Yes,
God's people are zealous for good works and we're his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he's ordained
for us that we might do them. But the work that God's looking
at to withhold his judgment, that's what he's saying. Look,
God saw their works, how they turned from their evil way thinking
that they could save themselves. And God repented of the evil
that he had said that he would do, and he did it not. The only
thing that's going to cause God to not destroy us is if our works
are his works. His works. His works are perfect. And that's what God requires. This is every believer's story.
This is the preaching of the gospel to a rebellious people
by a rebellious man. We're all in the same boat, aren't
we? All in the same boat. And God gave ears to hear because
the king heard. All the Ninevites heard, every
one of them. All right. Scott, we're gonna sing which
hymn? 280. Let's stand together. We'll sing just the first two
stanzas. Let's stand as we sing.