You'd like to turn with me and
your Bibles to Jonah chapter 3, the book of Jonah chapter
3. I've so much enjoyed walking
through this book of Jonah. It's a wonderful book. It has
such striking imagery and I think of Jonah as a picture book. That's
what it is. It's a great picture book and all the pictures and
all those images typify one thing. They typify the work and the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we've made our way today to
Chapter 3 where Jonah is sent again to preach to the people
of Nineveh. Abraham believed God, believed
God, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And here in
verse 5 of our chapter, the people of Nineveh believed God. The people of Nineveh believed
God. Belief is only as good as the
object of your belief. The gospel is about a person,
isn't it? He's the object of our belief. John the Baptist
came and said, repent, repent, and believe the gospel. And that's my hope for us today.
that we simply believe God. You might recall in Acts 2, at
the preaching of Peter, about 3,000 souls were added to their
number that day. But numerically speaking, Jonah,
the book of Jonah, is the greatest preaching event in all the scriptures.
We know from chapter four in verse 11 that there are more
than 6,000 persons, about 120,000 people, infants in this case,
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.
They're just infants, they're just babies, not including the
adults. And so there are hundreds of
thousands of people in this great city. This is a miracle. It's a miracle in itself. And
yet, even when one sinner repents, there is joy in heaven, isn't
there? Let's briefly just revisit some
of the events in the story in this lead up to this chapter
three. So in chapter one, verse two,
God says, arise, go cry against that city, that great city called
Nineveh, for their wickedness has come up before me. Go preach
to them. Go preach to them. I've marked
them for my mercy. Jonah knew these people very,
very well, didn't he? You name it, idol worship, witchcraft,
murders, and they were brutal enemies of Israel and they were
Gentiles, Gentile heathens. And for Jonah, being a Hebrew,
going to these people, going to these people who are his enemies,
was a task too great. How could God be merciful to
these heathen Gentiles? And so in willful disobedience,
Jonah went down to a place called Joppa and boarded a ship. And
I mentioned it last time that Jonah went to Joppa is significant
because that's the place we read of in Acts 10 where the Lord
gave the apostle Peter that vision of the sheet coming down from
heaven with all manner of unclean animals in it which were forbidden
by Jews. Jews were forbidden to deal with
Gentiles, but the Lord had to teach Peter. He had to teach
him not to call any man unclean. God had always intended to bring
the Gentiles in from every kindred and tongue and people and nation. We read that in Revelation 5.
And after Jonah had set sail, the Lord sent a great storm against
that ship, and all the souls on board that ship were in danger
of perishing. And Jonah, realising that it
was all his fault, beckoned the sailors to throw him overboard,
and when they did, the storm calmed and the ship and its inhabitants
were saved. And the Lord then prepared a
great fish to swallow him. And Jonah was in the belly of
that fish three days and three nights. And after that hellish
time, at the end of chapter two, the fish, after having swallowed
him, vomited him out on dry land. Some would say that the lesson
of Jonah has to do with Christian obedience. When Jonah is obedient,
be like Jonah. When he's disobedient, don't
be like Jonah. They would say if you want to
please God, you need to obey him and do his will. Sounds reasonable,
doesn't it? Friends, that is not the message
of this book. There are any number of moral
lessons that men can and do draw from the scriptures, and in particular
this book of Jonah. But in the end, all such moral
imperatives and lessons, all they ever do is speak to the
flesh, speak to the flesh of man. Believers ought to be upright
citizens in this world. Our lives ought to be lived in
such a way as we take care not to bring disrepute to the We want to honour the Lord, don't
we? We want to honour him before men. Philippians 1 says, let
your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. And yet the gospel message is
not concerned. with promoting fleshly improvements. The purpose of preaching is not
to suggest ways to polish up this old man. That painting behind
me that you see on the wall there and on our billetons and on our
sign shows that dead stump, which is a representation of this flesh.
that corrupt flesh. It can never, ever be made better. A new creation is necessary. A new creation. That's why you
see that plant growing up in the middle there. It springs
from within and it's Christ in you. Christ in you. I had a conversation
with a man recently about the Bible and his opinion was that
it was a good book. It was a good book because it
gives us guidelines and it teaches people how to be better people.
How do we get a sinner? How do we get a sinner to behave
in this world? Do we give him a whole bunch
of rules to live by? Do we show him the 10 commands
and say, there you go, there's your list? What's the believer's
motivation in this life? And our pastor touched on this
recently, and it's such an important point in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul
puts it wonderfully, he says, for the love of Christ constraineth
us. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. That word constraineth means
to arrest, means to arrest. As one does a prisoner, when
a prisoner is arrested, to keep in, he keeps his people. That
word means to be captivated and compelled, it's to hold together. We love him because he first
loved us. The Lord's been infinitely gracious
to us, hasn't he? And grace produces gratitude,
and gratitude produces devotion. If you've been forgiven much,
if you've been forgiven much, you will love much, won't you?
We slip and we fall and we backslide, but the Lord Jesus made a promise
to his father, to redeem all the father, gave him in that
covenant of grace before the world began. There's nothing,
is there? There's nothing that can separate
us from his love. Why? Because that love is in
Christ Jesus, isn't it? The love of Christ constraineth
us. And we see here in this book
of Jonah, in these four chapters, we see two types, if you like,
of Jonah in Jonah. We see a prophet both obedient
and disobedient. And again, we can see a spiritual
representation here. In 1 Corinthians 15, you can
read about it, it speaks of two Adams. When we read of the disobedience
of Jonah, we can see a representation of that first Adam, that fallen
Adam. We're seeing ourselves when that
first Adam fell into sin and all men fell in him. And when we see the perfect obedience
of Jonah, we're seeing that second Adam, a good representation of
our Lord Jesus Christ standing as a representative of his chosen
people. That first man is of the earth. earthly, natural, carnal, corrupted,
disobedient, sinful, at enmity with God. But that second man
is the Lord from heaven, a spiritual man, holy, blameless and undefied,
justified by God, and there's no mixture of the two really.
They are both independent, but in one body. That first Adam
is death. That's our just reward, isn't
it? It's our just reward. We earned it. But that second
Adam is life. The Lord said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father except
by me. Romans 5 says, for by one man's
disobedience, many were made sinners. That's the first Adam.
So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. This
story of Jonah is a grand picture of how God saves sinners. We know what those things picture,
don't we? We know that when Jonah bought
that one-way ticket, he stepped onto that ship for destruction.
We know that's a picture of us when we sinned in our father
Adam. And we know that when that storm came on the ship, it's a picture of the wrath of
God justly coming upon us, don't we? But we're in that ship, aren't
we, with someone special. We're in that ship with our great
Jonah. Jared was cast in the sea of
God's wrath to spare the crew, one life given for the lives
of many. God provided himself a sacrifice. And we know that
in the belly of that fish he suffered hell so that we don't
have to. And when he had endured it, the command of God went out
to bump him up. Hell couldn't contain our Saviour.
The grave couldn't keep Him down. It couldn't contain Him. He must
rise. He must rise to that glorious
resurrection. And all the while... And he emerged with them safe
and sound and secure and unharmed. Jonah is the sign, the sign. The Lord Jesus testified of this
in Matthew chapter 12. He said, for as Jonah was three
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And in that same chapter, the Lord goes on to pronounce a terrible
judgment upon those unbelieving religious leaders. He said to
them that even the men of Nineveh, as we're going to see here in
chapter 3, even the men of Nineveh, even those men from that shockingly
wicked city, shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall
condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas. And
behold, one greater than Jonas is here, standing right before
you. So let's look at chapter three
now to see how the Lord dealt with these Ninevites in the preaching
of his word through this prophet Jonah. Chapter one begins, and
the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time. Aren't
you glad, aren't you thankful that the word of the Lord comes
again and again and again. The first time, the second time,
the tenth time, and the 100th time. Every morning I see people
walking past this door with hardly a glance in. And just inside
the door, the word of life is being preached. Since the Lord
gathered us here to worship, over a thousand sermons have
been recorded from this pulpit. And I don't say that to boast,
I say that merely to say that it is a mercy, it is a great
mercy of the Lord to be sent a gospel preacher. And this is
how God saves people, by the preaching of the gospel. Romans
10 puts it this way, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Some people ask, am I chosen?
Am I elect? Am I one of those? Am I a saint? I don't know who the elect are,
God knows. But I do know this, I'm a whosoever. Aren't you? Are you a whosoever? Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And Romans
goes on to say, how then shall they call on him in whom they
have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? You can't believe in someone
you've never heard of. And how shall I hear without a preacher? So then, Romans 10, 17, faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. How beautiful,
how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings. It is a mercy of the Lord to
be sent a gospel preacher, to be sent his gospel. Reading on
in verse 2 of Jonah chapter 3, Isn't it remarkable that the
Lord's put his word in broken pots and earthen vessels? Why did
he choose Jonah? A prophet who ran from the call
and whined and complained about the task, can you admire the
ways of the Lord? He delights, doesn't he? He delights
to use the weak things of this world to confound the wise and
to confound the mighty. The Lord bids Jonah go unto Nineveh. Go unto Nineveh, spiritually
speaking. The city of Nineveh is a wonderful
picture of the body of Christ. It is. The church throughout
time. What was Nineveh physically? It was a city whose wickedness
had come up before the Lord, as we read in chapter 1. Romans
chapter 3 is true of them. It's true of us as well, isn't
it? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And
what's the cry of the sinner? What's the cry? This is the cry
of the sinner in Psalm 51, Psalm of David. David cries, wash me
thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I
acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Let's read on. He says, Go unto Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
That city's mine, Jonah. It's full of sinners saved by
grace. They just don't know it yet. And now is the time of his
love, and God in his mercy sends him a preacher to preach unto
it the preaching that I bid thee. Weak, feeble, fickle men, given
the task to deliver God's gracious, holy message. They're God's messengers,
aren't they? They're God's messengers delivering
God's word as he bids them. They don't add to it, they don't
subtract to it, they just deliver it as he gives them. So Jonah
arose, verse three, and went unto Nineveh, according to the
word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of
three days journey. Nineveh today is in ruins, but
the city itself was about six and a half kilometres long and
about two and a half kilometres wide. And that city is located
within a larger province of Nineveh, which was about 50 Ks by 16 Ks
wide. And it rivaled, it was a majestic
city. It rivaled the glory of Babylon.
It was protected all around by high walls. A marvelous city
of its day. And Jonah began to enter into
the city, his four days journey. And he cried and said, yet 40
days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Jonah went to this hostile pagan
city, a city with hundreds of thousands of people, all of them
enemies of his own people. And he declares, yet 40 days
and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That the Lord kept him to do
that work is marvellous in itself. You would think that the people
would just rise in anger against that preaching, and yet he preached
it. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall
be overthrown. The clock, the clock is ticking
for this world, and judgment is coming. that they have 40
days left. 40 days. Only 40 days. Did they only preach? Is that all Jodah said? Is that
all he said? Did he only preach a message
of judgment? You can certainly scare people and frighten people
by a message like that, but more likely those words were a summary,
a summary of his message. So you need to remember that
Jodah himself stood before these people representing someone.
He represented that one to come, the Lord Jesus Christ. God made
his life a sacrifice for the souls on that ship. God made
Jonah suffer in the belly of that fish, in the belly of hell.
And just as God the Father raised the Lord Jesus Christ from that
tomb and soon after appearing to all his brethren, so too Jonah
was risen up out of the belly of that fish to appear to these
people of Nineveh. God determined, God determined
to show them mercy. Verse 5, so the people of Nineveh
believed God and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth from
the greatest of them even to the least of them. Faith and
repentance go hand in hand. They're both God's gifts, aren't
they, to men? Notice it doesn't say the people
believed Jonah. The people believed God. They
believed God. They believed he was God's representative
and they believed Jonah preached. We often question the words of
men, don't we? Because men are liars. Men are
liars. But God is not a man that he
should lie. God cannot lie. To hear the word
of the Lord and to not believe that word is to call God a liar. Be careful how you hear. It is
so important. If you hear a gospel message,
be careful to object. Do not call God a liar with an
unbelieving attitude. The scripture says in 1 John
5, he that believeth on the son of God hath the witness in himself,
but he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because
he believeth not the record that God gave of his son. They believed
God. They believed God there and then.
The Gospel message bids us to believe God. President Tetch,
come as you are. Don't tarry. You don't have to
go and fix your life up first. Today is the day of salvation.
And yet believing God, we are bid to believe God, but believing
God is the hardest thing in the world to do. In fact, it's impossible. Are you shocked to hear that?
It's impossible. It's impossible. Why? Because the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians
2.4. Before anyone believes in God, he is a natural man. A natural man. That's the starting
point. That's the starting point. And
to say the natural man can believe in God is to say it's like standing
in a bucket and trying to lift yourself up. The things of the
Spirit of God are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. You can educate a
man in Bible theology. You can present the most convincing
argument of the existence of God and creation, and that God
is. And yet without a supernatural
work of God, that natural man cannot believe. He doesn't have
the power within himself. He's dead. He's dead in his transgressions
and sins. He must be born again, as Jesus
said to Nicodemus. And we have as much to do with
our second birth as we did with our first birth, don't we? We
didn't have any control over our being born. I've heard men
say they chose to believe God. They did their part in order
for God to do His. It's the subtle thing that just
rolls off the tongue with so many I've talked to over time.
But in that profession they make believing God a work of their
own doing. And instead of giving God all
the glory and salvation, they take some glory for themselves.
They have something to boast in suddenly. I have heard them
say that. He's the author, our Lord Jesus
Christ is the author and the perfecter of our faith. He creates
it, he sustains it and he sees it to the end. In John 6, and
we quote it very often, it's a wonderful, wonderful profound
verse, some men came to the Lord Jesus Christ and they asked this
question, what shall we do? What shall we do that we might
work the works of God? What did the Lord say? Jesus
answered and said unto them, this is the work of God, that
ye believe on him, whom he hath sent, that ye believe
on him whom he hath sent. Believing is not the work of
man. Believing is the work of God. Even believing, everything in
salvation is of him. Faith is the gift of God. I'm
so thankful that it is, because it means I have nothing left
to boast in. If you work for a gift, then it's no longer a
gift, is it? It becomes something owed to
you, and you cannot make God a debtor to you. You cannot make
God a debtor. But God has given us grace and
faith. Ephesians 2 says, Not of works,
lest any man should boast. So what's the mindset of these
Ninevites after they hear the word of the Lord against them?
Still in verse 5, They proclaimed a fast and put sackcloth on sackcloth,
from the greatest of them even to the least of them. The preaching
of the word of the Lord exposed their evil. Look at verse 8. But let man and beast be covered
with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God, Yea, let them turn
every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is
in their hands. Many people will say they're
not perfect. Others will admit to doing bad things. Some will
say they're sinners. But evil, evil, that's a strong
word, isn't it? That's an offensive word. The
gospel is offensive. We tend to reserve that word,
don't we, for the most vile people of history. How can that be us? Can that really be us? I'm reminded
that this evil has been in us from Genesis. Genesis 6, verse
5 says, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil, continually, perpetually evil, evil to the core, corrupted
throughout. I once made the mistake of storing
a bag of cement under the house. It was a dry powder when I left
it and I went back some time later and it was as hard as concrete
all the way through. And sin, that's what sin's done. It's hardened us all the way
through. We can't be regenerated. that the only remedy is that
new heart that God must give his people. And we read those
verses, again, frequently from Ezekiel 36, which explains this
so wonderfully. A new heart, he says, also will
I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you a heart of flesh. These are things that God only
can do. Let's read on in verse six. For
this is why, oh, sorry. For this is why they did this.
It says, for, for the 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. Does that remind
you of someone? Before the world began, our King,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of his people, received word
from his father, the eternal covenant of grace, to perform
a great work of redemption. He arose from his throne. The
Lord Jesus Christ was in glory. He arose from his throne. He
had all the power and glory with his father from everlasting,
didn't he? But he arose from his throne to do the will of
his father. and he laid his robe from him. He laid aside that
glory which he had with his father and became flesh. He was found
as a baby, wasn't he? His infinite power, think of
it, his infinite power set aside for just a period of time, for
a time his glorious appearance was cloaked. Philippians chapter
two speaks of this wonderful very thing. Philippians chapter
2 verse 5 says, let this mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus. Make this your mindset. Let this
be your attitude. Who being in the form of God
thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but made himself
of no reputation. and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross." The Ninevites believe
the testimony concerning their evil ways. What's repentance? What is it? What is repentance? Some say it's to feel sorry for
your sins. But the fact is you can't feel
sorry enough. Nowhere near it. You can't make
up for it. And when you think you're making
progress, you're actually sinking deeper. What's repentance? What is it? It's sitting in judgment
with God against yourself and saying, it's all my fault. It's
a change of heart. It's a change of mind. It's saying
to God, Your judgment concerning me is right and true. I am fully
deserving of such a thing. Repentance is the honest acknowledgement
and confession of sin to God, isn't it? And ultimately repentance
itself must first be granted by God. It's always all of Him. He is always the first cause
of these things. You can read in Acts chapter 11 that God granted
the Gentiles repentance. He granted it. We don't conjure
it up. 1 John 1.9 says, if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The Ninevites didn't try to be
more righteous, did they? They could have thought, well,
you know, we've been wicked. We just need to clean up our
act and be better people. They agreed with God. They sat
in judgment with God against themselves. There was a recent
visit to Australia by a Greek Orthodox church man, the head
of that church. He dresses in priestly garments
and carries religious symbols around with him wherever he goes.
He's got about 400,000 followers in Australia. And when someone
is to speak with him, his title is His All-Holiness. His All-Holiness. That's what
they've got to call him. His All-Holiness. Let's be honest
with God. Let's be honest. We can pretend
to be righteous before men, but God can't be mocked. If God is
pleased to grant us just a glimpse of his glory, a glimpse of his
holiness and righteousness, then there's a decrease, isn't there?
The first thing we do, as the king did, we take off the robe
of self-righteousness and cast it aside. That's the first thing
we do, isn't it, when we hear the gospel and believe the gospel,
believe God. We make ourselves as small as possible, we make
ourselves as low as possible, we put on sackcloth and sit in
ashes. They believed God. They did what
the king decreed. They made themselves of no reputation.
They humbled themselves before God and they looked for mercy.
And friends, there is mercy, isn't there? There's mercy to
be had. There is mercy. Our God delights
in mercy. Mercy purely and solely and simply
by the merits of his dear and precious son. His work and worth
causes us to approach his throne of grace with confidence, with
boldness. Let's read on in verse seven.
And he caused it to be claimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his nobles. That's the prophets,
those kings and nobles. That's the prophets and the apostles.
His preachers throughout time proclaiming and publishing his
message, saying, let neither man nor beast nor herd nor flock
taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water.
Don't feed on your own good works. Don't drink the iniquity of self-righteousness. The king's subjects believe they're
king, don't they? They believe the king, we believe
the king. The sheep hear his voice and they follow him. They say, but let man and beast
be covered with sackcloth and cry mildly unto God. Yea, let
them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that
is in their hands. What's that evil way? What is
it? That evil way is unbelief, not believing God. That's the
evil way, making God a liar. And even our king, even our king
made himself low, didn't he? How much more humble, how much
more luller should we try and be before him? James 4 verse 10 says, humble
yourselves in the sight of God and he shall lift you up. Verse
nine, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away
from his fierce anger that we perish not? with fierce anger
is what we deserve, isn't it? How can God remain just and show
mercy? He must punish sin wherever it's
found. Christ must be reforced. And
God saw their works and they turned from their evil way and
God repented. That word repented here is the
same word as verse nine. God was merciful. Merciful of
the evil, repented of the evil that he had said he would do
unto them and he did it not. God saw their works. King. The King. They believe
God. They believe the decrees of the
God. That's a work of salvation from
Him. He's declared it. He's decreed
it. Salvation is of the Lord in its entirety, isn't it? May
God be pleased to work His work. His work to believe Him in the
hearts and minds of the people. May He help us in our unbelief. May the Lord bless these words
to us.