May the Lord be pleased to bless
us together as we meditate in his word this morning. Let's
turn to the book of Jonah, chapter 3, and we'll read verse 8. The book of Jonah, chapter 3,
and reading 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. The very short book of Jonah
is, as I'm sure we all know, a very wonderful account and
a very remarkable account and an account which most people
have heard of and most people recognize what it contains. But we see in it the amazing
work of God. The amazing work of God in the
life of Jonah as an individual and the amazing work of God in
this great city of Nineveh. And Nineveh indeed is described
here as A great city is described to us as a city of three days
journey and a day's journey is generally thought to be about
20 miles. So three days journey is 60 miles
and the cities were normally worked out in the circumference,
that means the distance round the actual city, so we can think
of the distance around the city was therefore three days journey,
which would have been 60 miles, and the diameter then would have
been something about 20 miles. So we can see it was a very great
city, in actual fact it was probably without any doubt the largest
city which existed in the world at that time. And it was this
city which was in a terrible state. And it was this city that
the Lord commanded Jonah to go and to preach. And he was told,
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for
their wickedness is come up before thee. Well I suppose using our
natural minds we can think of Jonah contemplating that vast
city to have to go and preach to, and obviously thinking perhaps
that the job was just too big, too great, and how was he going
to do that? And therefore he thought he would not do it. He
thought he would disobey God. He thought he would go in a different
route and avoid this. it's always solemn to walk contrary
to God. And the Word of God tells us
if we walk contrary to God, he will walk contrary to us. Sometimes we forget a statement
like that, but yet it's very true and if the Lord directs
us, the Lord speaks to us, We should not disobey the word of
God because when the Lord speaks to our hearts, when the Lord
directs us, we can be sure it is good and it is right and it
will be for our good and for the Lord's honour and the Lord's
glory. Sometimes those commands seem
to be very difficult and perhaps almost seem impossible. And yet, if they emanate from
God, we should realize that all things are possible with God.
We only have to think, don't we, of when the children of Israel
came out of Egypt, and after a year or so they were told to
go and possess the land of Canaan, and they sent the spies to have
a good look, and the spies came back. They spent 40 days looking
around the place, came back, and Thankfully, Caleb and Joshua
said it was a good country and they were well able to go and
conquer it, but the other ten spies said no, it was too difficult. The high walls and they were
fierce and strong people and they shouldn't therefore attempt
to conquer it and therefore they dissuaded the people to do so. They disobeyed God and God's
wrath was of course upon them and as you no doubt remember
therefore the Chur Divisional had to travel to the wilderness
for 40 years. A day represented a year. A day of the spies walking around
Canaan represented a year in the wilderness. And all those
who were over 20 years of age apart from Caleb and Joshua died
in the wilderness. It was a fearful judgment, really. And it's very easy for us today
to ignore God's words and to think, well, of course God won't
bring judgment upon me for not obeying His voice, for not doing
His will, because, well, I can't do it now, perhaps I might do
it later on when things change a bit. Today, if you will hear
His voice, harden not your hearts." So we have this account of Jonah
disobeying the voice of God. And of course, things appeared
to be going all right for him, didn't they? Sometimes things
appear to be going all right for us when we disobey God. Some of you might think, Rather
good, that's an excuse. I found something. Jonah found
a ship, didn't he? He went down and found this ship
going to Tarshish. He thought, well, I'll get a
broad that. And he had enough money to pay
the fare. And he was perfectly content. So content, he went
to sleep. He didn't even wake up when there
was a storm. No, his conscience was sadly
hardened. And we should not think, well
of course that was Jonah, because it may be you and me. The Lord
looks at our hearts, and he knows whether we are disobeying God
and perhaps we're content with what we're doing. And especially
if things seem to be working out all right, and the path seems
nice and smooth, well, God's eye was upon Jonah. And you can
be sure God's eye is upon us. Don't think therefore that we
are any different to Jonah. We may want an easier life. Jonah
had that set before him which he thought would not be easy.
He didn't realise the power of God. And so we know what happened
to Jonah. He went asleep and he was woken
from his sleep and told to what was the reason for this and to
pray to his God. And he told them. He told them
the cause of the storm. He told them it was because of
him. He knew. God had touched his conscience and
touched his heart so that he couldn't therefore not but tell
them he was the problem. He was the problem. He told them
what to do. I asked him, and he said, Take
me up, cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm
unto you. For I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you. Well, the Sayyidahs were honest
people, they didn't want to do this, and they tried to avoid
it by rowing hard, but no, God's purpose was to be fulfilled further
and to be fulfilled in a very remarkable way because they did
have to take up Jonah. They threw him overboard and
God had prepared this great fish, this whale, to swallow Jonah. And there was Jonah in the belly
of that great fish for three days and three nights. Well, it was a fearful thing,
wasn't it? We can't really imagine what
it would have been like, can we? Total darkness. We're told all the weeds in the
fish's belly wound themselves around Jonah, and there he was.
And it would seem that Jonah was hard-hearted, rebellious
for three days and three nights. We might think that immediately
He would recognise the wrong that he'd done and pray to God,
but it would seem he was there for three days and three nights.
And then, you see, the Lord came and he cried by reason of his
affliction unto the Lord. What a good thing, isn't it?
What a mercy it is for us if the Lord doesn't deal with us
as we deserve in perhaps our rebellion against God because
it was rebellion against God and therefore Jonah was in this
condition for three days and three nights and then because
of his affliction we're told he cried unto the Lord we might
think God would have just ignored him He deserved to be ignored, didn't
he? Perhaps we might think, well, God will never hear me. And we
might think, I don't deserve to be heard. And yet, you see, the Lord had
a love towards Jonah. And he had a work for Jonah to
do. And both of those things were
to be brought to fruition. We are told a little about Jonah's
spiritual experience in that dark place of the whale's belly. He is able to recount this after
deliverance. He looks back and is able to
remember what God had done for him. And he tells us, cast me
into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed
me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me, and
I said, I am cast out of thy sight. Yes, he probably thought
God would never see him, would never know about him. But God
knew where he was. And that's a blessing, isn't
it? Because God knows where we are.
Every moment of our life, every single second of our life, God
knows where we are and God knows what we're thinking. And there
was Jonah here saying, I'm cast out of thy sight. And yet there
was a change. And what was the change? This
is what occurred. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple, the place, of course, in Jerusalem, where there
was the ordained place for worship, the ordained place to go. He
says, I will look again, look again, hoping, no doubt, for the mercy
of God. The waters compassed me about,
even to the soul. The depths closed me round about.
The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottom
of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet, as thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God." The mercy of God displayed. Mercy of God is still today to
be seen, to be observed, to be thankful for. And so what a mercy
it is. And then he says, when my soul
fainted within me, brought to the very lowest place. The Lord does that, doesn't he?
He brings us into a condition. where we are perhaps just like
Jonah. Our soul faints within us. When
my soul fainted within me, when? What happened then, when? I remembered
the Lord. He remembered the Lord. He remembered
the Lord who was a merciful God. No doubt he remembered. the many
occasions he'd heard of and read of, of God's goodness and mercy. And now he says, when my soul
fainted within me, I remember the Lord. My prayer came in unto
thee, into thine holy temple. He knew it had. He's recounting
now what had occurred. He's able to say, and my prayer
came in, unto thee into thine holy temple. They that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy." You see, that's a
great statement, isn't it? We tend to observe the voice
of the devil, lying vanities, who endeavour to turn us away
from the truth of God, turn us away from the way of God, turn
us into a rebellious condition, turn us into a disobedient condition. And so here we have this simple
and yet very true statement. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. Well, perhaps we've forsaken
God's mercy and turned to the vanities of time. He thought,
well now I'll carry on in the world. I'll carry on walking
contrary to God. I don't want to be involved with
these things. I'm going to carry on my own
way. Well, you see, if we do that, or if we have done it,
if we are doing it, what are we doing? We're forsaking our
own mercy. Again we see he was able to recall
and record, but I will sacrifice unto the Lord with a voice of
thanksgiving. How many times in the Word of
God we are able to trace out thanksgiving,
deliverance, thanksgiving, the sacrifice and then thanksgiving. You see there is a time of sacrifice
and that means a time of acknowledging what God has done. Sacrifice
of the voice of thanksgiving. How important it is that we do
remember and we do speak of God's goodness and we do speak of God's
mercy. And he comes in with this great
and wonderful statement, I will pay that I have vowed. Well, God knows whether we vowed
perhaps. Perhaps we've been in a pit,
a horrible pit. Perhaps we vowed to God. Well,
if you truly vowed to God, you ought to pay that vow. and to obey God. So he comes then with this tremendous
statement, salvation is of the Lord. He's able to testify his
salvation was not within himself, it was of the Lord. That means the saving of his
soul emanated from God, not from himself. It emanated from God. Salvation is of the Lord. It's a very short sentence. It's a very powerful sentence.
It's a very blessed sentence. And without any doubt, all the
true Church of God can echo these words. And so, let us look into
our hearts this morning and see whether we can say these words,
salvation is of the Lord because I have proved it, because I'm
an evidence of this great wonderful blessing and this wonderful favour. And so having reached that conclusion,
having been able to say this, then you see that part The work
of God was complete. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Well, Jonah was
a saved man. Jonah had been blessed of his
God. He was vomited out on the dry
land. And we're now told, here was
this work that Jonah had to do, repeated. Word of the Lord came
unto Jonah the second time. The second time. How compassionate of Almighty
God to come to us the second time. Perhaps He's come the first time.
Perhaps we've ignored God's Word. And now, the second time. There'd been a wonderful deliverance. There'd been a very great change
in his outlook. What does it show us? I'll tell
you what it shows us. He was made willing in the day of God's
power. There'd been a wonderful change.
And it's a great blessing in our lives when the Lord brings
about a wonderful change. We've been able to look to the
Lord. We've been able to look to the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been able to confess our
sins. We've been able to see His face. And the Lord hasn't turned us
away. We never deserved the Lord to
look upon us, did we? The Lord has graciously come
to us and granted a wonderful deliverance. The deliverance,
of course, for Jodah was that the fish vomited out onto dry
land. Well, put in a spiritual way,
it may be the Lord has brought us into a wealthy place spiritually. So we're able to declare what
He's done for our soul. And now this second time has
come, and again the Word's repeating. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it. the preaching that I bid thee."
Well, it's good, isn't it? How similar it is, really, to
those first words. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up
before me. So we have this statement now. Preach unto it the preaching
that I bid thee. So what does Jonah do now? It's
good to read the willingness and the obedience of this man
of God. So Jonah arose, didn't sit around,
and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now
Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey. 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
We don't read of him having a rest. We don't read of him going to
an inn to have some food. We read of him going to Nineveh,
entering into Nineveh, and preaching the preaching that God had told
him to. Now then, you see, God's timing
was wonderfully, gloriously right, because the people of Nineveh
were prepared to receive this Word. Perhaps Jonah wondered
whether they would. But you see, this Word was of
God, and therefore there was to be good outcome. And it was a good outcome. So
the people of Nineveh, and this is the relevant point really,
believed God. Jonah was speaking, but they
recognised and they realised Jonah was just a mouthpiece of
Almighty God. They believed God. Well, what a blessing it is if
we believe God. The preaching of the Gospel comes
and we believe God, and we recognise it is from God. It's not the word of a man, it
is the word of a man, but the man is just the mouthpiece in
the message of Almighty God. And so here we're told, so the
people of Nineveh believed God. It's a great statement, isn't
it? It's a wonderful statement. It's a very necessary statement.
What a mercy, therefore, if God looks upon us and by His grace
we indeed believe God. So that's what Jonah did here.
Well, this is what the people of Nineveh did here. They believed
God. And there was action, wasn't
there? There was action. It's good,
isn't there, when there's some action in our belief. You know, there's a tendency,
a sad tendency, for people to kind of cover up these things
and don't confess them and there's no outworking of them. And yet you see, in the book
of James we're told very clearly, faith without works is dead. That means there's no life in
it. It means it's without any value. If God gives us faith
to believe, there will be a gracious outworking of this believing. The people of Nineveh believed
God and they proclaimed the fast and put on sackcloth from the
greatest of them even to the least of them. That was an amazing
thing, wasn't it? A vast city. We don't know how
many people were there, but a vast city. Probably many millions
of people. And it would seem with one consent
there was this wonderful effect, this wonderful working of the
Holy Spirit in these people of Nineveh. And the effect was then
that they sought for mercy and they came here and they proclaimed
a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to
the least of them and then we're told 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. 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."
It was quite an amazing scene, wasn't it? To think of that. All the people not eating or
drinking. and not feed in their flocks
either, not eating or drinking. The power of the Spirit of God
was so great upon them and then what they were told to do, very
significant, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily unto God. cry mightily unto God. As James tells us, the effectual,
fervent prayer of a righteous man obeyeth much. Prayer is the great blessing
and the great favour of God. Prayer is the Christian's vital
breath and how essential and how needful it is. The Lord tells
us, I will be inquired of by the house of Israel to do these
things for them. We are to pray, we are to cry
unto God Almighty, we are to cry like this mightily unto God. What a blessing for us today
to have a God who does hear and answer prayer, a God who does
indeed listen to our prayers. And the great blessing is we
have a wonderful intercessor, the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who knows all about us. And we may think, well, our prayers
are very poor, they're very weak, they're very poverty-stricken.
Well, they probably are. And it's good if you and I think
they are. But the wonderful blessing is, the Lord takes those prayers. The Saviour takes those prayers. And He brings them before His
Father. And He brings them before our
Father. And they are presented by Him. and they are accepted
by Him. So what a blessing it is today
if God brings us to this position, fasting, turning away from all
the things of time and crying mightily unto God for the blessing
of God. I suppose if we're honest Perhaps
this has never occurred in our lives. Perhaps nothing like this
has ever been done. Perhaps our prayer life has been
very dismal. There may not have been many words,
but it may not have been in faith. And we may not have been seeking
for the honour and glory of God. May have been seeking our own
desires and our own conditions to be fulfilled. What a blessing if there would
be and there is, can be, a wonderful change in our lives, individually
and collectively. What it would be a wonderful
blessing if such an effect came upon our nation, wouldn't it?
the Lord knows, but nonetheless we can take this to heart as
individuals, because such accounts are recorded in the Word of God
for our instruction, for our blessing. And so here we have,
Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
unto God, yea, let them turn every one from his evil way. God knows whether there are evil
ways in our life. What a blessing if God gives
us desires to turn everyone from his evil way. and from the violence that is
in their hands. Obviously there was a lot of
violence which was existing in that great town of Nineveh and
the effect of this blessed work of God was to turn away from
it. And then there was this statement,
who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from
his fierce anger and we perish not." Well, who can tell? They clearly prayed in faith. Who can tell? We need to sincerely
pray in faith that we perish not. Unless the Lord have mercy upon
us, unless the Lord grants us the blessed evidence of his salvation
in our souls, we shall perish. We shall perish in our sins and
we shall perish eternally. It's a very sad and very terrible
situation which faces those who do not repent of their sins. But then we're told And God saw their works. God
saw their works. The works were evident. They
were to be seen. And God saw their works. They
turned from their evil way. What a blessing that is. If God
brings about a turning in our lives, God knows all of us individually. We don't know about each other,
do we? We sometimes make assumptions. We sometimes draw conclusions.
And we can often be very far from the mark. But God knows
all about us. And God knows what He will do
and what a blessing it is if God looks upon us and gives us
grace and gives us living faith to turn away from every wrong
thought, every wrong word, every wrong action and to seek earnestly
his face that we may not perish. And God saw their works, that
they turned from their evil way. What was the outcome? What was
the outcome? And God repented of the evil
that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. God's mercy came upon that great
city of Nineveh. His goodness was realised. His blessing was realised. The
people listened to the preaching of Jonah. It had a good effect upon them.
They confessed their sins. They turned away from evil unto
the Lord. They pleaded with their God. They cried mightily unto Him. It wasn't just a mere casual
prayer as it were. No, this was a real prayer to
Almighty God. What a blessing it is today when
the Church of God is blessed with real, true, pervading prayer. What a blessing it is when you
and I are blessed with true, true, pervading prayer. Providing prayer, not just mere
words, just to carry out some form of worship which we think
will be satisfying to Almighty God. At the time when God graciously
works within us And you may remember the Lord Jesus Christ, when he
was on the earth, spoke so many wonderful and glorious things,
and the Pharisees came to him. And certain of the scribes and
Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
This is in Matthew chapter 12, verse 38. But he answered and
said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and
three nights in the world's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of
Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall
condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas and
indeed are greater than Jonas is here. The Queen of the South
shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall
condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon. and behold a greater than Solomon
is here. Well of course the Saviour was
speaking about himself. And we of course today are wonderfully
blessed with the Word of God which tells to us everything
about the Lord Jesus Christ and the wonderful way of salvation
and the wonderful gift of God of eternal life. Would it be
an amazing favour for us today if perhaps our souls, our never-dying
soul, our eternal soul, is moved by the Spirit of God,
like these people of Nineveh, to cry mightily unto God that
we perish not, to plead to the Saviour, to plead that you and
I might be cleansed from our sin. You and I, as we stand before
God, cannot say, well, of course we're not as bad as the Ninevites.
When the Lord convinces of sin, we all stand guilty and we all
stand terrible sinners. We all stand vile sinners. We
all understand what Job said when he said, Behold, I am vile. When Paul said, I am the chief
of sinners. We all stand convicted of our
sin. And we all stand recognizing
that we deserve to perish in our sins. And we all need the
mercy. And we all need the forgiveness
of Almighty God and therefore what a blessing it is when God
enables us to cry mightily to Him, to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ in all our need, in all our nakedness, pleading for that covering, the
blessed righteousness of the Saviour and to have the wonderful
evidence Jonah had the evidence, he was able to declare salvation
is of the Lord, nowhere else. Bless God when He comes to us
and shows to us that salvation is only through the Lord Jesus
Christ, only through His finished work and to have the wonderful
evidence in our souls that Jesus Christ died upon that cross at
Calvary to redeem our soul. It is then that redemption becomes
very real, becomes very precious, becomes very glorious, and it
is then we see the value in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's only when the Holy Spirit
comes and works in our soul and shows us our need and directs
us to the Saviour. It may be perhaps like Jonah,
we find ourselves cast out, we find ourselves in desperate darkness,
we find ourselves needing forgiveness, needing the Saviour, and it is
then we come and plead to Him cry to him and then what a mercy
when the Lord comes and looks upon us and we know that he's
had compassion on our soul. It's a glorious relief. It's
a wonderful blessing. What does it do? It brings us
into the liberty of the gospel. We go on our way rejoicing. We praise our God from whom all
blessings flow. We're able to come and say with
Jonah, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord. He was delivered. The church
of God today is delivered. They're brought into wonderful
liberty. as they realise the God-given
gift of repentance to plead and to cry unto God in a time when
He may be found. Who can tell? Perhaps that's
been our prayer. Who can tell whether Almighty
God will look upon me? Who can tell? Well, we can be
encouraged to believe that the Lord is gracious and comes to
the very worst of sinners and brings about the glorious news
of the gospel. And as we read here, God repented
of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and
he did it not. We will not be cast off, we will
not be found in everlasting perdition in hell, but we shall be saved
with its great and glorious salvation. And we'll thank God for the experience
that he's given to us. Jonah had an experience he would
never forget. My friends, the child of God,
the people of God have an experience we will not forget. and the Lord
works in our heart, we don't forget the experience of it,
we don't forget the effect of it, and we praise God for it. For may it be so in all of our
lives. May we have cause today to praise
and thank God for this account of Jonah and in measure to be
able to trace out our little experience our little testimony
and say that by the grace of God, as Paul did, by the grace
of God, I am what I am, not for what I am in and of myself, but
it's because of what God has done within me. And to him be
all the honour and all the glory. Amen.