Good morning. I'd like your attention
to the book of Jonah chapter 3. Jonah chapter 3. Jonah chapter 3, we'll start
in verse 1. Jonah 3, verse 1 says, 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. The word of the Lord came unto
Jonah the second time. And I'm so thankful for that,
because do you remember what happened the first time? I won't
show you all of it, but go back with me to chapter one quickly.
In Jonah chapter one, here's how the book of Jonah begins.
It says, now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son
of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,
and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before
me. God commanded Jonah the first
time, go to Nineveh. Now, that amazes me, reading
that, because this is a child of God, this is his prophet. God sends His messengers with
a message for a people, and He makes them go. But here, He let
Jonah flee. And that amazes me to read this.
But I can't help but come to this conclusion when I read what
happens here. This flesh, and I'm talking about
unbelievers and believers, this flesh is so wicked. So wicked. You read what Paul
said about himself and others. As we live our life, even after
God saves us, we don't get any better in this flesh. We just
don't. If we did, we'd start hoping
in ourselves. And so I'm glad we have the book of Jonah. It
gives me great hope. But as we acknowledge the wickedness
of our flesh, may we also make sure we acknowledge the mercy
of our God. tell you His mercy and His grace
are greater than our sin. And I'm so glad to know that. Now rather than recap chapters
one and two, I wanna mention a few things showing God's mercy
to Jonah in spite of him, all right? Jonah disobeyed, he fled
from the presence of the Lord, he didn't go do what God said
do. And yet God met Jonah's sin with his mercy. And I love this
so much. In mercy, God sent a great wind
and a mighty tempest into the sea so that the ship Jonah was
on was light to be broken. God sent that storm in mercy.
In mercy, God let Jonah act a fool on that boat, sleeping in the
midst of God's seemingly wrath is what it represented, all right?
And God let this captain come down, wake him up and let them
cast lots and find out Jonah and make Jonah give account for
who he is and what he's done. In mercy, God humiliated Jonah,
utterly humiliated him and humbled him in the sight of these lost
religious sailors. God did that to him in mercy.
In mercy, God had Jonah thrown off that ship into the raging
sea. Doesn't sound like mercy to me,
does it? God did that to him and for him in mercy. And we
know what happened after that, don't we? In mercy, the Lord
had prepared a great fish, prepared this fish from eternity to swallow
up Jonah. In mercy, God prepared that fish
for him. And he used that fish to save him from the storm. He
used that fish to preserve him. He used that fish to be a picture
of Christ for us to read about in the book of Jonah, in mercy. And then in chapter two, we read
that in mercy, God afflicted Jonah. He caused Jonah to feel
his sin, to feel the weight of it, to feel the burden of it,
and to cry unto God. Towards the end of chapter two,
we read that Jonah remembered the Lord. Why do you think he
did that? Why do you think Jonah remembered the Lord in his time
of trouble? I'll tell you why. In mercy,
God enabled him to. God enabled him, he caused him
to remember his hope, the Lord. And right after that, we read,
God used Jonah in spite of this man, in spite of this sinful
prophet. God used him to pin perhaps the
most glorious, or one of them, the most glorious phrases in
all the scriptures, the end of Jonah 2.9, salvation is of the
Lord. Amazing. And like we just read
in Jonah chapter 3, go back there with me, God in mercy is still
going to use His prophet. Do you see how all these things
God did for Jonah, all this mercy God showed to Jonah was in spite
of Jonah? We can clearly see it, can't
we? Well, I pray we can see that with ourselves too. I didn't
show you now, but we saw it in Jonah chapter one where God overruled
Jonah's evil. And he used Jonah to preach the
gospel to those men because they were crying out unto false gods.
And by the time God was pleased to use Jonah to speak to them,
they were crying out unto the Lord. They were fearing the Lord
exceedingly. God overruled his prophets evil
for good. And he always does. And now in
chapter 3, God's gonna overrule Jonah again. God's gonna use
his sinful prophet, his sinner saved by grace, to save some
wicked, vile, hell-deserving sinners, just like Jonah. Isn't
this glorious? This blesses my heart so much.
that God would be pleased to be merciful to someone like me. Oh my, oh how merciful. I'm so glad to read the word
of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Didn't have to,
he sure didn't deserve it, and neither do I. I'm so glad that
in spite of everything I am, everything I think, everything
I do, God meets me in my rebellion with mercy and grace continually. Aren't you thankful salvation's
of the Lord and that it's not of us? Did nothing to earn it, I can
do nothing to lose it. It's all of Him, all of Him. Now look here with me again in
chapter three, 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,
Verse three, 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. Nineveh was a great city. It
was the capital of Assyria. It was a huge city. In reading
the historical facts about this city, it is believed that the
city had walls around it 100 feet tall, seemingly an impenetrable
forest. It's said that it had 1,500 towers,
watchtowers, towers that stood another hundred feet on top of
that. So in the eyes of men, it truly
was a great city. No doubt about it. Perhaps one
of the greatest cities this world has ever known. But what'd God
say about this city? He said, it's wicked. The wickedness
has come up before me. It's a good picture of what this
world is today, isn't it? And I'll tell you this, our Lord
said to some religious folks, He said, you're they which justify
yourselves before men, but God knows your heart. He said that
which is highly esteemed, that which is impressive in the eyes
of men, He said it's abomination in the sight of God. These people, And Jonah, and
me, and you, and this whole world didn't and don't deserve God's
mercy. We don't deserve it. But I rejoice to know God had
a people here. He has a people here now, and
he's gonna save his people. I said it seemed like an impenetrable
force. Well, there's no such thing with
God. He's sovereign. He's sovereign. I love this,
I told Gabe, Marvin told me this, if you have a Bible like mine,
the center margin by the word exceeding says of God, so read
it again, now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of God. I thought they were an evil, wicked
city. They weren't, but that was a city of God. Does that
give you hope like it does me? We look around. I don't know
why I do this to myself. I check the news all the time.
It's always so upsetting. But you know what gives me hope?
God has a people here and He's saving them. We don't hope in
this world, we hope in God. God has a people. And right here,
why do you think God sent Jonah to Nineveh? Why do you think
he wasn't just done with him and gonna use another prophet
to send to Nineveh since Jonah didn't wanna go there? Why did
he do this? First, for Jonah's good, he's
gonna correct his child. He will correct his children.
And it's gonna be for God's glory. We're gonna preach salvations
of the Lord. And he sent Jonah here to preach to him because
God was gonna save him, and how's God save him? through the preaching
of his gospel. Look with me at verse four. Jonah
began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried
and said, yet 40 days, and none of us shall be overthrown. It said that it took three days
to walk through this city. It's estimated to be about 60
miles long, took the average person three days to walk through
it. Well, here we read, Jonah's been walking for a day, and then
he starts crying. I suppose Jonah was walking kinda
quickly after what he'd been through and what the Lord had
done for him and with him. And I can just see him walking
through that city, a man on a mission, and he gets to the heart of that
city and he starts crying out against it just as God commanded
him to. You think of his message, yet
40 days and none of us shall be overthrown. God is gonna destroy
this place and everybody here. Let me tell you who God is. Nineveh,
just like this world, had no concern of God, no thought of
God, no reverence of God, no fear of God before their eyes.
And you know, when God comes to us, what does He tell us?
He tells us who He is. God's holy. Why is He gonna destroy
you? Because He must. He's right. He's just. Our sin is no white matter. God's
angry with the wicked every day. He'll by no means clear the guilty.
He hates all workers of iniquity. The foolish are not gonna stand
in His sight. God's not gonna sweep our sin under the rug.
He can't. He's got to punish it. He's got
to punish it. The soul that sinneth must die.
The wages of sin is death. There's no exceptions, not with
God. We make exceptions. There's no
bending to God's justice, but none. And that's what Jonah came
declaring. Now, we read in the New Testament,
our Lord said that Jonah was a sign to Nineveh. He was a sign
to him. What does that mean? Well, I
thought of two things. First, Jonah was a sign of God's
judgment. I don't know what Jonah looked like when he was walking
through Nineveh, but I can't imagine he looked very pleasant
after coming out of a whale's belly. And also, I can't imagine that
Jonah didn't say anything else other than, 40 days and none
of us shall be overthrown. I have no doubt that God used
Jonah to share his experience that he had just gone through,
his sin against God, and this is so we can relate to this in
preaching the gospel. My sin against God, God who is
holy and just and sovereign and good, and his mercy to sinners like
me. No doubt Jonah declared that
to them. You see, the gospel's good news. Judgment is not good news. It's appointed unto men once
to die, but after this, the judgment, that's not good news. But when
you read what comes after that, how that Christ was once offered
to bear the sins of many, how that Christ bore our judgment,
that's good news. Now, Jonah, can you just picture
him telling these people, what he'd been through, and how that
that was a picture of Christ. Can you imagine? What a message
that must have been to hear and to see him covered in his filth,
I imagine. To hear this message, salvation
is of the Lord, my soul fainting within me, and I came to that
conclusion by God's grace and his mercy, this is my only hope,
Christ, Christ. And I'll tell you what, when
God, the Holy Spirit, is pleased to bless his word, in this message,
salvation's of the Lord, to the heart of a sinner, here's what
happens every time. Look at verse five. So the people
of Nineveh believed God. These wicked sinners, having
just heard the judgment of holy, almighty God proclaimed against
them, They believed God. They only
heard one message. Just one. And when God is pleased
to speak, that's all it takes. He doesn't have to try and tug
and worry. How many times did he wrestle
with Jacob? One time. How many times does it take God
to save a sinner? One time. One time. When I read this, every time
I'm surprised. I am amazed. You just read Jonah
proclaim judgment against them, so they believe God. It seems
so like there's nothing really to
it. Jonah said, well, 40 days and God's gonna destroy you,
so they believe God. There's so much more to it than that.
This is everything. This is it. I hope we see how
serious this is. I hope we're amazed at this,
that they believed God. Our Lord said in Isaiah 55, he
said that my word, his word shall not return void. My word shall
not return unto me void. When God sends his word, it's
gonna accomplish that which he's pleased for it to accomplish
in the thing where to he sends it. It's gonna get the job done.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. That's why Jonah had to go to Nineveh. That's why
God was gonna make sure Jonah's gonna go preach to them, cry
out against them, and share what just happened to him, what God
did for him. God gave him a message. When you look at what happened
in chapter one and two, God gave him a message, all right? The
only message there is. God's people are gonna hear the
gospel preached. It's gonna be through God's word. It's gonna
be through a messenger of God. We heard this last week, God
will beget his people. He's gonna get them. He's gonna
captivate them. He's gonna win them over with
the word of truth. We're gonna believe it. In 2
Thessalonians 2.13, he's gonna call us by his gospel. It's gonna
be our gospel. He's gonna call us by it to the
obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ. And we are going to, if we're
His, we're going to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we're
gonna be saved. See, salvation's of the Lord.
It's His work, not ours. And what we just looked at here,
that's what God did for Nineveh. That's what God did for every
single one of His chosen people in that wicked city. And that's
what He's doing now, and that's what He will do for every sinner
He's purposed to save. That's exactly what He'll do.
In verse 5, and put on sackcloth, they denied
themselves food, they humbled themselves by putting on sackcloth.
Look at this, from the greatest of them, even to the least of
them. Now look at verse six. 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,
from the greatest of them to the least of them. God saved
them. God gave them faith. You talk
about a revival. I can't imagine how many people,
some people estimate there were over a million people in this
city. Some say God saved the whole city. I don't know. I know
it does say the people of Nineveh believe God and from greatest
of them to the least of them, including the king. So no doubt
it was a mighty number. God saved them from the greatest
to the least. Nothing's impossible with God,
is it? We pray all the time, Lord, please have mercy on this
town. Have mercy on this area. Save your people. And let us
keep praying that prayer. And all the while, you know,
there's going to be encouragement and discouragement. People come,
people go. You live long enough, you see things. May the encouragement overwhelm
us rather than a discouragement. God is able to save to the uttermost,
and His people are gonna believe. They're gonna come to Christ.
They're gonna rest in Him. They are, from greatest of them
to the least of them. No one's too sinful for God to
save, and no one's too self-righteous for God to save. And I believe
we can identify with both of those things, can't we? Praise
God he's able to save to the uttermost those that come to
God by him. And reading about the repentance
that took place here, repenting in sackcloth and ashes and fasting
and This is the result of a true salvation. God's salvation is
a powerful salvation. His grace is effectual grace.
When God saves us, we don't just repeat a few words and do some
silly action. It's a new heart. It's a new
spirit. It's Christ in us. A real change
takes place that only God can truly see. And we think we can
see, and maybe to an extent, but I don't want to be naive. Only God can see what He's done.
Only He can see it. We can be fooled so easily. If
I'm honest, I could fool you so easily. May God do this for
us. This King thought of Nebuchadnezzar
and some of these men whom the Lord just reduced to nothing.
God, you read some accounts, read about some kings, and just
look how God had His way with every single one of them. Even
if He let them do awful evil for a time, who had His way with
them the whole time, and especially in the end? God did. If God's
gonna save us and He has purpose for us to repent like this, you
mark it down, it's done. It shall come to pass. And look here at verse seven.
This king, 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
every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in
their hands. This king made a decree. He ordered
this entire city to repent, to turn from their evil way, and
to cry mightily unto God. And we must. Our Lord said, except
ye repent, you shall all likewise perish. Repent means change of
mind. Except our mind change about
who God is, who we are, how we could possibly
be saved. Everybody thinks salvation is
so easy. Oh, well, you just one, two, three, here's A, B, C. In
one way, salvation is the most simple thing ever, but in another
way, it's impossible with us. I hope we realize that. I hope
we realize there's nothing we can do to stand in God's sight,
nothing, nothing. That's a work He must do all
by Himself. But like this decree went forth,
that's our only hope. If we don't repent, we'll perish.
If we don't cry mightily unto God, well, then we're saying
we don't need Him. If we don't cry unto Him, we
don't need Him to do anything for us. If we're not crying,
we don't need Him to save us. I love how it doesn't just say
cry unto God. He said cry mightily, mightily. Oh, may God cause us to, because
we won't on our own. I'll just be honest with you.
When I'm having a bad day, I promise you every time, the first thing
I do is not cry mightily unto God. If I'm being honest. I don't. But when it comes to
my hope of salvation, that's the only hope I have. Because
He will hear our cry. He will hear our cry. If we repent,
if we cry mightily unto God, God will save us, but here's
the fact of the matter. God doesn't save us because we
repent. God doesn't save us because we cry, Lord save me. Us crying
and us repenting is the evidence that God has saved us. And I
love to know that. That gives me such encouragement.
That gives me such hope. He said, before they call, I'll
answer. When He said, seek my face, that's
when we're gonna seek His face. He said, my people shall be willing
in the day of my power. I love the I wills and they shalls
concerning God and His people. Do you? Does that encourage you? I thought about the apostle Paul
when thinking about the decree going forth, that the king made
a decree go forth. Well, we know Christ is King,
isn't He? He's King of heaven and earth. He's King of His people.
And the decree goes forth to believe on Christ and be saved,
to call upon the name of the Lord. And here's what Paul, a
once self-righteous, lost religious man, highly esteemed in the eyes
of men, Here's what he had to say about his conversion, his
salvation. You read about it, Galatians
1, 15. He said, Remember, Jacob and Esau, before they'd done
any good or evil. He said, when it pleased God
who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace,
that's what we're talking about, that's what's happening here,
to reveal His Son Christ in me, that I might preach Him. Paul was a preacher before, preacher
of self-righteousness, preacher of man, preacher of another Jesus. But he said, no, no, when it
pleased God to do this for me, He said immediately, I conferred
not, I didn't consult with flesh and blood. And do you know why
he didn't consult with flesh and blood? He couldn't. He couldn't. It's impossible. After God saves
us, we're saved. When his word comes to us in
the power of the Holy Ghost, it's gonna accomplish that which
it came to do. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
He said, I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish.
It's not up to us. Wasn't up to Nineveh, wasn't
up to Jonah, none of them be saved. And the same is true for
you and me. Salvation's of the Lord. I love this, that God hath
saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Is that the
kind of hope you need? Is that the kind of salvation
that you're looking for? One that's finished, complete,
done, all of the Lord. It's the only kind there is.
If God saves us, and just like God saved the people of Nineveh,
it's gonna be on purpose. It's gonna be, it was done before
the world ever began. Purposed, done. Christ was gonna
come in time and save them. By one offering, he'll put away
their sin forever. By the sacrifice of himself,
it's finished. It was so with Nineveh, and I'm
telling you, it's so now. It's so now. The decree went
forth, look at verse nine. The king said, who can tell if
God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger
that we perish not? Judgment is coming soon. I've
sinned against God. I must perish. Who can tell if
God might turn and repent, turn away from his fierce anger that
I perish not? Is there any hope for a sinner
like me? That's what he's saying. He said,
I'm doing all I know to do. I'm crying out, Lord. Have mercy
on us, on me, please. Who can tell? Well, let me ask
you this. Will God turn and repent? Will
God turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? Can
he? Is he able to do this? Is it possible for God to be
just and holy and righteous and justify a sinful wretch like
me? Can God do that? Would that be right? Well, here's the truth we must
acknowledge. In order for God to save us,
our sin must be dealt with. God can't Now when someone says
God can't, I hope we really pay attention. This is on the authority
of God's word. God can't not be angry at sin. He hates it more than anything. God can't not be angry at sin. He can't. He cannot turn away
from his fierce anger against us and against our sin by simply
turning a blind eye to it. Well, I love them. Well, I sent
my son to die for them. Our hope is in the fact that
God loves us and sent his son to die for us. We got to understand
that's how God can be just and justify the ungodly is through
his love, through his sacrifice. Our sin has to be punished. God's
righteous anger has to be appeased. Now, it was so for Nineveh and
it's so for us. In order for us to be saved,
someone is gonna have to satisfy the judgment of God for us. And
here's the good news of the gospel. Someone did. He did. He did. There's only 10 verses here in
Jonah chapter 3 concerning Nineveh here. But everything we're looking
at, this is how God saves sinners. This is what God does for every
single sinner He's purposed and chosen to save in Christ. It's
what He did for them. Look at verse 10. Here we see
the confirmation. 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. Does that mean God changed his
mind? Well, no, they repented. I'm not gonna destroy them like
I said, no. This was all according to the
purpose of God. You believe that? Or do you think,
well, God saved them because they did this? Let me ask you
this. When it says God saw their works,
what does that mean? What do you take that to mean?
Well, they had faith, didn't they? They believed God. When
did they believe God? It wasn't before Jonah came.
It wasn't before they heard the gospel preached. It means it wasn't something
they conjured up on their own. We read in Ephesians 2 verse
8, faith is not of ourselves, it's the gift of God. It's not
of works. And we read just a moment ago that their works were nothing
but wickedness in God's sight. Now it says God saw their works.
And he didn't destroy them. How is that? I'm telling you, I'm not trying to
explain it away. I'm just telling you like it
is. God saw what he did for them. He saw what He did for them,
in them, and through them. That's exactly what He saw. And
you can sum it all up with this. He saw them in Christ. He saw
them under the blood of Christ. That's the only way God's gonna
repent of the evil. That's the only way God's gonna
turn away from His fierce anger and wrath that is due unto me
because of my sin and what I am, is if I have a substitute, if
there's one who came and died in my place, one who is able
to save me, one who poured out His holy, spotless blood to cover
me from head to toe so that I could stand accepted in God's sight,
holy, spotless, without blame, without blemish. I have read some people, some
people read this account, read the book of Jonah and think,
oh, well, the sailors weren't really saved. Oh, well, Nineveh, nah, they
weren't really saved. Let me show you one verse and
we'll close. Look at Luke chapter 11, verse 32. Just because it doesn't say much
about them, doesn't mean God didn't save them just as fully
as He saves all His people. Look here, Luke 11, verse 32. And this is our Lord speaking.
He had just said Jonah was assigned to Nineveh. In verse 32, he said,
the men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this
generation, and they shall condemn it, for they repented at the
preaching of Jonah. Now look at this. And behold,
a greater than Jonah is here. First he tells us, they repented. What he's saying is, I really
did save them. They really are my people. Every
single one of them that believe God, they're mine. And he said,
a greater than Jonah's here. When Jonah was there, when he
was literally walking through that city, crying out against
it, a greater than Jonah was there. When we gather like this
around God's word, around the preaching of his gospel, the
preaching of Christ, did you know what greater than Jonah
is here? Who's there? Christ. Christ himself. Paul and Silas told that Philippian
jailer. Man was scared to death. He was hopeless. Crying out to
God, he said, what must I do to be saved? They said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's what
happened in Nineveh. May God be pleased to do for
us what He did for them, for Christ's sake and His glory.
Amen.