Jonah chapter 3 and verse 6. 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
every one 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Let me begin like this. We believe in sovereign grace. That means that we know God to
be the source and moving power of all spiritual life and spiritual
experience. If we are to have spiritual life,
it must come from the Lord. We believe upon the authority
of the Word of God that all men and women are by nature dead
in their sins, dead towards God, separated from God and unable
to please Him. That is our state by nature.
The Bible calls this condition being dead in trespasses and
sins. And so far are we from desiring
the holy things of God that we are said to be enmity toward
him. We are said to be his enemies.
We are hostile and opposed to him. We are irreconcilable. So that God's grace is essential,
sovereign grace is essential to make that irreconcilability,
that impossibility of being reconciled, It takes a miracle. It takes divine power. It takes God's own sovereign
glory to make such a wholesale comprehensive change in the life
of an individual to bring that individual into that state of
peace with God. It is the powerful life-giving
work of God in a person's experience whereby God gives spiritual life
as a free gift, initiates spiritual desires that are alien to our
nature, and by His goodness supplies spiritual blessings. Without
this gift of spiritual life, Men and women will ever remain
in their original condition, their original state of rebellion,
dead in sin and careless about their condition. Sometimes sovereign grace is
called free grace. in order to emphasise that God
bestows his grace, his mercy, and his forgiveness of sin unconditionally. Grace is not given because men
earn it, or deserve it, or even because they want it, because
none do. It is gifted at God's discretion
because he has decided to give it to whomsoever he will according
to his own good pleasure. Now I mention this by way of
introduction because our passage today is one of the clearest
and finest example in the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures,
perhaps in the whole of the Word of God, of sovereign grace at
work in the life and in the salvation of undeserving sinners. Every
natural bias, every natural tendency and inclination of these Ninevites
militated against the outcome that we find here in these verses
as a result of the preaching of the Prophet Jonah. Nineveh
was an idolatrous, evil and violent city by their own admission. They were a heathen people. They
were proud and they were powerful. and yet the condemning accusation
of a lone minister of God shook the whole population to the heart
from the king down. This little prophecy of Jonah
served two great purposes. It showed the ancient Jews that
God's electing choice and God's sovereign mercy was not restricted
to individuals within the Jewish nation, but it also included
the Gentiles. That was one great lesson from
the accomplishments of Jonah here in this land of Assyria
in the city of Nineveh. And it demonstrated also with
a most powerful example, how the mighty sovereign grace of
God overcomes every natural obstacle in convicting and converting
sinners and bringing them to a knowledge of the truth. May
we never be guilty of constraining the grace and power of Almighty
God. I mentioned yesterday, it is
equally within the power of the Lord to save one poor sinner
or harvest a whole city of godless souls in a single day. Such is our God and such is his
power. These free will people that imagine
that they've got to go out and so labour in order to convince
and convert a single individual, they have no concept of the mighty
sovereign grace of God. But we believe in sovereign grace. Now we've been told already that
salvation came to the people of Nineveh, from the greatest
to the least of them. We read that last week where
it said Nineveh, the people of Nineveh believed God. And now we're informed specifically
what effect Jonah's ministry had upon the king of Nineveh. On hearing God's judgment and
of the impending destruction of his city, the king got off
his throne, took off his robes, dressed in sackcloth and sat
in ashes. This was a sign, a symbol of
his penitence. Sackcloth was a material made
from goat hair or camel hair. It was rough, it was coarse,
it was irritating to the skin, It was not worn for pleasure,
but it was worn as a mark of mourning for the dead, as an
expression of grief, as a public expression of humiliation, penitence,
and confession of sin. And so too, to sit in ashes,
That also was symbolic of a plea for pity or shame for wrongdoing. Normally what would happen is
that the ashes would be sprinkled over a person's head and it would
fall down over his shoulders and so when anyone looked at
him he would literally be sitting in a dusting and a coating of
ashes. Jonah's preaching entered the
hearts of these people. It entered the hearts of all
who heard it. And by royal decree, and with
the support of the city nobles, the king sent his message out
into the whole city. Jonah's message of judgement
together with news of the King's penitence and humiliation were
broadcast throughout the city and made to be an example to
the population. A fast was also declared and
the whole city mourned for its sin and refrained from eating
both men and beasts. and they were all draped in the
sackcloth and they all doused themselves in ashes. As we read these verses, I think
that we can say that there are four things, four gifts, given
by God to this people in Nineveh. And that's how we're going to
spend the rest of the time that we have together today, thinking
about these four gifts that God gave to Nineveh. God gave the
gift of a preacher, and he gave the gift of repentance. He gave
the gift of faith, and he gave the gift of deliverance. So these
are the four things that we're going to touch on today and the
first one of them is the gift of a preacher. Now we've thought
about this before so in a sense we're perhaps rehearsing a few
points here but Jonah was sent to Nineveh because at this time
the Lord had many of his elect chosen people in the city. for whom the time of love had
come. And this reminds us, not only
is the identity and the number of the elect known to God from
the foundation of the world, but so too is the day of their
birth, the day of their death, and the day of their conversion.
Paul tells Timothy, the foundation of God standeth sure having this
seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And because the Lord
had people in this city, he gifted a gospel preacher to Nineveh,
a gospel preacher who would faithfully uphold the word of the Lord among
them. The Apostle Paul tells us in
Romans 10, Take note of that, will you? Will you take note
of that little verse? For me, faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God. If you lack faith, if you feel
a dearth of faith, if you wish for more faith, be sure to hear
the Word of God preached. It is the only sure way to increase
your faith. And accordingly, because it was
God's gracious purpose to grant faith to the people of Nineveh,
the Lord sent Jonah. By a sent preacher, sent from
God, the word of God came to the king of Nineveh. You see,
it had to be a sent preacher. The once disobedient prophet
now obediently declared the message of God, the message God had given
to him for them. Paul asks, how shall they believe
in him of whom they have not heard? Well, how can you? People say, believe in Jesus.
How can they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How can
they believe in Him whom they do not know? How can they believe
in Him who is conveyed to men largely by preachers who do not
understand the Gospel? So Paul asks further, how shall
they hear without a preacher? because it has to be a preacher
sent from God. How shall they preach except
they be sent? They have to be sent by God,
carrying God's message in order to hear God's word. There are
many who preach, but only those who are sent by God arouse faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ and minister to God's people. The word of Jonah came powerfully
to the king of Nineveh and at once it affected his soul. Luke chapter 4 and verse 32 tells
us concerning the Lord's own ministry that, and they it says,
and they were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with
power. And that was true also of Jonah. Nineveh was astonished at his
doctrine because his word was with power. There can be no other
explanation for these spirit transforming results. Look at verse seven with me.
It says there, he caused it to be proclaimed and published through
Nineveh. He caused it to be proclaimed
and published through Nineveh. Now I assume here that the he
spoken of is the king rather than Jonah. But I'm sure I know what the
it was that was to be proclaimed and published. It was the doctrine
of Christ. It was the Word that was with
power. Now I don't know exactly how
that doctrine of Christ was couched, how it was expressed, what vocabulary
was used. but I am sure that if faith was
given to these people, it was given on the basis of the promise
of the prophetic Messiah and the coming salvation that he
would bring. Let me apply that to today. I
consider that this generation in which we live, I consider
it to be immensely blessed whether they appreciate it or not, because
the doctrine of Christ and the word that is with power is being
transmitted across the world at the speed of light and is
accessible to any who will listen. It used to be that God would
send a preacher to a city like Nineveh. Now that preaching is
available everywhere and I have No reason to doubt that this
is God's work in sending his message. Perhaps it's a last
time thing. Perhaps it is that this is the
way that the Lord is going to gather up from the ends of the
earth those final believers in order to make up his jewels,
in order to gather his kingdom before he sends his angels out
to separate the tares. Perhaps this is what we are seeing
in our day. Our age is without excuse. In our case, the he that sent out and proclaimed
and declared and published the doctrine of Christ, the he is
God himself. who has marvelously caused the
doctrine of Christ to be proclaimed and published through the whole
earth to save souls. So God blessed Nineveh by gifting
it a preacher. Here's the second thing that
God gifted, that God gave to Nineveh. He gave it the gift
of repentance. And be under no mistake, repentance
for sin is a singular gift of God's grace. It is said in the Acts of the
Apostle, Christ is exalted a prince and a saviour for to give repentance
to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. That's not Israel the nation,
that's Israel the chosen people of God. Christ is exalted, a
prince and a saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and
forgiveness of sins. True repentance is not in any
man's power. It is the free gift of God's
grace. As is forgiveness, as is faith
itself, which we shall come to. God gave Nineveh time and space
to repent. He gave it 40 days but if he
had not given them grace to repent also, the time and the space
to repent, was gracious in itself. It was indicative of the fact
that God was open to the repentance of these people. But if he had
not given them the grace to repent, in addition, they would never
have done so. Naturally, their hearts would
merely have been hardened at the declaration that Jonah made. God gave time and space to repent,
and then he gave the grace to repent. The heart of man is adamantly
opposed to God, but Christ has been exalted and appointed to
give repentance to his chosen people. He does this by sending
his Spirit to convince men of sin, which he did in Nineveh,
and to take away the stony heart and to give a heart of flesh. Listen, brothers and sisters,
if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you know this
to be true. You can testify to this personally,
that God gave you repentance because you know that you would
never have repented of those sins had it not been for the
work of the Lord in your soul and the work of His Spirit. The
preaching of Jonah, attended by the spirit of conviction and
conversion, initiated a transformation of heart, a confession of sin,
and a reformation of conduct in this evil heathen king and
his people. Repentance flows from an awareness
of sin and its offensiveness to God. Its sorrow, true repentance,
is sorrow not merely for the act of sin, but for the source
of sin, for the cause of sin. True repentance goes beyond the
act of sin and is a confession about the true nature of the
source of sin, our own heart. And that's made clear from the
words of the King of Nineveh. It was not merely their evil
actions that were repented of, but their evil way of life. The condemned man may feel regret
for his evil actions, but the Lord's people repent of their
evil hearts, their evil nature from which those actions flow.
And when the Lord gives a gift of repentance, it is repentance
unto salvation. So it was in the case of the
Ninevites, and so it will be in the case of everyone to whom
repentance is given. Then hath God also to the Gentiles
granted repentance unto life. The third thing that we find
here that the Lord gives to these people is the gift of forgiveness
and faith. It is God alone who can forgive
sin. Christ told those who came to
him, thy sins are forgiven thee. He forgave sin and it was this
that offended the Jews. They understood it made Christ
equal with God. It was Christ claiming to be
God and that's what got their backs up. That's what made them
so angry. And yet again, Acts tells us
it is Christ who is exalted to give repentance and forgiveness
of sins. If God forgives the sin of his
people in Christ, then who can lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? God's gift cleanses and clears
and justifies the forgiven of all their guilt and all their
condemnation. When Saul of Tarsus was commissioned
as a preacher, Christ told him he would be sent to the Gentiles,
Acts 26, to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light
and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith
that is in me, just as with Nineveh. That's exactly what happened
with Nineveh. So that Nineveh was a precedent
for what the Lord God accomplished through the ministry of his disciples
and particularly the Apostle Paul. Forgiveness for sin and faith
in Jesus Christ are God's free gifts. By grace are ye saved
through faith, and that nor of yourselves, it is the gift of
God, nor of works, lest any man should boast. And it is certain
that these Ninevites knew that their deliverance must be a free
gift of grace. They repented. They repented. They reformed. They demanded
of each other that their evil way should cease. They asked
forgiveness. And yet they laid no store in
any of those actions. They knew enough of the Lord
from what Jonah told them. They knew enough of the Lord
to know that salvation lay not in their efforts, but in God
turning away his fierce anger. If God wouldn't turn away his
fierce anger, then all their efforts were meaningless and
useless. God had to turn away his fierce
anger. It had to be in God that this
change was made. And long before the coming of
the Messiah and the death of Jesus Christ, to propitiate God's
wrath against sin, these men in Nineveh grasped that God himself
must turn away from his fierce anger. And that is the heart
of substitutionary atonement. I have no doubt that these Assyrians
knew something about ransom by blood and the sacrifices in the
temple at Jerusalem. That would just be an awareness
that there would be, whether or not Jonah explained it in
so many words. but in some way they understood
reconciliation with God comes by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And it's not that God changes his mind about punishing sin,
rather he finds a substitute in whom to punish sin. And here God takes the initiative. Repentance, forgiveness and faith
were given to the men of Nineveh, And God implanted hope for life
and dealt with them according to the gospel of grace. And he set up Christ as their
substitute and he punished Christ for their sin. And finally, God
gave the gift of deliverance. Verse 10 tells us, God repented
of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and
he did it not. This was the gift of deliverance. The expression, God repented
of the evil, it conveys a change in God's way of dealing with
men under different considerations. It's not that God changed his
mind. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is unchangeable. God doesn't change his mind.
These are ways of expressing something in order for us to
accommodate the alteration in the evidences that we see. It's an expression that conveys
a change in the way God deals with us. It doesn't mean God
changed his mind or was influenced by the works of these men. God
deals with people in two ways. Either he deals with us outside
of Christ, where we bear our own sin, or in Christ, who has
made our sin bearer. Outside of Christ, there is broken
law, there is judgment, there is condemnation, and there is
punishment. In Christ, there's atonement,
deliverance, and salvation. The message of Nineveh for us
today is that God still holds out, even to the greatest of
sinners, the prospect of forgiveness and deliverance upon repentance
for sin. Friend, there is forgiveness
with God in trusting Christ. Inside the whale, God changed
Jonah and turned him around. Now he changes the Ninevites
and turns them around. And the Lord can change you and
me and turn us around. The Lord always accomplishes
his purpose of mercy in the hearts of his chosen people. And in
sovereign love, he sends the gospel He inclines the hearts
of sinners to repentance and he inspires them to trust in
Christ. For Jesus' sake, sin is pardoned. The elect sinner is forgiven
and shown favour. and Christ gives mercy and secures
peace for all for whom he died, so that we might have redemption
through his blood according to the riches of his grace. May
the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.