Would you turn to the Book of
Jonah, Chapter 3. Jonah, Chapter 3. 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. That's a good definition of preaching,
isn't it? 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. It would take three
days to walk through it. And Jonah began to enter into
the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, yet 40 days
and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed
God. and proclaimed a fast and put
on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of
them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose
from his throne and laid his robe from him and covered him
with sackcloth and set in ashes and he caused it to be proclaimed
and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and
his nobles saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock,
taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water,
but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
unto God. Yea, let them turn everyone from
his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can
tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce
anger that we perish not? And God saw their works, that
they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil
that he'd said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. Pray. Lord, we ask in the name of thy
son that you would be pleased to meet with us and speak to
our hearts from your word. Lord, enable us to hear your
gospel and the power of your spirit. We confess our sins. We pray for forgiveness and cleansing. Lord, how we thank you for the
precious blood of your son. how we thank you for your grace,
how we thank you for the forgiveness of sin. Meet with us for Christ's
sake, in his name we pray, amen. Now I'd never realized before
that this passage of scripture that we read just now gives an
unprecedented, I don't know if the word revival is right, but
this is numerically the greatest number of people who have ever
been saved at one time in the scriptures. I used to think it
was Pentecost, but no, it's here. This city of Nineveh was the
capital of Assyria. Assyria was Israel's enemy. As a matter of fact, you just
keep reading over and over and over again where the Lord used
Assyria to chastise the Israelites. And we know that Jonah hated
the Ninevites. Remember when the Lord told him
to go there and preach? He left and went to Tarshish
on the boat. We've been looking at that because
he did not want God's mercy to be toward the Assyrians or the
Ninevites. He hated them. They had done
so much evil to Israel and he would rather not see them saved. So he left. And that's where
he was swallowed by the whale on the trip to Tarshish. And
we looked at that last week, his prayer, and the Lord spit
him up. And then we begin in chapter
3, the word of the Lord came again unto Jonah the second time. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ mentions
the repentance of the Ninevites. in Matthew chapter 12. So this
wasn't just, you know, we would have a tendency to look at that
and say, well, they changed their ways and weren't as bad as they
used to be and the Lord had mercy on them. That's not really the
way it is. They heard the gospel. I have
no question about that. They heard the gospel. And that
evil way, any way that's not Christ the way is an evil way.
It really is that simple. They started looking to Christ
the way. But at any rate, this is numerically
the greatest, I guess, revival. I don't even know if that's a
good word. It is when the scripture uses it, but the way men use
it, I'm pretty skeptical of it. You know, when they talk about
this revival took place, and that revival took place, and
it's always a bunch of emotional stuff that's not really according
to the scripture. I'm skeptical of that, but I'm
not skeptical of this, because the Lord said it took place.
He even spoke of their repentance. He said the men of Nineveh will
rise up in judgment against this generation because they repented
at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah
is here. So the word of the Lord, verse
one, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time. Aren't
you thankful for that? I'm thankful for the second time,
and the third time, and the fourth time, and the tenth time, and
the thousandth time. I'm so thankful for that. The
word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise,
go into Nineveh, that great city. and preach to it the preaching
that I bid thee." Now, there's a lot of historical documentations
of the wickedness of this city. They were cruel, they tortured
people, their hieroglyphics and so on, and it was a terrible
place. And you understand Jonah not wanting to have anything
to do with them. But the Lord said, you rise,
go into Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching
that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went into
Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was
an exceeding great city, three days journey. Now, a day's journey
is 20 miles. So it was either 60 miles in
diameter or 60 miles in circumference. I'm not sure which, but it was
a very large place. It had over a million inhabitants,
120,000 people who didn't know their right hand from their left.
They were children, maybe infants. I don't know what that's a reference
to, but it was a very large city. And Jonah began to enter into
the city, verse four, a day's journey, and cried and said,
yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now, why didn't
he kill him? Because the Lord's name was on
him. He was under the protecting hand of Jehovah, and they couldn't
kill him. And he goes into this city. this
Gentile city, this wicked pagan city that was Israel's enemies.
And he said, in 40 days, you're going to be overthrown. God's
going to judge this place. This place is going to be wiped
out. Verse five. So the people of Nineveh believed
God. Now they hadn't before, but they
do now. Isn't that what faith is? Believing
God. Believing what he says. Believing
what he says in his word. They believed God. They may not have understood
it all, but they believed it all. Look back in chapter 1. Verse 1. 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. Now, I
can imagine Jonah quoting Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 to these people.
And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. I can imagine what he said about
the wickedness of this place. You know what they did? They
believed God. They believe God. Boy, this is
what I want to do more than anything else. I want to believe God.
May the Lord grant us the grace to believe just like the Ninevites
did. They believed the testimony of
God concerning themselves. They believed the testimony of
God concerning the way. He said, turn from your evil
way, the way of salvation by works. Now, it was also a very
wicked place, violent. I mean, it's historically documented
how cruel these people were to their adversaries. But he's saying
turn from the way, yes, turn from the violence of your hands,
quit murdering people and torturing people and kill it. But that's
the way of salvation by works. Any way other than Christ the
way is an evil way, isn't it? There's only one way that pleases
God, the way of Christ. He says, turn from your evil
way. Verse five. So the people of
Nineveh believe God, They believed his testimony concerning them. They believed his testimony concerning
Jehovah. So the people of Nineveh believed
God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest
of them even to the least of them. Now, it appears that everybody
believed God. It appears that everybody was
being brought to this repentance. And this is a, like I said, this
is a city of a million people. I think of Pentecost when 3000
people were converted. Were there more here? A whole
lot more. And I think, I think this is
so ironic. The Numerically, the greatest
outpouring of God's spirit where people were saved, God used the
prophet who was probably the biggest jerk of the bunch. I
mean, because Jonah was a bad guy. I mean, he didn't care anything
about the salvation of these people. He wanted the Lord to
destroy him. Look in chapter 4, after this
repentance took place, look what it says about Jonah, but it displeased
Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry. He saw these people
brought to repentance and it made him mad. He was mad at the
Lord for doing this, I think for two reasons. Number one,
they were Gentiles and he hated Gentiles. which is wrong across
the board, but it's what he was. But also I think that he thought,
this makes me look bad. I said that the Ninevites are
going to be overthrown, and here God has mercy on him. And look
what he says in verse two. And he prayed unto the Lord and
said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was
yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto
Tarsus, for I knew that thou art a gracious God. and a merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentance thee of evil.
I knew you were gonna do this. That's why I didn't wanna go.
I didn't wanna see these people saved. That's why I left. You see, he was a bad dude, wasn't
he? I mean, you look at, I mean,
the guy just, he had, well, at any rate, this is the man the
Lord used for the greatest outpouring of his spirit we find in the
scriptures. Well, back to verse six. For the word came unto the king
of Nineveh. Oh, I want the word to come to
me, don't you? I want his word to come to me in power and in
truth. For the word came unto the king
of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe
from him, that which he trusted in, that which he thought was
his persona, his power, his righteousness, He laid his robe from him. He
took off that robe, kind of like Bartimaeus flung away his robe.
When you hear the gospel, first thing you'll do is you'll get
rid of your robe. You'll stand before God in your nakedness,
in your sinfulness. You'll get rid of that robe.
And that's what he did. For the word came unto the king
of Nineveh, came in the power of God's spirit. And he arose
from his throne and laid his robe from him. And he covered
him with sackcloth and set in ashes. Now what that refers to
is repentance. And I think of ashes. What good
are ashes? And he's saying my robe is nothing
more than ashes. I'm sitting in sackcloth and
ashes in powerlessness before God, in weakness and sinfulness. I'm sitting before God. Verse
7, and he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king. Now, if the Lord ever speaks
to you, you want that message to be preached to everybody.
You want everybody to hear that message, and the king did. And
he had some power as king, so it says, 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. He proclaimed to fast even for
the animals, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily unto God. Not your heathen deities. but
the God of Israel. He now knows that the God of
Israel is the only God. Well, how did he know that? Same
way you know it. God revealed this to him. He
was made to hear the truth and cry mightily to God. Wouldn't it be a blessing if
me and you right now would cry mightily to God? Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He knew that they were in trouble.
He knew that they had no way to avert God's judgment. He knew that if God judged him,
he'd be just and righteous and holy in what he did. He was very
well aware of that, and he demonstrated that by sitting in sackcloth
and ashes. I'm at your mercy. You can save me, you can pass
me by, whatever you do is just. And he made everybody do this.
And he even had the animals fasting. He was in a desperate, desperate
condition. Cry to God mightily. Now, when
I'm calling upon the name of the Lord, that doesn't just mean
I'm calling his name. I'm saying, Lord, save me by
who you are. Save me by your justice in a way that honors
your justice. Save me by your grace. Save me by your power. Save me as a sovereign act of
your will. Every attribute of God is involved
in the salvation of the sinner. And the cross is a manifestation
of that. And what I'm asking the Lord to do, I'm asking, save
me by calling on the name of the Lord. That's what he's doing
at this time. Cry mildly unto God, yea, let them turn everyone
from his evil way." Notice, not ways, but way. Any way that is not Christ the
way is an evil way. Lord said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father But
by me, God's people were actually called people of the way in the
book of Acts, people of the way, the way of Christ, the way of
grace, the way of turn every man from his evil way and from
the violence that's in their hands. And as I said, this people,
the Assyrians, were like about the most cruel people in the
world. They tortured their adversaries.
There's just a lot of historical documents about that. And as
a matter of fact, after this revival, if that's the word to
use, they went back to their evil ways. Within 20 or 30 years,
they were used by God to punish Israel once again and chastened
him. So this happened for a while anyway, but they went back. And
you can read about it through Kings, how Assyria just tortured
Israel. You remember Sinner Sennacherib or however, he was
Assyrian. He was the man that the Lord,
and they had to pay him thousands of talents of silver to keep
him from sacking Israel. Assyria was a bad place. Nineveh
was a bad place. But look what he says in verse
nine. Who can tell? If God will turn and repent and
turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not." Who can
tell? Now this is what David said.
Do you remember when God said I'm going to kill the child that
he impregnated Bathsheba and they had the baby and God said
I'm going to kill the child and David weeped and fasted and mourned
and put on sackcloth, just the way the king did, while the child
was still alive. And then once the child died,
he got up, washed his face, and was normal. And they said, why
is this? Now that the child's dead, you're
acting like everything's OK. But while it was alive, you were
acting like the world was falling apart. He said, because I thought,
who can tell? Maybe the Lord will have mercy. Maybe the Lord will spare this
child. But once I saw he didn't, there's nothing I can do, so
I go on. But here's the point. God's absolute
sovereignty, and he is absolutely sovereign. Everything that happens,
happens because he decreed it. There's no changing of that.
God is sovereign. He knows all of his works from
the beginning. God never changes his mind. He's
immutable. God is absolutely sovereign. And that's no reason for us to
not say, who can tell? Who can tell? You're always given
that blessing to be able to say, who can tell? What if the Lord
does this? You know, the thing is, I mean,
you don't know what the Lord's doing. He does. He does, and
I'm so happy with that, and I'm so satisfied with that, but we're
still given this encouragement. Who can tell? Maybe the Lord
will have mercy. Maybe the Lord, who can tell? Now, don't ever turn God's sovereignty
into fatalism. Well, if God said we're going
to be Destroyed in 40 days, we're going to be destroyed. There's
nothing we can do to change that. So let's go ahead and eat and
drink and be merry and have a good time till it happens. No, no, no. Who can tell? God is rich in
mercy. Who can tell? Who can tell? He might change, not change. He's not going to change. We
already know that, but you don't know what he's going to do. Who
can tell? I'm so thankful for those words.
Who can tell? Who can tell? Who can tell if
God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger
that we perish not? Believing God is absolutely no
reason for fatalism. Verse 10. And God saw their works. That they turn 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. Now, this is what God had already
determined. As a matter of fact, we know
that from the chapter four, God intended to do this all along.
And that's what Jonah was upset with. He said, so I knew you'd
do that. I knew he was, he was upset with it, but he knew that
God intended mercy. You know, when he was sending
him to Nineveh to preach, it wasn't to condemn them. It was
to bring them under the sound of the gospel and save these
people at this time. And that's what the Lord did. Now the Lord quite often used
his language to accommodate our human weakness, stupidity, and
so on. I mean, which of us can understand
eternity? I mean, we're bound by time. We're bound by space. We can't
be two places at once. We can't see tomorrow. We're
bound. And the Lord quite often uses
language to accommodate our ignorance. And I'm thankful for that. I'm
thankful for that. But he saw their works. What was their works? Well, it
was repentance. What is repentance? It's taking sides with God against
yourself and agreeing with God. They sat down in ashes, sackcloth,
and agreed with whatever God does. We deserve it, but oh,
how we desire mercy. How we desire grace. Now, let
me say this. While God has decreed everything,
never forget this. Who can tell? Who can tell? And there's never, ever been
a sinner who came to Christ for mercy that he turned away. Never
happened. Anybody who comes to him for
mercy will be received, for sure. And there's never been anybody
that asked the Lord to show a mercy that he said no to. You, who
can tell? He's a merciful God. Jonah knew
that, and so do you and I. Okay, we'll pick up in chapter
four next week.