Sermon Tone Analysis

*Jonah 3.*

*A second chance [v.1, 2]* Jonah, the wayward prophet ....

I don't suppose any of you have ever been wayward, but I have – in fact many a time.

I went away from the LORD for many years.

Have you ever known, as Jonah did, the LORD's dealings in your life – His severity, chastening, overwhelming kindness, His grace – undeserved goodness and mercy?

God doesn't give up on His servants, those He has called – the word of  hwhy came a second time.

Do you feel like you've blown it?

Let the LORD down?

He is the God of the second chance, the word of hwhy came a second time [Noel – met a man at a funeral a few years ago – gifted, greatly used of God – been through two broken marriages, he said it had to be two because the first time he could blame his wife, second time he knew he was the problem – a broken man.

But the work of the LORD came a second time and called him back to serve Him].

But note what hwhy said the second time (cf.

1:2) – exactly the same thing as the first time.

We can debate, disobey, run away, avoid the issue but God's word to us doesn't change – it is we who must.

We can resist God and go all around the mountain but when we come back to God His requirement is still the same.

We don't move on until we OBEY.

[*1 Samuel 15:22*/ “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams./] - we can have all sorts of religious devotion and ardour but God waits until we do what He has told us to.

We may not like it, and can delay it, but eventually we will have to do it, it cannot be avoided.

We will not progress until we have obeyed God’s command.

We come back to the very same place and have another go - are we going to do it this time?

He told me to be baptised – 10 years wasted until I finally gave in and obeyed.

The requirement hadn't changed.

God just waited – what a waste of years!

But when I obeyed, Oh the blessing – after being spiritually stagnant things suddenly and dramatically happened.

As one who has been there, I appeal to you don't delay obeying.

Jonah had messed up, deliberately and willfully disregarded hwhy’s command, ran away from God - now he had been saved and brought back to God - but surely he was not to be entrusted with hwhy’s message - he was unreliable, a failure.

Not so in hwhy’s eyes.

The word of hwhy came to Jonah a second time!

Hallelujah!

God is the God of the second chance!

We let Him down, sin, disobey, rebel, but still He lovingly restores and gives us a second chance.

Jonah was still a prophet - still the word ofhwhy came to him.

Jonah was given strict orders to preach only the message that hwhy told him - no ad-libbing.

A prophet’s task is to faithfully pass on what he has heard hwhy speak to him.

It is not his message but the words of hwhy.

We may go our own way but God’s requirement for us remains unchanged.

*An ultimatum [v.3, 4] *not only did Jonah turn back to the LORD but he was called to share his experience and call the Ninevites to turn to God.

What did Jonah do?

He OBEYED who would want to go through what he just had, a second time?! – that is what hwhy is looking for.

hwhy said "Arise!" - he arose.

hwhy said "Go to Nineveh!" - Jonah went to Nineveh.

"*According to the word of **hwhy*" - that is the key!

May we do so - just as hwhy has said Live according to the word of hwhy.

What strife we save ourselves if we do this.

Jonah went to Nineveh and preached.

- he didn't have the message, further revelation would be given when he obeyed and went.

Verse 3 should read, "Now Nineveh was an extremely large city requiring three days' travel."

That is, to go around the complex of suburbs that made up the great metropolis required three days.

Nineveh was indeed an exceedingly great city, circumference of 8 miles - the capital of the world (at that time) - infants alone numbered 120,000 (cf.

4:11) The long buried and forgotten city has amazed the archaeologist in its resurrection from dust since 1843.

It was a complex of cities like modern New York, including Calah to the south, Resen between Calah and Nineveh proper, and Rehoboth-Ir (Rebit-Ninua) west of the capital.

Jonah had only covered 1~/3 of the city.

One day's preaching but what an effect!

What did he preach?

- exactly what hwhy told him to, the message that he was given.

Jonah went and preached, not dispassionately but as one who had experienced the message:  hwhy's judgement first hand, and His mercy, loving-kindness and salvation.

The message that Jonah was given was an ultimatum "Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed!"

- where is mercy?

Where is the "come to Jesus and He will fix up all your problems?

There is no mention of mercy or God will save you, God loves you.

It was a message of imminent judgement!

The judgement looming over them is nothing compared to the final judgement that is yet to come!

But do we hear anyone preach a message like this?

We lament the lack of response to the Gospel today.

There were times when many turned to the LORD, revival times: the great awakening, the Welsh and Hebridean revivals; preachers like Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, John Wesley, Whitefield - do you know what they preached?

- sin and judgement.

What does the Holy Spirit do? - convict of sin, righteousness and judgement.

Do we warn of the coming destruction?

We are like Jonah, we run in the other direction.

What would you do if you knew that you only had 40 more days .... then the end?!

How differently would you live?

What would your response to God be?

What a sorting out and straightening out of my life there would be!

In fact the city wasn’t overthrown - does this mean that God’s word was false - no, rather it demonstrates the conditional nature of His promises (cf.*

Jeremiah 18:7-10* /At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.

Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it./).

But the word was fulfilled, for the word (Jph) not only means "to be destroyed" but "to be overturned" - and the city was overturned from its sinful ways; and also "to change one’s self" - and change themselves is what the city of Nineveh did.

Their response to Jonah’s preaching was REPENTANCE (v.5-10).

It is ironic that Jonah received such a response to his preaching from these heathen Gentiles that his message never received in hard-hearted Israel - this is prophetic of the Gentiles responding to the Gospel, the message of Him who had spent three days in the belly of the earth, when the Jews (in general) rejected the Good News.

*Repent and believe [v.5]*

The Ninevites took the message seriously - they responded.

They /believed/, took the message as being true, as being from God - that is what faith is.

They turned around their behaviour - that is what repentance is.

This is the pattern seen in the Gospels and Acts  there are two steps to salvation: repent and believe.

They stopped what they were doing, stopped carrying on the way they were and sought God seriously and earnestly.

The people of Nineveh were cut to the core - this was no mere lip service!

They were utterly genuine, distressed by their evil and the calamity that they were sure was impending.

This was not going to a meeting and reading the Bible - this was desperation!

They didn’t eat, they went around in mourning.

They weren’t expecting a reprieve; they were just genuinely grieved by their own sinfulness and disregard of God.

The response was universal - put on sack-cloth - a sign of mourning, of deep distress - they were genuinely grieved by their sin.

Am I? (cf.

* Matthew 5:4 */Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted./).

They made a serious and desperate plea to God to acknowledge that they were utterly wrong.

Nineveh responded to the word of hwhy - they *believed* - this is the precondition for salvation.

They believed in God - not in hwhy - in covenant, personal, relationship, but in the One God, the Almighty, over all, Sovereign, Creator.

hwhy noted their response and was pleased with it - faith pleases God (cf.

Heb 11:6).

Their repentance delighted God, He remembered it many centuries later and cited it as an example (cf.

*Matthew 12:41*/The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here./).