Diverting Disaster
Notes
Transcript
1 - Video for OCC
2 - Blank
3 - Jonah Title
The story of Jonah is narrative which is a plain and pleasant and dramatic story to tell children, but to careful adult readers is ingenious and puzzling.
Tell the story of Jonah up until this point.
Hebrew prophet who loves Israel, he’s patriotic to a fault because his patriotism lowers his opinion of other people groups.
In the first 2 chapters of this 4 chapter book Jonah is given a command from God to go to Nineveh and he fails to obey it.
Instead of traveling 500 miles east to preach repentance to prevent disaster on those non-Jewish people, he purchases an expensive ticket to board a ship traveling 2500 miles to southern Spain (Tarshish).
As he runs from the Lord’s will for his life on a cargo ship operated by pagans, God sends a great storm that gets exceedingly stronger until Jonah is labeled the culprit and tossed into the raging sea… at which time the sea calms instantly, the pagan sailers make sacrifices and worship the God of Jonah who made the land and the sea, and Jonah is gobbled up by a great fish where he would spend the next three days and nights.
Welcome to the Shark Bait Motel . . . where the rooms are free and we recommend you leave the lights off.
From that slimy pit on the edge of death God taught Jonah about Grace and Mercy - Jonah called out to God from his affliction and was vomited onto a beach.
And that’s where we pick back up today, in chapter 3 where God reminds Jonah of the mission he’s called to, which much to his dismay had not changed.
4-13 Main Passage
Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time:
“Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”
This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.
On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”
The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.
When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes.
Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all.
People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.
Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”
When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.
14 - Jonah Title
God had given Jonah a mission that Jonah ran from. Notice that when Jonah repents and returns God does not alter the message to make it more palatable to him.
As if God says to a Jonah covered in fish goo, “Well, are you ready now?”
Jonah is commanded to preach the the exact same message of repentance to the exact same evil, godless Ninevites who he both hated and feared.
Like for us today, for Jonah then, the word of God is the word of God. It is the same yesterday as it is today as it will be 1,000 years from today whether Jesus returns before then or not. He doesn’t change, we change.
CONSIDER THIS: The Word of God cannot be altered or bent to please a pampered sinner. It’s the sinner who must be altered and straightened to please God.
And in the end God will get his way. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In this life or the next every person from the homeless the slums of India to the kings and queens in palaces across Europe.
You and I might be tempted to think that Jonah is no longer qualified to be a prophet or a preacher or even a believer. And if he is allowed to remain in God’s grace his penalty should be to stand with those who barely have enough tickets for entry.
Fortunately! That’s not how God does it.
When God forgives he forgets and the person he forgives receives a new heart and a new spirit and is welcomed home back into the family. He restores them.
When God makes use of us it’s evidence that he is at peace with us. And God is making use of Jonah.
So...
Jonah’s calling is renewed and this time he obeys...
Jonah’s calling is renewed and this time he obeys...
…without arguing or running or disputing, Jonah got up and went to Nineveh.
In Nineveh he immediately began to walk the streets and announce that God’s judgement would come in 40 days if you did not repent.
Why do people repent? Repent means to turn. And the people of Nineveh from the highest to the lowest turned from their evil ways.
It’s interesting to note that Jonah’s repentance came after affliction.
Historians have pointed out that Assyria, the country where Nineveh was located, had experienced a series of famines, plagues, and revolts leading up to Jonah’s arrival.
Historians have pointed out that Assyria, the country where Nineveh was located, had experienced a series of famines, plagues, and revolts leading up to Jonah’s arrival.
So there was some affliction coming on the people.
Oftentimes for us it’s our affliction that leads us to repentance.
BUT, we all know people who go through awful pain and suffering and never turn to God.
Which is important truth to know:
Repentance is always the work of God. Paul to Timothy (young pastor)
Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth.
Revival in Korea, The Prodigal Prophet, Tim Keller pg 85-86
In January of 1907 a revival broke out at a Bible conference in Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea. Those attending the conference came under deep conviction of sin, especially when a preacher called them to repent of their tradition of hatred of the Japanese. Of course, the Korean Christians had accepted the fundamental truths of the gospel of grace, and yet these had not sunk in deeply enough for them to forgive the Japanese. They felt morally superior to a nation they saw as oppressive and cruel. In the light of the gospel, however, the Koreans at the conference saw that they stood before God as equally sinful and condemned with all other human beings, yet rescued by the sheer and costly grace of Christ. This drained away their pride and bitterness.
They returned to their homes with a new willingness to repent of wrongdoing. People went house to house repairing relationships and returning stolen articles. The worship services were filled with a new power. The result was explosive growth of the church.
How do we explain that type of repentance?
In the years leading up to the conference the hatred had grown deeper and deeper and when preacher followed the call to call it out as sin, the Holy Spirit convicted and changed the hearts of the people, because repentance always starts with God.
Has God been trying to get your attention and you’re suppressing it? You don’t have time to suppress it. You don’t have time to ignore God.
Jonah did the Ninevites a favor that most of us never get. That favor is a deadline.
You probably know that most people work harder, faster, and achieve more with a deadline.
If I did not have a weekly deadline to have a sermon ready every Saturday night at 6pm, I could spend months perfecting every minor detail to the point that I’d never be ready or willing to stand up and preach it.
How do you approach projects at work differently depending on a deadline?
Couch to 5k people sign up and pay for a 5k race many weeks before the race when they’re not in shape to run it, why? Motivation to change.
Jonah did the Ninevites a favor when he came in and said God will destroy your city in 50 days if you don’t change.
God’s grace is all over that to give space to repent, but also a deadline.
It just might wake them up. Nineveh is told they’ll live another 40 days and either repent or be destroyed. That’s all ya got.
You and I live carelessly because we think we’ll get another 30 or 40 years at least. We always think there’s more time to repent.
What if today when you arrived at church there was a 3x5 card sitting on the chair you chose, in God’s all-knowing wisdom he knew you’d be in that exact seat, and when you turned the card printed in bold Arial font it said your full name and your future date of death?
It’d be both a blessing and a curse I suppose, but mostly blessing, to know the exact day you’ll kick the bucket. A lot of possible reactions and emotions come to mind.
If it’s a far off date: Blessed to know and consider how you’re living for a while. Jump on to the Government census data to see if you’ll live a longer-than-average lifespan. Compare your date with your spouse and make some plans. Retire earlier than you originally planned. To know you’ve got 40 years and a day would bother me a little bit…but I think I’d eventually go on living how you have been?
If it’s a close date: Blessing to say goodbye to friends and family, to finish your laundry, vacuum and do all the dishes. Stop working out. Eat more pizza. Take a vacation. Empty your retirement funds and have a good time. Maybe give everything away in advance and get to see smiles on faces.
We’d be shocked to our core to be handed the date of our death ESPECIALLY if it’s less than 40 days from now, and yet since we don’t know and choose to imagine it’s far off we live carelessly. We put off knowing God. We put off loving other people.
We put off repentance.
The Ninevites were given a gift and they responded. You have 40 days to your demise. 40 days until disaster takes your city and your life by a catastrophe from the heavens you’ll be unable to run from. God had mercy on them to allow them time to get right with him.
While few of us will ever know the date of our future death, even if sick with a disease, God has mercy on us with every day he allows us prior to repentance.
High Time to Seek the Lord
High Time to Seek the Lord
My friends, while you and I don’t know how many days we have, we do know our days are numbered. That life is temporary. And receiving a date of death in the future would be a constant reminder of your mortality.
When the city of Nineveh heard of their coming disaster everyone from the lowest to the highest fasted and cried out to God for mercy. They turned form their evil in hopes that God would forgive their sins and not destroy them.
In the 17th century, Bible scholar Matthew Henry wrote this on the passage:
They must to their fasting and praying add reformation and amendment of life: Let them turn every one from his evil way, the evil way he has chosen, the evil way he is addicted to, and walks in, the evil way of his heart, and the evil way of his conversation, and particularly from the violence that is in their hands; let them restore what they had unjustly taken, and make reparation for what wrong they have done, and let them not any more oppress those they have power over nor defraud those they having dealings with; let the men in authority, at the court-end of the town, turn from the violence that is in their hands, and not decree unrighteous decrees, nor give wrong judgment upon appeals made to them. Let the men of business, at the trading-end of the town, turn from the violence in their hands, and use no unjust weights or measures, nor impose upon the ignorance or necessity of those they trade with. Note, It is not enough to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin, and, in order to the success of our prayers, must no more regard iniquity in our hearts, Ps. 66:18. This is the only fast that God has chosen and will accept, Isa. 58:6; Zec. 7:5, 9. The work of a fast-day is not done with the day; no, then the hardest and most needful part of the work begins, which is to turn from sin, and to live a new life, and not return with the dog to his vomit.
(2.) Upon what inducement this fast is proclaimed and religiously observed (v. 9). Who can tell if God will turn and repent? Observe
They must to their fasting and praying add reformation and amendment of life:
Let them turn every one from his evil way, the evil way he has chosen, the evil way he is addicted to, and walks in, the evil way of his heart, and the evil way of his conversation, and particularly from the violence that is in their hands; let them restore what they had unjustly taken, and make reparation for what wrong they have done, and let them not any more oppress those they have power over nor defraud those they having dealings with;
let the men in authority, at the court-end of the town, turn from the violence that is in their hands, and not decree unrighteous decrees, nor give wrong judgment upon appeals made to them.
Let the men of business, at the trading-end of the town, turn from the violence in their hands, and use no unjust weights or measures, nor impose upon the ignorance or necessity of those they trade with.
Note, It is not enough to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin...The work of a fast-day is not done with the day; no, then the hardest and most needful part of the work begins, which is to turn from sin, and to live a new life, and not return with the dog to his vomit.
In the same way that God’s wrath was an imminent disaster awaiting Nineveh, God’s wrath is due to us if we don’t repent of our our sins. Sins that also break the heart of God. Sins that also sent Jesus to the cross. Sins that are earning you death and hell. Sins that God can forgive and erase if you repent of them in thanks for the blood of the cross.
God has great patience for you and I in our sin, but we still have a penalty to pay unless we confess them to Jesus. He paid it all. Thanks to Jesus and the cross we can divert disaster and receive free grace.