Lessons From Jonah (#3) - static1.1.sqspcdn.com

LESSONS FROM JONAH (#3)

Well, we are in the third week of our series in the Book of Jonah. Let’s just recap what’s
been going on in the life of this runaway prophet. Jonah was a prophet of God who disobeyed
God. Jonah 1:1 says that, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai and said, ‘Go
to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before
me.’”

Now, remember, the people of Nineveh, which was the capital city of the Assyrian
empire, were so horribly wicked, it’s difficult to describe. When they captured a city, they would
rape the women and kill them—they would even murder the children—and, they would take
the men and actually skin them alive! They were horrible, nasty people!

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to them, but Jonah, instead, hopped on a
boat going in the opposite direction! He said, “I don’t want anything to do with those horrible
people!” Well, God sent a huge storm and the boat Jonah was in was about to break up. So
Jonah admitted, “It’s my fault. Throw me overboard.” The sailors finally did throw him
overboard, and scripture says that the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah up! He
spent three days and three nights in the belly of that fish. And last week we examined his
prayer of repentance and coming back to obedience to God.

We know that big fish threw Jonah up on shore—and that where we pick up the story
today—where we are going to see one of the most beautiful pictures of grace—the grace of
God shown to one who did not deserve it. Let’s start at Jonah, chapter three, verse one.
Here’s what it says, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” The one who
did not deserve a second chance, got a second chance from God! A lot of people won’t give
people a second chance. That’s the way a lot of us are, but God is a God of second chances!

Maybe you have been in fellowship with God, but you’ve been disobedient. And today,
hopefully, you will say, “You know what, I’m coming back to God! I’m going to do what He
called me to do. God is coming to me a second time, and I’m going to obey Him!” I’m praying
that there are going to be those of you who are going to experience the grace of God all over
again today! God does that! He gives up a second chance—and a third, and a fourth—have
you found that out? God clears the slate and lets us start over. We don’t deserve the grace of
God. It’s a gift!

In verse two, God says, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message I
give you.” That word ‘go’ means ‘go now!’ He’s not just saying, “Go at your convenience—go
sometime.” He’s saying, “Go immediately!” Whenever God comes to us a second time and
gives us another chance, our response should be to ‘GO NOW!’ Ours’ should be a response
that says, “Yes, Lord—yes, immediately!”

If we listen to the Spirit of god, we may recognize there is something that God wants us
to do—to reach out to someone, or to apologize to someone, or to repent of some sin, or to go
make something right. When we hear the Spirit’s voice, we need to do what He is saying

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immediately! Don’t let the sun go down before you do everything you can to obey what God is
saying! When He says, “Go now” we need to pick up everything and go now, just like Jonah
was to pick up everything and go NOW to Nineveh and proclaim the message that God was to
give him.

You might wonder, why did God call Nineveh ‘great?’ After all, that city was filled with
some pretty horrible people! He called it ‘great’ because it was great in influence. It was great
in power. It was an ancient population of about 120,000 people, and it was kind of like the
cultural epicenter, if you will. God was telling Jonah, “Go immediately to these people that you
despise. Do what you do not want to do. Go now and proclaim the message that I am going
to give to you.”

Now, in verse three we see that Jonah got it right this time! Scripture says, “Jonah
obeyed the word of the Lord.” In the past, he did not. In the past, some of us haven’t either!
This time, for Jonah, it was, “Yes, God. You tell me to do it, I’ll go. You tell me to speak, I’ll
speak. You tell me to give, I’ll give. You tell me to love, I’ll love. You tell me to do whatever,
my answer is ‘yes!’” Skipping down to verse four, check this out: The Bible says, “On the first
day, Jonah started into the city.” The word ‘started’ means to ‘untie’ or to ‘loosen’ so that you
can go.

If you may remember, last week we looked at the verse that said those who cling to
worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. What he did, in order to start in the
direction that God wanted him to go—he had to release that which he was holding on to. He
had to untie himself from the idols, so that he could do exactly what God had called him to do.

Maybe, this morning, YOU’RE going to need to untie yourself, unravel yourself, and let
go of something so you can do what God calls you to do. I don’t know what that might be for
you, but could it be that you are holding on to self-will? Are you saying, “I’m going to do what I
want to do no matter what?” It could be that you are holding on to a sense of financial security
or control. It could be that you are holding on to your reputation, what other people think of
you. “If I do what I think God wants me to do, they’re going to think I’ve lost it!”

We have to let go of control, because we like to be in control! What is it that you’re
holding on to? Until you let go, you can never do what God wants you to do. Jonah
STARTED. He let go, and he moved forward. Maybe he’s thinking, “Okay, I’m going to have
to preach a message to these people, who are probably going to kill me!” He’s probably
thinking, “Okay, what kind of sermon am I going to preach that’s going to make them happy?
Maybe I could do my old, good three-point sermon, three steps to a happy life!” But that
wasn’t what God had in mind. Jonah did nothing of the sort!

He’s scared to death, but he preaches what God tells him to preach. Scripture says,
“He proclaimed, forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!” His message was short. It
was direct, and it was offensive! Forty days and you will be overturned! The word overturned
in the Hebrew language had a double meaning. This word can either mean overturned and

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destroyed, or it can mean overturned and changed! In other words, “Forty days and you will
be either destroyed or you will be forever changed. What’s it going to be?”

God’s mercy is a limited time offer. You don’t have forever. You don’t even have a
promise of tomorrow! The mercy of God is a limited time offer. “Forty days and you will be
destroyed, or forty days and you will be changed forever!” Some of you may be on day thirty-
nine! Time’s ticking! You don’t have forever to turn to Him! Jonah preached this message
with boldness and with passion!

Then in verse five, we read, “The Ninivites believed God.” Notice, it doesn’t say they
believed Jonah—they believed God! What GOD says, we better listen to! “They believed
God, they declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” I’m
sure others would have been tempted to say, “No way! No way the Ninevites turn to God!”

That would be like me saying, “Howard Stern is not in Christian radio, and he has a talk show
about sexual purity!” Or, it would be like me saying, “Tom Cruse is now a Christian evangelist
—or Paris Hilton is a Gospel singer!” It would be like someone saying, “All of Hollywood are
now followers of Jesus!” Or “They have changed the Vegas strip so that it is now a place for
worshiping Jesus and giving to the poor!”

Have you really taken in what happened in Nineveh? They fasted—which is a symbol
of humility and repentance and a desire to see and to hear from God. They put on sackcloth—
which is the most miserable, itchy, burlap type of stuff. And they’re saying, “We repent! We
are not even worthy to be in normal clothes.”

Then look at verses 6 through 9: “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose
from his throne, he took off his royal robes, and he covered himself with sackcloth and sat
down in the dust.” The king is saying, “I am unworthy. I am a sinner. I need forgiveness from
God!” Then in verse 7 He issued a proclamation to Nineveh and he said, “By the decree of the
king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast or herd or flock taste anything; do not let
them even eat or drink.” He was saying, “Not only are you going to fast from food, but you are
not drinking anything, either. And not only are you fasting from food and from drink, but the
animals are going to fast as well. We are all going to fast.” Why? Verse 8 says, “But let man
and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God.”

The king was saying, “ Let us call urgently, with passion let us call on God in humble
repentance. Give up your evil ways and your violence. Change—not just with your words, but
with your actions!” That’s what repentance is, isn’t it? Stop doing what we have been doing
and do what God calls us to do. Then in verse 9 the king says, “Who knows? God may yet
relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish!” In other
words, ‘who knows? God might give us a second chance! God might have mercy on us!’

In our pain, we can call out to God—and we need to call urgently! What about our
spiritual condition this morning? What about the spiritual condition of our church? Are we
guilty of just coming to church and then going about life the way we want? Do we need to
repent for our self-centered, materialistic lives? Do we need to repent of any sin—of any

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ungodliness? My prayer this morning is that every one of us who call ourselves Christians—
every one of us who call Lakeland Assembly our church home—would truly be Christ-like—that
we would be different from the world around us. Do we need to call on God this morning?
Maybe it needs to start with me—maybe it needs to start with you! Either Jesus is who He
says he is, or this is all a big joke. And if he is who he says he is—which is Lord of all—we
should take up our crosses and we should follow him!

So—Jonah comes out preaching fire—and the Ninevites, the people who were farthest
from God, said, “We are going to turn to God!” There are those that most people say, “They
are so far from God, they’d never come to God!” And yet, inside, those same people may be
so close! Sometimes those who appear the farthest away are actually the closest! The
Ninevites repent! Here we see the grace of God! In verse one, God showed Jonah grace. In

verse 10, we see God show Nineveh grace—just as I believe God wants to show each one of
us grace today! When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He
had compassion and he did not bring upon them the destruction that He had threatened. God
gave them a second chance!

God HAS given—and I believe IS giving—us all a second chance today. My prayer
today is that we won’t just be a people that have ‘come’ to Christ, but that we will be people
who are growing up in Christ—becoming like Christ! My prayer is that we will not be people
who GO to church, but that we will BE the church! Do we need to repent today? My guess is
that we ALL need to repent—to turn to God completely—and then watch as He does more in
us and through us than we could ever imagine!

Let me pray with you this morning: “God, we repent of all of our sin that would break
Your heart. God, give us a fire and a passion to be Jesus in this world—to love recklessly, to
give generously. God, have mercy on us!”

I want you to think about something that you may be holding on to—that you need to let
go of so that you can do what God wants you to do. Maybe you are holding on to some sin.
Maybe you are holding on to what others think about you. Maybe you are holding on to some
relationship that you know is not God’s will for you. Are you willing to let go of whatever it is
that is keeping you from doing everything that God wants you to do?

Are you willing to say, “There is something I need to repent of—there is something I
need to let go of. I want to follow God full speed! I want to obey Him! I want to do everything
that God wants me to do. I want another chance! I want to make a difference! I want to let go
of everything that is keeping me from following Him fully?”

Let’s pray again: “God, I pray that You would stir us up! God, break our hearts for our
own ungodliness. Forgive us for our sins. Forgive us as a church for the things that we’ve

failed You in, God. Stir us as individuals. Stir me as the leader. Empower us to let go of
anything that keeps us from doing everything that You want us to do.”

Maybe, this morning, you need a spiritual ‘do over.’ You need God’s grace. You need
His compassion. You need His second chance, because you have walked away from Him.

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Scripture says, “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!” Maybe you realize
you need a second chance. You need a new beginning. AS you call on the name of the Lord,
scripture says all of your sins will be forgiven as if you’ve never, ever sinned before! You will
be brand new! This isn’t a half-hearted, little prayer I pray and then go on with my life. It’s a
full-blown commitment. Jesus, from this moment on, I want my life to count for You!

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