Our scripture text this morning comes from Jonah. We are in Jonah chapter three. I'm going to begin in verse four of chapter three, and we'll read to verse two of chapter four. Jonah is on page 775 of the church Bible before you, I encourage you to follow along. Before we read it, let's go to the Lord again in prayer, asking for his blessing, father. We come to you in prayer because we need the work of your spirit among us to open up our eyes now, Lord, we come to you because we recognize that we are helpless we can do nothing apart from You. We need your Spirit to give us understanding. We need your spirit to change our hearts. We might turn from sin and turn to you, that we might turn to our Lord, Jesus Christ, and be saved. Unstop. Our deaf ears opened up, our blind eyes chisel away out our heart and hearts that we might now, by faith, receive our Lord Jesus Christ, as he's presented to us freely in your word. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's stand for the reading of God's Word.
Jonah, chapter three, beginning in verse four, reading to chapter four, verse two, Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, yet 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God.
They called out for a fast and put sackcloth. And from the greatest of them to the least of them, the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and he issued a proclamation and published it throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither a man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands, who knows God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry, and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh, Lord is not this what I said when I was yet in my country. That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. He who has ears, let him hear the Word of God, please be seated. The bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string justice bends the arrow at your heart and strains the bow. It is nothing but the mere good pleasure of God, without any promise or obligation at all that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. There's no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment, God is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly Prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to sue, to subdue a rebel who has found means to fortify himself and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God, though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves. They are easily broken in pieces. They are great heaps of light chaff before the Whirlwind, or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread and crush a worm that is that we see crawling on the earth. So it is easy for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. John 318 says, He that believeth not is condemned already. Every unconverted man properly belongs in hell. Bell, the pit is prepared. The fire is made ready. The furnace is now hot, ready to receive them. The flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is wet and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.
These are some portions of Jonathan Edwards famous sermon called sinners in the hands of an angry God. And Jonah, as we've been tracking the life and even the ministry of Jonah, has done many things wrong, hasn't he? He has not obeyed. He's not been obedient, and even when he has, he's done things with a bad attitude. But Jonah, in his preaching, absolutely gets this portion of God right. Jonah's message is yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overturned. And Jonah, I'm sure, is delighted to let the Ninevites know that God is just, that God is holy, that God will punish sin, and He must punish sin. And as you know, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Are you a sinner? Have you broken God's law? Is not your sin before the face of the Lord this morning, as it was the Ninevites, your sin is no different, your sins, your lust, your comforts, your pride, have all come before the Lord this morning, who has Exodus or 34 tells us who will, by no means clear, the guilty. What will you do? Is there any hope? The purpose of my sermon is to tell you that there is hope, there is hope, but our hope is not found in us. It's not found in me.
It's not found in any other but the Lord Jesus, Christ and our hope is found actually in God alone, who changes, not which guarantees that he will save, that he has promised to save, and he will save and change us by the power of his Spirit, as we rest on Christ alone, and that is our hope. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
What do many people what do many people think of such a message, or even in those words that I read from Jonathan Edwards of his sermon about the justice and holiness and the wrath of God, I think most think I have a better plan. I have a better religion.
I have a better mind. I'm smarter. I know better. I have a better conscience. I'm better, and many, and maybe even some of you here have heard such a warning, but yet you continue to think peace and safety, but then destruction will come upon you as you stand before the wrath of the Lamb. And I think as we come to our text is, what do we expect the Ninevites to do when Jonah has brought them this message? I think we certainly expect them to not only reject that message of God's justice, but they even put Jonah to death. That's what I would have been expecting. The Ninevites hate the Israelites. They hate God, and I would have not only expect them to say, you're out of your mind. We don't want to hear it, but to actually put Jonah to death. And as you know, the Ninevites were known for their violent behavior. But what do the people of Nineveh do?
They do the only thing that actually truly makes sense, when someone is presented with the justice and holiness of God, they repent.
And what is repentance? Well, you might even remember, because we just read it and you read it together, and I'll remind us, repentance unto life is a saving grace wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby out of the sight and sense not only of the danger but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sin and upon.
Apprehension of God's mercy in Christ to such as our penitent, he so grieves for and hates his sins and is that he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with Him in all the ways of new obedience. And if you look at our text, and the people of Nineveh believe God, and we looked at last week, how that is the greatest miracle that occurs in in Jonah. When people think of Jonah, they think of big fish and whale and swallowing that that man. And how is that possible? What an incredible miracle. But the incredible miracle is that the people of Nineveh hear somewhat of a deficient sermon, and yet they believe God. And they turn and they repent, and it says in the people of Nineveh believe God.
They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, remove, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and he issued a proclamation published throughout Nineveh by the Cree of the king and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands again, putting on that sackcloth and ashes and showing the seriousness of their sins and what they've done, and they even get their animals involved.
Remember, remembering that their animals would have the same fate as they would. That's does that seem silly? It might seem a little silly. They put sackcloth on an animal, right? But their Prophet didn't tell them what to do. Their Prophet didn't tell them how to repent or how to respond. And it might seem silly, but again, it only seems silly because we might not have the fear of God that we ought to have. It might seem silly because we have no sense of God in His true holiness, and it's not a mere external act that they are doing. There's no just tricking God by doing external stuff. The king calls out and commands the people to turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.
And God calls us, the great king calls us to repent, not withholding food from our pets or dogs and cats. Maybe you can withhold from the cats more of a dog guy, but no feed your animals. But we respond by turning from our sin and turning to God, and that's what repentance is. Is always turning from sin to God. It's always turning to God. If you turn from your sin and you turn to some other self help, if you turn to some other sin and some other comfort, it's not repentance.
Repentance is always turning to God, turning to God, turning to God. And that is what we are called to do too. We are to change, and this text is a reminder to us that we must seek to change our hearts. And change is something that we're familiar with. Change happens to all of us as humans. And some people like change, other people push it away. But change is common to all of us, whether you like it or not, we are changing.
Sometimes we change slow talk to some of our older saints, and they can tell you how their bodies have changed over time, and they have changed from less doctor's appointments to more doctor's appointments. But sometimes change happens very quickly in our lives. How quickly does a mother's attitude in childbirth go from pain and sorrow to joy and gladness? How quickly do men turn from hungry and angry to then being fed and happy? Or how quickly does a child goes from tears from a fall to then dancing as soon as Baby shark comes on? Now get that out of your mind. But we change, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But one of the things I think our text makes us ask is it's clear to us that we change.
We're constantly changing. We're constantly interacting with each other, and that causes us to change. It's how someone interacts with me, even. This morning, I might say something different, or my mood might change. But does God change?
Does God have good days and bad days, and those affect his mood of whether he's happy or whether he's angry? Verse nine, it seems that the king doesn't seem to know who knows God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish?
Remember, Jonah's sermon. Didn't ask or didn't, didn't present them with a lot more information about God, and Jonah certainly didn't stick around Nineveh to find out how the Ninevites were going to respond to His message.
He's not there to answer questions, so they don't know if God will change. If we change, will God change his heart? If we change our hearts? And then in verse 10, when God saw what they did as they seek to repent, how they turn from their evil ways.
God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he didn't do it. And even in the the King James Version, it doesn't say relent.
It actually says repent, but repentance implies sin, so certainly God isn't repenting.
God is sinless. So that's don't father King James there. But what about relenting or changing his mind? Can God do that? And there are other places in the Scripture that that talk about this, and God regretting, or God relenting. In First Samuel chapter 15, it talks about, I regretted that I made Saul king.
And then just a few verses later, in verse 15, chapter 29 it says, For He's not a man that he should have regret. Well, is this just one of those contradictions in scriptures that we're just not going to talk about and just everything just, we'll just put our faith and we'll just we don't want to figure that out. No, this is not a contradiction at all. And I think actually First Samuel, chapter 15, is helpful to us, because it's reminding us that God is not a man like we are.
And why is that important?
Because there is language in the Bible that we have just read, in Jonah, that we see in First Samuel, that talks about God regretting or relenting. And this is what we call anthropomorphism. It's attributing to God who is not a man, man like characteristics to help us understand God and His works, and we often see that in physical attributes, when it talks about the hand of God or the face of God, or the eyes of God, but God is a Spirit. He doesn't have a body like we are, but yet, we see physical attributes attributed and given to God. But we that also happens with our emotions too, such as jealousy or remorse. This is what that theologian John Calvin said, this is God speaking baby talk to us that he accommodates communicating with us who are spirit and body, who are finite and who are changeable creatures to help us understand God in a better way. God is eternal. His decisions are not made in space and time like ours are. God is and will always be, and so are all of his plans and purposes and decisions. There wasn't a time in eternity that God then decided, You know what, I think I'm going to create the Earth.
God's eternal. And that hurts our minds, because we are creatures in time. There wasn't a time in eternity that God said. I'm going to redeem a fallen people for myself. God's eternal. God is outside of time.
And who is God? You might remember it from the Catechism.
God is a Spirit infinite, eternal and unchangeable, right?
So God is unchangeable.
We are always changing. We are always adjusting, but God is never changing. God is also perfect, and which would imply, if you change from perfection, well, you're no longer perfect.
That would imply imperfection.
Malachi three, six tells us very bluntly, For I the Lord, do not change, therefore you O children of Jacob are not consumed. And this is actually where our hope is found in a God that doesn't change. If I was like God and I have decided to save people like myself, I think I might lose my patience. I think after a decision to save someone like me, after a few times of asking for forgiveness for the same thing. Over and over and over again. If I'm like God, I'm gonna say I take it all back. No more No more salvation. But thankfully, our God doesn't change, and he is faithful to His word that God is not controlled by his circumstances.
God is not controlled by unexpected situations or sinners or surprises. God is never reacting to anything. He's over all things. There's no surprising events to him. In Jonah, God is not waiting as Jonah is sinking down into the water. And say, Jonah, I really, I'm hoping that you call upon my name so I can send this fish. I really want to, but unless you i I'm just waiting. I don't know what's going to happen here.
Same thing when, when Jonah goes into Nineveh, God, isn't just ringing his hands together and say, Man, I really, it wasn't a very good message. It wasn't very good but i i Maybe there's enough that they could still repent. I don't know. We're just going to have to wait and see what's going to happen at these 40 days. So I'll be patient and I'll wait to just find out. No God knows. He knows all things he rules over, all things. God knew that Jonah would run, but God knew that Jonah would cry out, and God knew that he would save Jonah. God knew the Ninevites would do evil, even great evil, but he knew that they would cry out, and he knew that he would deliver them also too, if God does change, salvation ultimately, is not from the Lord, which is really the main theme of Jonah, that salvation is from God alone, not us. But if salvation, if God does change, then it's we might say, well, salvation is mostly up to God, but there's a little bit of us that we still have to convince God to change from Wrath to mercy towards us. We still gotta, we still have to convince him to do that. And so salvation is maybe a lot about God, but some about us still.
And that's not the point of Jonah at all. It's salvation is from God alone. We read first John one nine, if you remember, it says, If we confess our sins, he might forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You remember that? Remember we because we didn't read that? Did we? What does it saying that he is faithful and that he is just to forgive and thank God that He does not change Romans 10, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord has a possibility and an opportunity to be saved.
Is that what it says will be saved, and thank God that he doesn't change. The sailors are sinking down. They cry out and are saved. Jonah, sinking down, he cries out and is saved. The Ninevites are threatened with judgment and death, and they cry out and are saved. And what can you do this morning with the threat of judgment upon you? Cry out and be saved. We thank God that He does not change.
Salvation is of the Lord. That's another thing too. Is because it's of the Lord. I won't lose it. I will ebb and flow. I will ebb and flow in my repentance. I will ebb and flow in my faith.
But Romans eight even reminds us that there is nothing in all of creation, not even myself, that can separate me from the love of God. So my fear isn't that one day, maybe my faith is strong, and then the next day, my faith is weak, and I just don't know what God will do on that day when my life is taken, He is faithful, and nothing can separate us from His love.
Imagine Jonah in his sermon included the words of Joel chapter two. Yet even now declares the Lord, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and mourning And rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, and that's what the Ninevites do. But then listen to what God says, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love, and he relents over disaster and. The King would have loved to have known that and how to know how to respond. But by the God's mercy, God works repentance in the Ninevites hearts. And then we turn to chapter four. Why does Jonah get angry? And Jonah gets angry. It's not because God has changed his mind. Jonah gets angry, not because God has changed. Jonah actually gets angry because God doesn't change. It's because God doesn't change that he gets angry because what does he said? What does he say? I knew it. I knew you are our gracious God. I knew you were merciful. I knew you were slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. I knew it, and I'm angry because you don't change. I want a disaster for the repentant. Jonah knew that even if he preached a little bit, even from a cold heart, that God would be pleased to show mercy to the repentant. And it says it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And many of you might even have a little note in your Bibles, because it's an kind of an understatement, a note that says it was exceedingly evil to Jonah. Jonah is saying, God, it was wrong of you. God, you should repent of what you did. You see what, how Jonah is calling what God's good act, something evil. That's what Jonah is at doing here. Jonah doesn't want grace. Jonah wants them gone now, the Assyrians over the next course of the the next 10 years, I the nation will revert back to their evil ways, and they will do horrific things to Israel and drag them into exile. And the life of Jonah and the life of the Israelites would for sure, have been so much better and calm and comfortable if the Ninevites weren't around anymore, but God's purpose is for Israel and for Jonah, and even for you, is not a life of comfort and ease. What's the will of God for your life, your sanctification, to die, to sin and to live on the righteousness in Christ and that change in us, to make us more like Christ, as much as it pains us, God is going to deal with our hearts.
But Jonah is angry at God. He thinks that he knows better than God. I wish I could say that I'm not like Jonah in these things.
And maybe you wish you could say you're like Jonah too. But I ask, have you ever been disappointed with God's will for your life? Have you ever been angry at what God was doing in your life? Have you only not felt that God needs to relent, but to repent of his deeds in your life, and that I want wrath rather than Grace brought down?
Are you two like Jonah who, in just the previous chapter, in chapter two, we're celebrating the grace of God upon us, but in the very next demanding justice on others. Is there someone who could walk into this church today seeking God's grace, and it would make you very uncomfortable.
How quickly do we who celebrate the grace of God, can easily turn to legalistic and self righteous people, just like the older brother. Remember in the parable of the prodigal son. He doesn't deserve it, God, and I've never isn't how quickly we turn from our sins and we rest in Christ, and we're celebrating and singing, but we turn right back to that kind of legalistic and self righteous attitude, and Jonah sees the Ninevites as very different from himself. They don't deserve it. Thank you, Lord for saving me, but they don't deserve it. What we see is that the greatest danger to my life. Faith is not external, but internal. It's me. The greatest danger to our church is not out there. The greatest danger to our us and our church is right here. It's us if we become okay with legalism, if we're okay with being self righteous and not constantly and Living out our lives daily in repentance and faith, daily, turning from our sins, daily, turning to Christ that we would repent, that we would change. Imagine the message, and in many ways, this is the message, 40 days in Tampa will be destroyed. If you remember, last week we looked at that number, 40 was a picture, and we see this in other parts of Scripture, a period of time of preparation. We see Jesus in the desert for 40 days, the rain falling on the earth and the floods for 40 days. It's a period of preparation, but it's also a set, fixed period of time. And you are right now, within that 40 day period, you're in this period of preparation, and there's a day to come that the judge will arrive, and it's guaranteed that He will come again to judge the living and the dead. It is more guaranteed than the sun rising this morning that he will come to judge, and on that day, the ninevite men will rise up against us and this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and as Jesus said, And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. You have something much greater than Jonah. You have the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the better Prophet in every, every, every way than Jonah, who was obedient even to the point of death, where Jonah would run, who was a compassionate and pleading, where Jonah had coldness in his heart, who Jesus even would lay his down, his life down willingly for yours, that you might have life, And he gives you a clearer and a better message that if you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved, that you have a better word, even as the Apostle Paul tells his younger son in the faith Timothy, the saying is deserving, is true and deserving of full acceptance that Christ, Jesus, came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Are you like someone more like the Ninevites in that younger brother type and just freely running from God in your sins? Well, if you call upon the name of the Lord this day, you will be saved. Are you more like the Jonah and the older brother type and the self righteous legalistic that your sins are like Scarlet. You call upon the name of the Lord, you will be made as white as snow. I'll end with just another little excerpt of Jonathan Edwards sermon, he says, Oh sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to sing it and burn it asunder. And you have nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you one moment and now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the Door of Mercy wide open and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming in from the east, west, north and south.
Many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in. Are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful it is to be left behind at such a day to see so many others feasting while you are pining and perishing, to see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have caused a mourn, for sorrow of heart and how for vexation of spirit. How can you rest one moment in such a condition you. Let this day be the day of your salvation. Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Let's pray, Lord we, thank you that you are just. We, thank you also that you are a God of mercy. We, thank you that you are a God that does not change, that you simply call us to come to you and you turn from the wrath and give us grace upon grace upon grace. Lord, help us to consider our condition apart from your grace. Help us to consider our condition apart from Christ, and let us be repentant. Help us to change, to turn from our sins in this world and to turn to Christ. Lord, be merciful. We plead, we pray. It's in Jesus's name. Amen.