SPEAKER_01: The sermon series on the Book of Jonah by founding Pastor Stephen R.
SPEAKER_01: Martins is brought to you by Sevilla Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Grace and Peace to your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: I think uh I just thought maybe a microphone had fallen back there, but thankfully not.
SPEAKER_00: If you're watching online or visiting for the first time, welcome to Sevilla Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: If you're with us last week, you'll remember that Pastor Lawrence uh had a health scare, and uh for that reason he was not available to preach uh last Sunday and that he was in the still in the process of recovering.
SPEAKER_00: But for those of you who were at our volunteer appreciation event yesterday, you will have noticed that he is now back to full health.
SPEAKER_00: God has restored him and he is very thankful uh for our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And it just so happens that this morning he is scheduled to preach at Rosedale Baptist Church, and so he sends his love, he sends his greetings, and uh he regrets not being able to be here, but he will be here next week to continue in uh Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning we're returning to the book of Jonah, where we had last left off.
SPEAKER_00: And before we examine the third chapter together, given that it has been some time, it's worth taking a brief moment just to review where we've been thus far.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you were with us last Sunday, you'll know that because of the last-minute change in the preaching schedule, uh I did not tackle Jonah chapter three.
SPEAKER_00: I instead adapted one of my lectures into a sermon based on the men of Issachar, who uh understood the times what God's people ought to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that long break that we've had from Jonah, it's just worth having a brief review.
SPEAKER_00: And so in Jonah chapter one, because we had looked at the first two chapters, in Jonah chapter one, we read of the Lord speaking to Jonah, specifically the word of the Lord that came to God's prophet, Jonah, the son of Amitai, one of the twelve minor prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And he was commanded to go to the city of Nineveh, the great city, in fact, as it's mentioned in the text.
SPEAKER_00: And this great message that he was to deliver to this great city was to be a message of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Yet Jonah disobeyed, and he fled in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of going to Nineveh, he instead boarded a ship to Tarshish, a Phoenician port off the coast of Spain, thinking that he could flee from God.
SPEAKER_00: But as we read in that text, the Lord sent a great tempest upon the sea.
SPEAKER_00: It was a great tempest beyond anything that the mariners were accustomed to.
SPEAKER_00: And when it was revealed that Jonah was the cause of the calamity, that this all had descended upon them because of him, the pagan sailors were forced to cast him overboard.
SPEAKER_00: And upon witnessing their physical deliverance through the calming of the storm, the sailors came to saving faith, offering sacrifices and making vows unto the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they had forsaken their false gods, their idolatry, and they had turned to the true God.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Jonah, who believed his life had come to an end as he was sinking in the sea, was miraculously delivered by a Dagadol, as the Hebrew says, a great sea creature.
SPEAKER_00: And it was from within this Dagadol that he cried out unto the Lord in a psalm of thanksgiving, which we find recorded in Jonah chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We had looked at that.
SPEAKER_00: We took about two Sundays to look at Jonah chapter 2, that psalm of thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a psalm that magnifies the mercy of God and also makes evident the repentance of God's servant, Jonah, the son of Amitai.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is what we have seen from chapter 1 to chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And at the conclusion of that second chapter, we're told that after three days and three nights in the belly of the Dagadol, Jonah was vomited back onto dry land, given, in essence, a second opportunity to serve the Lord faithfully as his prophet.
SPEAKER_00: So he was restored to his office as a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: He was restored to the land of the living, he was restored before God.
SPEAKER_00: And from the first chapter to the second, it could be said that what we have seen thus far has been a prevailing theme of the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: The mercy of God from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_00: And we're about to see it once again here in the third chapter to which we now turn.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are several ways in which we could divide this third chapter that we have with us this morning, but the most natural approach is to divide it into three sections.
SPEAKER_00: The first section would encompass about verses one to five, so the first five verses.
SPEAKER_00: The second section would be six to nine, and the third section consists of just that one last verse, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to begin first with the first section, verses one to five, and work our way through to the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Just want to read that section again.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.
SPEAKER_00: So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breath.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of Nineveh believed God.
SPEAKER_00: They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to just consider for a moment how the opening two verses of this chapter are phrased.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're nearly identical to the way the book of Jonah actually begins.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jonah chapter 1, verse 1, and you compare it here.
SPEAKER_00: And it says almost as though the events of Jonah chapter 1 and 2 had never really happened, it never occurred.
SPEAKER_00: Except for the fact that the text tells us that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
SPEAKER_00: And what does this show us exactly?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if we want to just take a moment here, first it shows us that what God has forgiven has truly been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not being continually brought back to the forefront.
SPEAKER_00: Our sins, once forgiven by God, once we have been covered by the grace of God and forgiven in Christ Jesus, are left in the past and they're not endlessly dragged before us again.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very comforting thought that we see here reflected in this text.
SPEAKER_00: We're not haunted by our forgiven sins, in the sense that God no longer holds them against us.
SPEAKER_00: They've been dealt with, they've been forgiven, they have been resolved.
SPEAKER_00: They've been dealt with through the sacrificial death of his son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His blood shed on the cross was more than enough.
SPEAKER_00: And though Christ's atoning work hadn't yet occurred within the unfolding biblical narrative of Jonah, it's still a ways off.
SPEAKER_00: We nevertheless see that God here in the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There is a very common tendency in the West, particularly, to divide the two, the Old and the New Testament, beyond the fact of the covenants, but more so in terms of, well, we seem to see a different character of God in the New than we do in the Old.
SPEAKER_00: And there's often a pitting against the two characters of God in the two testaments.
SPEAKER_00: Some would say that God is a moral monster in the Old Testament or just excessively harsh and cruel, whereas he is very loving, merciful, and gracious in the new.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not actually the case.
SPEAKER_00: And a careful study of scripture from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, reveals that God is the same in the old as he is in the new.
SPEAKER_00: There is no change of character, there is no change of nature.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see here is a reflection of what we would expect to see in the New Testament, and it's reflected here in the old.
SPEAKER_00: But what we can say is that we're reading the old under the light of the new.
SPEAKER_00: So we see here the beautiful image of Christ, the forgiveness that we have in Christ, and the image that what God has forgiven has truly been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: It's not brought back.
SPEAKER_00: It's not brought back to us.
SPEAKER_00: As the prophet Micah would declare in chapter 7, verses 19.
SPEAKER_00: He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And what you throw into the depths of the sea, you do not bring back up.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's as if though nothing had happened.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah chapter 1, verses 1, and then Jonah chapter 3, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Not because the past had been erased, not because it's being ignored, but because it's been dealt with and resolved by the grace and mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah has now been restored as the Lord's prophet, and the command comes to him once more.
SPEAKER_00: He's told to arise, that is to say, to get up and go.
SPEAKER_00: He is to go to a certain location.
SPEAKER_00: He is to go on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: He is to go where God has appointed him to go.
SPEAKER_00: And he is to go to Nineveh, that great city, that pivotal population center of the Assyrian Empire, renowned for its great architecture, but equally infamous for its cruelty and brutality.
SPEAKER_00: These were the future enemies of the northern kingdom of Israel, and already bitter enemies of the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet this time we see that Jonah does not deny his call, he obeys.
SPEAKER_00: And what will God do concerning Nineveh?
SPEAKER_00: That we're told in the message that Jonah is commanded to proclaim.
SPEAKER_00: But before we unpack that message, we have to consider two important matters here.
SPEAKER_00: First, Jonah's obedience, as I've mentioned, to the divine call in verse 3 here, which stands in sharp contrast to his disobedience in Jonah chapter 1, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: And second, we'll also take a look at the span and the scope of Jonah's prophetic ministry within the territory of Assyria, because there is some confusion and a lack of clarity in terms of how we interpret his journey, his missional journey, and how long he was there and what was a territory he covered.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in regard to Jonah's obedience to the call, you know, I find it fascinating that this third verse is deliberately juxtaposed with what we find in Jonah chapter 1 in that beginning portion.
SPEAKER_00: It serves as a clear demonstration of, again, God's mercy toward Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, it echoes the later parable that was taught by Christ concerning a father who sends his two sons to work in the field.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember that, Matthew chapter 21, verses 28 to 31, it was that parable in which there was a father, he has two sons, he sends both to work in the fields.
SPEAKER_00: The first son says that he will go, yet he disobeys and does not go.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the second son initially refuses, says, No, I'm not going, and then afterward changes his mind and actually decides to obey his father's command.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus asked which of the two sons had actually done the will of the Father, which had actually obeyed the Father, the answer was the second son, because even though he at first said no, he went out and obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: And in this respect, Jonah resembles that second son in the parable.
SPEAKER_00: Though it took a tremendous ordeal, it took being thrown into the depths of the sea to bring Jonah to obedience, he nevertheless eventually obeyed the call of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's restored and he's given the command again and he obeys.
SPEAKER_00: And while we might rightly frown upon the initial refusal, any of us would certainly look down upon that and find disapproval, even if they do obey afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: Both in Jonah's case and in the case of the second psalm, that former rebellion is no longer counted against them.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not counted against them again because of the mercy and grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: It just reminds us of how more merciful and how more gracious God is compared to what we could possibly offer and extend.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's God Himself who brought about the change in Jonah's heart, just as it was God who worked the change in the heart of the Son, who had first refused his father in the parable.
SPEAKER_00: And this reminds us that God is able to transform hearts of stone into living hearts of flesh, hearts marked by rebellion into hearts characterized by faithful obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as for the span and the scope of Jonah's prophetic ministry within the Assyrian territory, verse 3 tells us that Nineveh was an exceedingly great city.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I had mentioned before that this was one of the many wonders of the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: And here we're told that it required a three days' journey in breadth.
SPEAKER_00: And this indicates the sheer size, the magnitude, the scope, the significance of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient world, you know, if you were to visit a small village, it would maybe take about a day or two for you to get to see everything that was important and be say, yeah, I'm kind of done here.
SPEAKER_00: And even in today's time, you were to go to some village or even a town, you might be able to see everything that you need to see in a day's time.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, this was not so the case with Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was so vast that it required three full days to make one's way through it.
SPEAKER_00: Just gives you an idea as to what it was like.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the sense of the Hebrew word machalach here, translated here as journey.
SPEAKER_00: The point is not that the trip to Nineveh took three days, but that traversing the city itself required that amount of time.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was immense.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why God considered this nation, this city, a great city, for there were many lives at stake.
SPEAKER_00: Now, being at that time the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, Jonah would have beheld massive mud-brick walls.
SPEAKER_00: When he was walking into that great city, you know, kind of wonder what would he have seen?
SPEAKER_00: What would he have been exposed to?
SPEAKER_00: He would have seen massive mud brick walls.
SPEAKER_00: Among the most formidable fortifications, actually, in the ancient Near East, there would have been nothing that could have compared.
SPEAKER_00: It was considered one of the wonders of the world, and therefore it was considered one of the peak illustrations of its great architecture.
SPEAKER_00: And these walls were reinforced with towers and great gates guarding the entrances to the city.
SPEAKER_00: So no doubt, as he would be entering in, there would have been guards on the towers seeing this prophet, this Israelite, come in, who clearly was not dressed and did not comport himself like an Assyrian.
SPEAKER_00: And within the royal palaces, which he would have also been able to witness from afar if he had not entered in, were carved stone reliefs portraying military campaigns and royal hunts and scenes drawn from Assyrian mythology, you know, their own religious beliefs and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And then even then, as he was walking through the city, prominent, of course, would have been the temples dedicated to their idols of Ishtar and Ashur.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, Nineveh was the central place of worship for the idol of Ishtar.
SPEAKER_00: And he also would have witnessed, and this is also quite fascinating if you were to picture yourself there back in that time, towering ziggurats.
SPEAKER_00: These were almost like pyramids, so to speak, visible from a great distance.
SPEAKER_00: These were also put together by the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: Now, no doubt Jonah would have also encountered merchants from all across the known world.
SPEAKER_00: And I find this particularly fascinating because we talk about how the gospel is foreshadowed in the Old Testament, and how the intention of God was always to open the doors of salvation so that not just the Jews, but people of any nation and tongue could come to experience the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and become part of God's people and enter into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And here we have a prophet sent from the northern kingdom of Israel to Nineveh, a city that isn't just consisting of Assyrians or Ninevites, but people from all around the known world.
SPEAKER_00: He would have seen merchants from across the known world, he would have seen soldiers and craftsmen and scribes and peoples drawn from the many nations over which Assyria exercised dominion, tribute, and captivity, stretching from Egypt in the west to Persia in the east.
SPEAKER_00: Because they were the top dogs, so to speak, they were the empire that was the most superior at the time.
SPEAKER_00: As they had their conquests and as they began to exercise their dominion and expand their empire, they would exact tribute.
SPEAKER_00: And that tribute was not always in the form of monetary gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes it was also through captives, through slaves, and through skilled craftsmen and so forth, and scribes, learned people, so they can continue to grow and have them assimilate into the empire.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in many sense, very similar to Babylon in later history, we would see here an example of a place in which people from every nation and tongue and from the known world are there, and they're going to hear the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the city would have also bustled in with commerce, and you will he would have seen timber from as far as Lebanon, and he would have seen precious metals and textiles and livestock, along with countless other goods that flowed through its markets, again, all coming from everywhere, from all around.
SPEAKER_00: And its temples would have also been continually active with ritual fires.
SPEAKER_00: As Jonah went around proclaiming his word, proclaiming the word of the Lord, he would have seen these temples, these pagan temples, he would have seen the ritual fires, he would have seen the sacrifices and the pagan ceremonies.
SPEAKER_00: No doubt, of course, he would have abhorred it, but he knew that he was there because God had placed him there to deliver a message.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was so vast, it was so strategically important to the Assyrian Empire and so filled with people, commerce, and military activity, that in fact it was considered the city that never slept.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was the city that never slept.
SPEAKER_00: This was the great city into which Jonah entered, just as the Lord had commanded him.
SPEAKER_00: And after having gone a day's journey into Nineveh, he began to cry out, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
SPEAKER_00: Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're reading this, and maybe you might think to yourself, there may have been fear within Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: He's in a land not his own.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the capital city of Israel's enemies, and these people were certainly infamous throughout the known world for their cruelty and their brutality.
SPEAKER_00: You must think if you were in his shoes, you might be like, maybe I'll whisper, or maybe I just won't be as loud and not cause a ruckus.
SPEAKER_00: Yet if God had delivered Jonah from the depths of the sea, what was an earthly empire in comparison to the sea itself?
SPEAKER_00: If God had delivered him from the gates of death or the gates of Sheol, what could the Assyrian Empire do to him?
SPEAKER_00: Based on what we read in the text, though, I mean it would appear that Jonah had now come to fear God more than man, which stands in stark contrast to what seems to have characterized him earlier.
SPEAKER_00: If you recall, and we looked at a little bit of his history, though very little of it, which is revealed, you know, here was a prophet who apparently did not wish to proclaim an unfavorable word to King Jeroboam II, particularly concerning the future loss of the Northern Territories, whose earlier expansion Jonah himself had prophesied.
SPEAKER_00: He was quick and eager to prophesy that they would conquer these territories, and then not eager and actually not present at all to prophesy of its loss because of Israel's sin.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God raised up Amos, the prophet, to proclaim those harder words of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And you were kind of there asking ourselves, was Jonah at that earlier point more fearful of man than of God, more fearful of rejection by the king than what God thought of him?
SPEAKER_00: And we can't really say that with any certainty because there's not enough there.
SPEAKER_00: But there is enough within the biblical narrative to warrant thoughtful, not careless, speculation.
SPEAKER_00: And such speculation doesn't actually move beyond the boundaries of what would be plausible.
SPEAKER_00: In any case, one can only imagine Jonah now proclaiming this message of judgment with remarkable boldness, a boldness that he would not have had before, because he came as a prophet representing the true and living God of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: And he had just witnessed not just the power and the might and the glory of God, but also the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, when we first began studying the book of Jonah, I'd mentioned that the book possesses something of a satirical character in terms of its literary genre, in that the least expected things continually occur.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we encounter here in the book a rebellious prophet, the prophet of God, rebellious, that doesn't really go together.
SPEAKER_00: Pagan sailors who come to saving faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the New Testament, we're in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: A dagadol that swallows Jonah, yet preserves him alive for three days and three nights.
SPEAKER_00: That's peculiar and extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: And now we arrive at yet another astonishing turn in the narrative.
SPEAKER_00: A development that is so unexpected that, in fact, if this were not recorded in the Holy Scriptures, we might have a hard time believing it ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of Nineveh believed God.
SPEAKER_00: They called for a Fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
SPEAKER_00: So the most cruel and brutal people in the known ancient world believed God.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but they proclaimed the fast and they clothed themselves in sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is not exactly what we would have expected.
SPEAKER_00: We would have expected perhaps bloodshed.
SPEAKER_00: We would have expected the next day's headline to read, Hebrew prophet entered into Nineveh, executed by impalement after proclaiming judgment against the mighty Assyrian Empire.
SPEAKER_00: Had newspapers existed in those days, it surely would have been front-page news.
SPEAKER_00: And though, of course, they didn't exist, that kind of outcome would have nevertheless seemed believable, expected, entirely realistic given the context and the situation.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, these pagans, these depraved sinners, these murderers and assassins, these people whose wickedness had become so great that the judgment of God now hung over them to the point of finally falling, believed God.
SPEAKER_00: They believed God.
SPEAKER_00: Even before Jonah arrived, there appears to have been a growing sense of guilt and dread within the hearts of the Ninevehit.
SPEAKER_00: God was preparing their hearts for repentance, from the least to the greatest among them.
SPEAKER_00: And how could this be, especially among pagans devoted to false gods?
SPEAKER_00: They had no exposure to the prophets of God prior to this.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the long covenantal history of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Apostle Paul provides the answer in his epistle to the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 1, verse 19, he says, For what can be known about God is plain to them, speaking universally of man, because God has shown it to them.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the Ninevehes knew at some level in their heart of hearts that the God of Israel was the true God, and that their idols were nothing more than figments of their imagination.
SPEAKER_00: They knew that his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature had been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world through the things that have been made.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, they were without excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: Paul explains this.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 1, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Jonah, the son of Amitai, proclaimed the word of the Lord, they believed.
SPEAKER_00: They believed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we proceed to the second section of this chapter, let us just conclude our reflections on verses 1 to 5 here.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah was given a word from the Lord, and he obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: He went to Nineveh and he proclaimed judgment, and the people believed.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he went to Nineveh, he proclaimed judgment, and the people believed.
SPEAKER_00: What we witness here is a faithful servant delivering the word of the Lord, and that word bearing fruit, for the word of the Lord never returns to him void.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God never returns to him void.
SPEAKER_00: It always accomplishes his will.
SPEAKER_00: And here we ought to see Jonah, the son of Amitai, as something of a parallel to what we ourselves are called to do today.
SPEAKER_00: We too are called to obey the Lord, to proclaim the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, by first proclaiming the bad news.
SPEAKER_00: And that bad news is that all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God, and that judgment awaits mankind because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Yet God, in his mercy, and here comes the good news, has made a way for sinners to be forgiven and declared righteous before him.
SPEAKER_00: And that way is also the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Through his death and resurrection, Christ satisfied the penalty of the law on behalf of his people and covered the multitude of our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: And as we look at this parable, we say, let us also then proclaim this gospel boldly, declaring it faithfully, and trust that God will cause it to bear fruit in his appointed time.
SPEAKER_00: If not today, then tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: If not tomorrow, then perhaps in weeks and months and years or even generations yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: I say that thinking of the many missionaries that have gone out into places that have never heard the gospel, and they've spent their whole lives preaching the gospel and never seeing a single convert, only for there to be a great spiritual awakening and a great repentance and revival many generations after.
SPEAKER_00: Because the word of the Lord does not return void.
SPEAKER_00: Now we proceed to the second section of the chapter, verses six to nine.
SPEAKER_00: The word reached the king of Nineveh, the text says, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.
SPEAKER_00: The Book of Jonah doesn't reveal the specific identity of the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Primarily because the focus of the narrative isn't on the Assyrian Empire itself, but it's on the sovereignty of God over even the mightiest pagan kingdoms of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God is God, not just over Israel, but over all.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, based upon the historical setting of the 8th century BC, there are actually two likely possibilities, and it's worth considering.
SPEAKER_00: The first is Adad Niradi III, who reigned from the years 811 to 783 BC.
SPEAKER_00: And the second is Ashurdan III, who reigned from 772 to 755 BC.
SPEAKER_00: Some scholars argue for the first one here, Adad Niradi III, because his reign aligns with the earlier period of Jonah's ministry and it coincides with the movement towards monotheistic tendency within parts of the empire.
SPEAKER_00: That is to say, a heightened emphasis upon the worship of a single chief deity, neglecting all others.
SPEAKER_00: However, the majority of scholars favor Ashur-Dan III, and it's actually for a very good reason, and it fits perfectly with what we see here in the text.
SPEAKER_00: So, Ashur Dan III, his reign was marked by significant political instability.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't peace in the land.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't peace in the empire.
SPEAKER_00: There was internal revolts.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to that, there was also famine and plague and widespread unrest.
SPEAKER_00: There was even a major solar eclipse during his reign, which, of course, an event like that in the ancient world would have normally filled people with fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: It was usually a sign of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And this context fits remarkably well with Jonah chapter 3, because it helps to explain how God had already been preparing the hearts of the Ninevites for repentance even before Jonah arrived.
SPEAKER_00: Both kings here that are mentioned, Adad Di Radi III and Ashurdan III, overlap chronologically with Jonah's prophetic ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can't say, oh, but it didn't line up.
SPEAKER_00: No, both overlap.
SPEAKER_00: But Ashurdan III appears to be the more likely candidate.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have to think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine living through revolts, civil unrest, plague, famine, there's social unrest, there's ominous celestial signs, and only them to have a foreign prophet suddenly arrive proclaiming imminent judgment upon Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Everything lined up perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: What further strengthens the case for Ashurdan III is the biblical designation itself.
SPEAKER_00: The text refers to him, notice, not as emperor, not as emperor of Assyria, but specifically as the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: And that kind of terminology suggests that there was in this period of time, there wasn't any stability when it came to his imperial authority and had weakened amidst political turmoil so that the king's most secure authority rested chiefly within Nineveh itself rather than throughout the entirety of the empire.
SPEAKER_00: And so that gives us a clue.
SPEAKER_00: Now all of this historical background helps set the stage for the biblical narrative before us.
SPEAKER_00: Having already witnessed signs of impending doom, and now hearing Jonah's proclamation echoing through the streets of the city, the king decides to humble himself.
SPEAKER_00: He rises from his throne, he removes his royal robe, he clothes himself in sackcloth, and he sits in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: And for an ancient king of such stature and magnitude, this was an extraordinary act of humiliation and repentance.
SPEAKER_00: He was humbling himself.
SPEAKER_00: The king of one of the most powerful empires of the world descends from his throne and places himself in the posture of a penitent sinner before the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In forty days, Nineveh would be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps by some natural disaster, or perhaps by an invading force, or perhaps by a plague.
SPEAKER_00: These forty days are considered a grace period in which the Lord is expecting to see some response of repentance, and if there is none, judgment will come.
SPEAKER_00: And they were not told the form that the judgment would take, only that it would mean the end of the great city and all those who lived within it.
SPEAKER_00: Thus, in humility, and stricken with guilt and fear, the king issued a decree that all bearing breath in the land should fast, and fast they did.
SPEAKER_00: But this was not merely a fast from food, it was also a fast from water.
SPEAKER_00: It was a radically intense fast.
SPEAKER_00: The fast is to deny yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Nowhere else do we actually do we read here of beasts of the field fasting.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite peculiar.
SPEAKER_00: You always hear of people fasting, but to have the beasts of the field fast with you is somewhat unheard of.
SPEAKER_00: And to fast was to deny oneself sustenance, to humble oneself, to express one's dependence and need.
SPEAKER_00: It was saying, I'm denying my pretended self-sufficiency.
SPEAKER_00: I'm denying that I have it all handled, that I'm good on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I'm denying all that.
SPEAKER_00: And as they fasted, they were to call out mightily unto God according to the decree, begging for mercy and pleading from repentant hearts.
SPEAKER_00: It was, God forgive us, God have mercy on us, God, we have sinned.
SPEAKER_00: And as they fasted and cried out, they were also to turn away from evil and violence.
SPEAKER_00: The king appears to have accepted that whatever judgment might befall them would be just.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't decry it.
SPEAKER_00: He's not offended by it.
SPEAKER_00: He's not, you know, saying this is a great scandal.
SPEAKER_00: How dare he accuse me of this?
SPEAKER_00: How dare this God of Israel accuse me of wickedness?
SPEAKER_00: No, he recognizes that they've sinned.
SPEAKER_00: There's a conviction in his heart, and he recognizes that the judgment is just.
SPEAKER_00: But he holds out hope that perhaps, just perhaps, God might show mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Here, brothers and sisters, we're given something of the anatomy of national repentance.
SPEAKER_00: We see the warning of judgment proclaimed, the reception of that warning by the people, the humbling of themselves before God, their cries for mercy, and their turning away from sin.
SPEAKER_00: Is it not remarkable that even without the law of Moses, these Ninevites nevertheless knew what was evil, knew what was wrong and turned away from it?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like, can you, King, can you define exactly what is wrong, what is evil?
SPEAKER_00: You say turn away from our evil ways.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've been living all the rest of our whole lives just shedding blood and killing people and torturing people and all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: Can you define what that means?
SPEAKER_00: No, there's no clarity, there's no request for clarity.
SPEAKER_00: They know in their heart of hearts what's evil.
SPEAKER_00: They know what is sin and they turn away from it.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is not true repentance when there's no turning away.
SPEAKER_00: If there's, oh, I'm just gonna say sorry, but I'll keep doing what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's not repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's not repentance, that's lip service.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no turning away from sin, then there's nothing, that's nothing more than false repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And for this to occur on such a massive scale here in the text, from among the common people, what we might call the grassroots level, all the way to the throne itself, that's extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: That is incredible.
SPEAKER_00: At times in history, the people may move toward reformation while the king and his court would resist them.
SPEAKER_00: We see this at various points in history with various different people groups.
SPEAKER_00: At other times, the king and his court may attempt to lead a nation toward reformation, while the people comply only outwardly, continually, inwardly in their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: Here, however, there is a harmony and unity that is truly unspoken of, from the least to the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: And as Jonah himself declared in his Psalm of Thanksgiving, salvation is of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is a clear example that salvation is of the Lord, and it came that day.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to verse 10, the third section of Jonah chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: In response to their humility, their fasting, their cries, and their turning away from sin, God withheld his judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The text says that God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.
SPEAKER_00: This does not mean that God's judgment was abolished altogether.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it lay in the future.
SPEAKER_00: It lay in wait until they filled the cup of iniquity once again.
SPEAKER_00: And we would see this in later prophecies again of God's judgment upon Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: To such a point, when that judgment would then come, there would not be a trace of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: It would be gone, erased, disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: And that time would indeed come.
SPEAKER_00: But not under this king.
SPEAKER_00: Not in this generation, not to these people.
SPEAKER_00: They were shown mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_00: As God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 18, verses 7 to 8.
SPEAKER_00: If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
SPEAKER_00: The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the new, a God of righteousness, yet also a God of mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_00: And how would Jonah respond to all of this?
SPEAKER_00: That is what we shall see in Jonah chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, our attention remains fixed on the mercy of God shown unto the people of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord proclaimed through his prophet Jonah bore fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It brought life.
SPEAKER_00: As we reflect upon Jonah chapter 3, we can't help but marvel at the sovereign grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that he prepared Nineveh for repentance and salvation, he also prepared us, his covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: What was it that brought us unto the path of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: What was it that brought us to the foot of the cross?
SPEAKER_00: Being born in a Christian family is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: One might think, well, just because my parents are Christian, I grew up in a Christian home, therefore automatically I'm saved.
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, there needs to be a personal repentance of sin, a personal confession of faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in order for you to reach that point, something would have had to brought you there.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it was, it came from the hand of the Lord, and it was meant for our good, that we might know Him.
SPEAKER_00: Not as unbelievers do, but as believers, as followers, as adopted children, as members of the covenant of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievers know God, but they suppress the knowledge of God in their hearts, Romans 1.18, out of their unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: No, we know God more intimately.
SPEAKER_00: We walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: We're not at odds with him, we're not in disobedience, we're not in rebellion, we're walking under his grace.
SPEAKER_00: As Jonah declared, salvation is of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And in truth, our salvation comes from the Lord alone.
SPEAKER_00: And if anyone here has not yet turned from their sin and humbled themselves and cried out unto God for forgiveness, turn to him today.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've been in a Christian home, but you've never taken that personal decision.
SPEAKER_00: You've never taken that step.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to your parents and say, I would like to, you know, all this time I've been coming to the church, all this time I've been listening to the word and I've been getting all these teachings and everything, but I've never, I don't think I've ever taken that initial that conscious step before the Lord to repent of my sin and surrender everything to Him.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to your parents, or speak to anyone here in the church, and we would be more than happy to help you walk through that decision.
SPEAKER_00: For you will find all you need in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of us who are already in the Lord, may we likewise follow the example of Jonah by going forth into the mission field to which God has called us, faithfully proclaiming the truth of his word.
SPEAKER_00: May we warn others where sin ultimately leads, similar to what Jonah was doing, exposing the destructive consequences of evil and disobedience for the individual and society alike, for the person and the family, for the citizen and the nation, and above all, may we direct them to the only one who can restore what sin has corrupted.
SPEAKER_00: The one who alone brings about true human flourishing to both personal and societal redemption.
SPEAKER_00: The one who set who can set all things right, the one whose reign extends to the ends of the earth, the one appointed to judge the living and the dead, and the one who graciously saves all who confesses his name, delivering us from judgment and granting us in its place the inheritance of becoming co-heres of creation with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We were once like the Ninevites, now we are God's covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: We were once children of wrath, now we are children of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And now, like Jonah, we're sent out into the world bearing the word of the Lord, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: May we therefore be found faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And if you need help getting started, you think, well, I haven't been as missional as I would like to be, I haven't really been out there as out there as I would like to be.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe, you know, I'm just, it's hard for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not very good with uh with talking to people whom I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Well, think of just one unbelieving person in your network of contacts.
SPEAKER_00: One unbelieving person with whom you would like to share the gospel with.
SPEAKER_00: And over the course of this next week, pray for that person.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for that person for their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That God would prepare their hearts and soften their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully not as bad as the Ninevehites, but just God would prepare their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And then share the gospel with them the week after.
SPEAKER_00: Set a date or a time in which you will intentionally meet with that person and share the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we prove to be intentional in actually going out and sharing the gospel with the person, but we don't do that necessary preparation time of praying for that person before we do so.
SPEAKER_00: And we ought to pray.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to pray that God prepare their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And while we do this, because God has called us to be faithful, God has called us to fulfill the great command, the great commission, to make known the gospel, to make disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to know this that the seed from which we have sown will bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: At some point in time, it will bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And while he and while he will accomplish, God will accomplish his will with or without us.
SPEAKER_00: Because you might think, well, what if I don't share the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: What if I decide not to?
SPEAKER_00: Well, one way or another, the gospel will arrive to that person through someone else.
SPEAKER_00: God will always accomplish his will.
SPEAKER_00: But what a joy and what a privilege it is to be willing participants in his salvific work.
SPEAKER_00: And all that we're doing is sharing the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The salvation is of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Homely Father, we thank you for your word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the deep riches in which we find.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we're reminded here of your graciousness and your mercy towards us.
SPEAKER_00: Reminded of how when you forgive us, Lord, you've truly forgiven us.
SPEAKER_00: It's thrown into the depths of