Arise and Go!

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November 6, 2022 | Steve Cortez on Jonah 3:1-10.

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
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Good afternoon everyone. It's good to see we have visitors. So thank you for joining us today. It's good to finally welcome
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Alex and his family. We've been praying for you guys and the Lord has been good to us. So hopefully you guys are blessed by the message today.
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And like I said, welcome. Just one point, I am a little bit under the weather. So if I have to take a drink of water at some point, you'll have to excuse me.
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So again, welcome everybody. Today we are, as my brother just said, we're back in the Book of Jonah. We're resuming our series in Jonah.
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Last week, Shane mentioned that we were, in honor of the Reformation, we preached a
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Reformation message. So we're back in the Book of Jonah. And providentially, as it were, it seems fitting that we took a break from Jonah for a little while.
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Because when you look at the Book of Jonah, the Book of Jonah is split up into two parts. It breaks up really nicely actually.
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The first and second chapter are part one, and chapters three and four are part two. When you look at the
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Book of Jonah, first we see the first commissioning in the first half. And what we're going to study today is part of the second commissioning.
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In essence, this is a very straightforward message. Very straightforward. Jonah 3 is what might typically be called something of a redemption.
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So far we've been introduced to many characters in the Book of Jonah. We've been introduced to the Lord's sovereign voice in chapter one.
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We hear of Jonah, who's commissioned. We see the sailors. And now finally, we get to meet the
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Ninevites. And by the grace of God, we are going to study a textbook example of repentance.
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So while Jonah is still God's instrument throughout this book, he's still God's means by which he accomplishes his glory, today we're going to drill deep into what the
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Ninevites' response is to the gospel. Well, not the gospel, but the message that Jonah preaches. We're going to study them, and specifically what we're going to learn about is biblical repentance.
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This is a textbook example of biblical repentance. For everyone who does not repent, however, what we're also going to learn is that the wrath of God still remains on them.
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But we'll get to that as we come to it. But before we go any further, let's seek the Lord in prayer. And dear
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Father, Lord, thank you that your word is true. Lord, thank you for your precious, precious word.
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You have given us this means of grace to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, let us be like that theologian that said, from every verse of the
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Bible, we run to the cross. Lord, chapter 3 of Jonah is such a chapter,
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Father. It is a short run to the cross. And Father, I pray, Lord, that with all the wisdom and strength that you will avail to me,
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Father, that I can convey just the beauty of this text and how Christ is magnified in every single word.
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Father, we are going to learn of biblical repentance, a recommissioning, redemption. Father, help me to preach this with power.
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Father, this is the gospel message. Lord, I pray that you would avail to me your power through your spirit,
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Father, that the hearts of all the men, women, and children, everyone in this room, Father, would be prepared to receive this great message.
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Father, this is your word. Father, I pray, Lord, that you would bless those hearing and in attendance.
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We thank you, Father. We pray this all in Jesus Christ's precious and holy name. So we have more people than I think we anticipated.
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So if you were fortunate to get a bulletin, you have our notes. If not, if you would like to take notes, our first heading for our first point here is recommissioned.
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By providence and by grace, I was actually able to label them with ours.
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So our first point actually in the first series is recommissioned. So that's verses 1 to 5. So as we begin, let's actually take a look at verses 1 to 5.
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Let's just read them. It says this. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,
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Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.
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So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the
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Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breath.
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Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
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And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
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So as we study our first point in our passage today, if we look at verses 1 to 2, we see the similarities that actually, if you look at Jonah chapter 1 verses 1 to 2, very similar wording, very similar phrasing.
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The Lord commands Jonah in our passage, and he commands him for a second time. He recommissions him.
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He says, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. Jonah's original commission, if we remember, his original job was to head to Nineveh and preach a message of judgment.
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This was a message of judgment against the great city of Nineveh. And as we're focusing on that adjective, the word great, used to describe
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Nineveh, this is actually a very loaded term. You might know the term semantic overload.
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There's a lot here. One usage of this word great that we see, the usage of this word is the sheer size of Nineveh.
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That's the easiest way to look at it. If you look at verse 3, it says, So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the
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Lord. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breath. It was a massive city, especially considering the time with which this took place with the
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Assyrian Empire. This city, even by today's standards, is still quite a city. In verse 3, we are likely talking about walking from one end of the city to the other.
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So if you were to walk from one end to the other, it would take about three days. That is what we learn from our text. And thankfully, by God's grace, the archaeology and historical records actually confirm this.
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So if we look back at those records, if we look at the actual historical, the archaeological sightings of Nineveh itself, getting an accurate sense of the size of the city is actually quite difficult because of erosion and general wear and tear over the course of thousands of years, if you might imagine that.
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But historians and archaeologists can pin accurately and they can say confidently that this city was between 50 kilometers to about 97, 98 kilometers in circumference.
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So just for reference, in case you don't know, in case that number doesn't stick, the greater
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Edmonton area is about 78. So Alex, if you just moved here, congratulations, you just learned a fact about Edmonton.
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It's about 78. So you can imagine that this city is comparable to some degree to the city of Edmonton, whether just a little bit smaller or actually quite a lot bigger.
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So that's one way that Jonah uses the word great to describe Nineveh. But it isn't just used to describe
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Nineveh in terms of its size, but also to its importance to the Lord. During this time, due to the political strength and military might of the
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Assyrian Empire, Nineveh could have been considered, at least symbolically, the capital of the
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Gentile world. This means that Jonah would have had to take some time in the city to walk to where he was going to preach.
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We look at that in verse 4. It says, Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey.
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And we need to contextualize this. If you guys, like I said, we preached a Reformation message last week, but remember this comes right off the heels of Jonah chapter 2, verse 10.
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This is right after the whale, or fish, depending on, you know, whatever your translation or your interpretation is, the giant fish or whale that has carried
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Jonah for three days and three nights has just vomited him up upon the shores of Nineveh. This is where I lament we don't have a map or something that I can point to, but Nineveh was adjacent to the
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Tigris River, which is one of the big rivers, the other being the Euphrates, if you know that one. What that means is, it's very likely in the
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Lord's sovereign grace and providence that this whale took Jonah right up to the shores of Nineveh, at least very close, within eyesight and within commotion -stirring witnesses that would have noticed this event take place.
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So this is God's providence at work, this is a miraculous sighting to see a man being spit out onto the shores of Nineveh through the mouth of a giant fish or a whale.
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And this is significant because the people in Nineveh believed in two gods, primarily during this time.
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The one that everyone remembers is Dagon, the half -man, half -fish. This one is one that most familiar, but there was a female counterpart, the female goddess
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Nanshi, and she was the goddess of freshwater. So regardless of which deity you praise, whichever idol it is that you worshipped, the people within the surrounding area of Nineveh, or the
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Ninevites, would have seen this as something absolutely miraculous to have witnessed a fish or a whale spit
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Jonah up onto the shores. Even through the use of false idols, the
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Lord is working sovereignly through this means. Genesis chapter 50 verse 20 says,
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As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. God sovereignly worked out even their false idols to lend credibility to Jonah.
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So in other words, the Lord was able to use a man covered in fish guts to speak judgment to a depraved city, to a whole people group.
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To help illustrate this a little bit, years ago I worked in a group home with a child that was severely impacted with autism.
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Actually, Shane knows him quite well. And this little guy was quite a blessing, but he had a hard time articulating and communicating.
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So conveying meaning and communication was not his strongest suit. And as it were, he would fixate on specific toys and different little characters that he had with him.
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And actually one of these is a Mario character, if you're familiar, it's called Toadette. It's actually kind of a running joke with our family now.
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Because what this little guy would do, oddly enough, what this team purported to do was, we all game plan and what we, and oddly enough, we were able to communicate with this child through his little figures.
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It's somewhat role playing idea. And we condescended in one sense to bring us within his world to speak to him.
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And that is kind of a weird and bizarre story. It's kind of cute, but it does paint somewhat of an illustration that the
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Lord uses his means to condescend and to speak to people. Even to the effect that he could use a man covered in fish guts having spent three days in a whale to speak his glory.
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And that is exactly what we see. If we look back at our text, we look at Jonah 3, 4, and 5, it says this.
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And he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
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And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
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So in our text, we see that Jonah delivers somewhat of a short message. But immediately, the people are cut to the core with their sin.
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We're going to examine what godly repentance looks like as we examine the Ninevites in our next point. But as we pause here, as we apply this, these first few verses are bursting with application for the believer.
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In these verses, we witness that the Lord recommissions, reconsecrates
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Jonah for godly work. So in other words, knowing what we know about Jonah, the
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Lord was able to use him despite his complete unworthiness. And that is a huge encouragement to us.
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This is a contrast of this story. This is the single greatest story of repentance in all the Bible.
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Of one event taking place with this multitude of people. And yet, it is preached by likely the worst prophet, at least relative to everybody else.
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And it is not even preached to Israelites, it is preached to a pagan nation. So with this recommissioning, this is how we turn inwards and how we apply this to us.
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This is how we apply this. And it is fight the good fight. Fight the good fight.
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Fight it. Romans 11 .29 says, For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
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Jonah eventually submitted to the sovereign will of God. It took many a miracle, but it finally came to pass.
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Jonah did eventually submit. But looking inwardly, how often, when we sin, and it's not a question of if, but when.
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Are we quick to sit in our shame and become useless lumps? Brothers and sisters, we need to recognize that we've been commissioned.
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James chapter 4 .14 says, Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
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What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
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Every man, woman, and child in this room deals with sin in one way or another. Whether it is poor time management, poor stewardship, a short temper, poor finance administration, a wandering eye or lust of the flesh.
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None of us in this room are immune. None of us. Galatians 5 .16
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-18 says this. This is Paul saying, Paul writes this, he says,
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But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
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For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the
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Spirit, you are not under the law. Many years ago, you might know this about me or might not.
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Those visiting have no idea, but I used to box in university in high school. I used to enjoy boxing.
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You know that this is something that is an interest of mine. And also,
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Paul makes many allusions to running the race. He makes a lot of sport analogies within the
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New Testament. And some of you, when speaking to some of just the lust of the flesh, the battle that our flesh weighs against our spirit, you may have heard me say this, but there is something good about a good fight.
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There's something good about it. The greatest of games, of competitions, and all the like, are always defined, the greatest of all, are defined by perseverance of the winning team.
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Run the race with endurance. Discouragement is actually the easiest thing to do.
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It's our inclination. It's natural. That when we sin, we remain there.
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Shane and I used to often say to the students at McEwen, when we ran a club there and we ministered there, that it's so easy for us to put ourselves in the penalty box.
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So quick we are to put ourselves there and wait and do nothing. But this is the wrong approach to repentance.
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This is the wrong approach to fighting this fight. 2 Timothy 1 .7 says, For the
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Lord has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self -control.
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We're reading the Pilgrim's Progress at home with the kids as part of family worship. And if you've never read it,
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I highly encourage that you read it. Pilgrim's Progress is a phenomenal book, a very encouraging book. But within this book, the main character,
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Christian, faces many oppositions. And during the course of this story, again,
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Christian falls into something called the Slough of Despond. That's kind of an old English word, but the slough is essentially like a thick swamp.
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It's very kind of mossy, very thick. It's hard to get out of. Now, John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, uses this to represent sin.
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That Christian falls into the Slough of Despond. Now, in the story, Christian is helped by a character named
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Helpful. And he's actually pulled out of the slough. And after some time, Christian, however, dusts himself off.
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And he continues moving forward on the king's path to the celestial city. He doesn't remain sitting next to the slough.
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He gets up and continues walking. So saints arise and fight the good fight.
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James chapter 4, verse 7 says, If the
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Lord can recommission someone like Jonah for such a miraculous work, as we'll study in just a couple of minutes, he can use us as well.
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So praise God for that. That should be a great encouragement to us. As we turn back to our text, we're going to continue on.
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This is our second point. I've alluded to it. We're going to look at repentance. That's the second R of our three points, repentance.
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So we're just going to read verses 6 to 9, and this is what it says. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
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And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles,
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Let neither man nor beast nor 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.
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Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows?
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God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.
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As we're going to learn in these three verses, four verses, we're going to learn a biblical repentance.
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And actually there's two main elements or two facets of biblical repentance. The first one we're going to look at is, as I guess a sub point, is our emotional response to repentance.
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And what we see in our text is sorrow, grief, and shame over sin. That's the first point, is that our sin drives sorrow, grief, and shame over us.
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The second facet or the second element of biblical repentance that is taught in this passage is the response to sin.
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So in verse four, we see a very short message. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. We don't have more than that.
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That's the message that the Lord gave Jonah. But we see that it cuts right to the heart of the
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Ninevites. We see that in verse five, those who are directly listening to the message, you can imagine that as he made his way a day's journey covered in fish guts, drawing a crowd from eyewitnesses as they drew near, hearing those words are cut right to the core with their shame.
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They're overcome. As a result of this short message that is razor sharp, they begin to fast and they exchange their garments for sackcloth.
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In verse six, we see that this message reaches the king of Nineveh and he too is overcome with sorrow.
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But in particular, we need to study the king's response. We need to observe his reaction.
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Remember that Nineveh is by all purposes the capital of the world at this time, humanly speaking, of course.
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It is a rich, rich city. In other words, it is better to be a king of Nineveh than being a king anywhere else in the world.
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This is a great city. To be a king here is to be a king anywhere. But what is the king's reaction to this message, the one that cuts him so deeply?
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What does he do? He exchanges his robes of royalty for garments made of sackcloth and a bed of ashes.
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Not only this, but he issues an official proclamation throughout the whole city that every person and animal put on sackcloth and they fast as well.
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This seems odd to us, I imagine. The cultural context of grief and of sorrow is lost on us
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Westerners. The method by which we grieve here in North America is different culturally than what we see in the
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Bible. This is something that is kind of foreign to us. This custom of wearing sackcloth was typically reserved for only the deepest of grief, absolutely the deepest of grief.
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We see this in the book of Job when dread comes upon Job and his family is killed and he loses all his belongings.
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We see this in the book of Daniel when Daniel prays to the Lord for repentance of Israel. Or we see this in Jeremiah for similar reasons.
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Sackcloth, these garments are garments of mourning. They were often made with camel or goat hair.
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So there's not like sackcloth bags that we see here, but they were made with very coarse material and it was highly uncomfortable.
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If you can imagine what that might be like. Imagine hair after you get a haircut, but imagine camel hair and your garments are made of camel or goat hair.
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Highly uncomfortable. So in other words, if you are going to mourn, you are going to look, act, and feel the part.
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If you're mourning, you're going to wear this. And that's exactly what we see in our text.
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That everyone from the highest, the king, all the way to the poorest were all wrought with grief and they all put on sackcloth.
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So that's the emotional response. We see grief, we see sorrow, we see shame. And that's concerning the heart.
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However, this shame gives way to action. So in the other half of our biblical repentance, our study of what it looks like to repent, not just what it feels like, but what it looks like, we need to study the response.
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So we read this in verse 8 and 9. So this is the response. It says, But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.
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Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
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Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
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Note the specifics here. That's really important. Note what he's asking. He's asking that everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands.
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So in other words, once they understood the transgression, once they understood the charge from the Lord, what they were being accused of, they understood clearly that they need to be punished or they are worthy of punishment.
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In the minor prophet Nahum, chapter 3, verse 1, it says, Of Nineveh, it says,
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Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder, no end to their prey.
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In our text, the Ninevites, they rightfully recognize that they are an evil people and they have the receipts to prove it.
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Before a righteous, righteous God, they know that this sin is their undoing and their response is justified.
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It might seem excessive and actually the world might try to explain away this guilt or try to rationalize it.
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That's what the world might try to do in watching something like this. On the other hand, it might try to undermine the true weight of sin.
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So it might try to rationalize, it might try to undermine the weight and the guilt of sin and they might claim that it's irrational to feel and act this way.
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But everyone make no mistake, this is the only rational response to sin.
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In their grief, the Ninevites, they cry out to God. These are cries of dead men and dead women and by extension, dead animals.
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Before the judge of the whole world, what is going to be your greatest defense against your own sin?
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Before the righteous judge of all the universe, what is your defense?
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That's what the Ninevites realized. In Hebrews 9, verse 27, it says, it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment.
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We see David in Psalm 51. You see David cry out to the
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Lord and I want us to just bear with me just the weight of sin.
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This is David after he has been caught in adultery with Bathsheba. Just listen to these words.
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He says in Psalm 51, verse 1, he says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.
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According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
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For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have
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I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being and you teach me the wisdom of the secret heart, in the secret heart.
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Verse 11, cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
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At this moment, we need to take our Bibles and we need to take our fingers from our Bibles and point them inwards.
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Does this describe me? Does this describe me inwardly? When I sin, do
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I truly repent? If you're keeping notes, our first application was perseverance against sin.
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It's the call to perseverance. But before we ever get to perseverance, before we ever get to that point, the point where we wage war against that sin, we must first repent.
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So this is our application for this next point is turn from sin. Turn from sin.
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Like the Ninevites, have we identified the sin in our lives? Has it grieved us?
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Does it shame us? And as a result, are we turning from it? Are we turning physically?
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It's not just a passive action. It's an active verb. It's an imperative. Before the seed of righteousness can take root, has the soil of repentance been tilled?
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Is the soil of our hearts ready to receive righteousness? We have to look at Psalm 1, verses 1 to 2, and it talks about the righteous man.
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The righteous man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He does not stand in the way of sinners, nor does he sit in the seat of scoffers.
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These are all active imperative verbs. The righteous man does none of these. No, what the righteous man does is he finds his delight in the law of the
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Lord and he meditates on it day and night. This is the righteous man.
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This is the man that has repented. This righteous man has studied the word of God and has run straight to the only place that can bear his sin at the cross of Christ.
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I have a quote from John Owen and he said, you'll have to follow with me. John Owen can be a little bit difficult to understand sometimes, but just bear with me.
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John Owen said this, to not be daily employing the spirit and the new nature for the mortifying of sin is to neglect that excellent sukkah with which
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God has given us against our greatest enemy. Once we have identified our sin, do you see it?
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Is it within plain sight in our mind's eye? It must be jettisoned as far away from us as possible.
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Get rid of it. Turn from it. If we are going to be daily mortifying sin, at some point you will need to dig in your heels and you will have to actively repent about this.
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It is an active action. If it is just heartfelt and there is no action, there is no progress, there is no intent, that is not biblical repentance.
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I hate to break it to you. And just like our text says, let everyone turn from their evil ways and the outcome of that evil, let everyone turn from it.
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That needs to be our attitude towards sin. It needs to be. Despise the shame and turn away from that sin.
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Despise the sin. Like I said, we've been going through Pilgrim's Progress at home and it is quite a blessing to actually go through it with the kids and to study that book.
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And I wonder, and this is maybe a question for the kids, maybe just a raise of hands, have you guys read the
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Pilgrim's Progress? Oh, perfect. I know Daryl has it. I know we're reading it. Pilgrim's Progress is a phenomenal book and I can't recommend it highly enough.
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It is an incredible book and truly it is about the Christian's walk on his path to the
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Celestial City, Heaven's Gate as it were. And I do wonder, especially looking at the little ones, but also all the older, the young at heart here in the room, where are we on the path to the
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Celestial City? On our path to redemption, is Jesus Christ Lord of our hearts?
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Are we on the path at all? Or do we sit as Christian is rescued from the city of destruction?
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Are we still in the city? Or do we find ourselves on the path, on the
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King's path to redemption? I want this to be kind of in the background of our minds as we look at our last point and that's redemption.
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We look at redemption and that's verse 10. I will just read it.
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It says this. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way,
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God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.
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This verse is fairly straightforward, but it's powerful. God saw what the
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Ninevites had done and in his grace and in his mercy, his sovereign will, he relented.
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The wrath that was to be poured out on the Ninevites for their sin was no more.
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And this is totally within his will to do it. If you could turn with me to Jeremiah, chapter 18, very quickly, just to look at a couple of verses.
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Jeremiah chapter 18, 7 to 10. This is our sovereign Lord speaking. He says this.
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So Jeremiah 18, 7 to 10, it says, 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
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I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
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And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build up and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight and does not listen to my voice, then
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I will relent of the good that I have intended to do to it. What we see here again is
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God's sovereign will in saving. We think about the city of Nineveh.
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This is the single greatest redemption story in the Bible of people coming to repentance. Just the sheer number and the magnitude of it.
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It wasn't just that the city was great. It was large, but it was great to the Lord. It was important to Him.
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Think of this great city. Think of your local city, the vast scope and all the people lost within.
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And speaking of redemption, we have to look at ourselves inwardly again. Again, the finger points back at us.
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And look at verse 9 of our chapter. Just look at verse 9. Look at the king. And look at his response.
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It says, this is the king's decree. He says, who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from His fierce anger so that we may not perish.
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There is still too much doubt in that verse. There is so much doubt in that verse that God will do what
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He says He will do. This is a pagan society after all. We are looking backwards in history.
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But these are not the hearts of Christians. We have assurance. We have a firm assurance that what
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God says He does, He will do. We don't have to doubt that God has washed us clean of sin.
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We dare not make a liar out of Him. Our brother Shane referenced this earlier.
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He said this. 1 John, he referenced this. 1 John 1 .9 If we confess our sins,
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He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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All of it. Turning to another psalm.
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We're looking at Psalm 30, verses 11 to 12. It says this. Just listen to this.
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It says, you have turned for me my mourning into dancing and you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
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O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever. So those in Christ, brothers and sisters, saints, apply this.
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Let your heart be glad. Let your heart be glad. Our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed a people for His own possession, appeasing the wrath of the
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Father for all our sin. We don't have to continue mourning or grieving or feeling this unquenchable shame.
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While this earthly king puts on garments of death and mourning, funeral wear, our
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Lord Jesus Christ descended from His throne, from His majesty, donning human flesh and wearing the garments of the
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Lord's wrath so He might ransom us from sin and death. Bearing the weight of sin, this miracle of double imputation, our sin upon the cross, upon the
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Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness imputed to us. This is what we get.
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We dare not make a mockery of God. If He says it is done, it is finished. This, our brothers, praise the
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Lord, the Holy Spirit was working because they read this verse earlier. But we're looking at Matthew 12, 39 to 41.
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It says this, but He answered this Jesus Christ. He says, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of a prophet
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Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the
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Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Verse 41,
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The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
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Brothers and sisters, this is good news for us. This is the best news. This is the gospel. This is the absolute glory and beauty of the gospel.
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We don't have to flounder in our sin. We don't have to do that.
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The Lord Jesus Christ has made His salvation available. At the cost of another, we have salvation for the sin that put
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Him on that cross so that we might wear His righteous robes while He wore our sin on the cross.
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And it is a finished work. It is completed. This is good news. John 19, 30 says,
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And when he received the drink, Jesus said, It is finished. With that,
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He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. It is done.
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It is finished. So as we look to the end of our passage, as we arrive to conclude here, we see a textbook example, absolute textbook example of the
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Lord's recommissioning of Jonah, biblical repentance and what that looks like, and a sinful people redeemed from their evil.
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This should be a huge encouragement to us, every one of us in this room. John 3, 16 says this,
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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That is the best news in the world. That is absolutely life changing.
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It is the best news in the world. For those of us who possess Christ, that we don't just know Him, but we possess
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Him. He is ours. This is like water to a thirsty soul.
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However, if you are not in Christ, if in this very moment you are not in Christ, you sit within these seats, or you have a shred of doubt that the
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Lord Jesus Christ did this, verse 18 is what applies to you. It says,
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Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. Don't let this be you.
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Don't let this verse apply to you. Don't stand in the condemnation of your sin under a wrathful
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God. Come into grace, come into mercy, come into the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Let's pray. Father, Lord, we thank you that this word is true.
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It is faithful. This is faithful word, Lord. It is true, it is good. Lord, we stake not only our lives, but our deaths on it.
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This faithful word, Lord, that you have preserved for the history of time, Lord, to bring to us, Lord, so that we may preach it and preach it in fullness.
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Lord, as I said earlier, let us be like the theologian that said that for every verse we run to the cross.
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Jonah chapter three, Father, is such a verse. It is a short run to the cross, a redemption story for sinful man.
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And if the Ninevites were to repent for Jonah's preaching, Lord, how much greater is the salvation availed in Jesus Christ made to us available right now.
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Lord, we run to the cross. Father, I pray for every man, woman, and child here, Lord, let them be right in the
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Lord. Let them have no doubt to the assurance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ availed no doubt that he has not finished the work.
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Tetelestai, it is finished, it is done. It will not, our sin is not counted against us. But Father, I pray for those that,
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Father, that doubt, that linger outside the gates. Father, convict them.
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Make clear the love of Christ, the gospel message, the wrath under which they are under.
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And Father, let them run to Christ, glorify him, possess him. Father, we thank you for the