Repenting Unrepentant Repentance (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

The Ninevites’ Belief and Visible Repentance

Here we have the Ninevites. Remember these wicked people? These are the people that said, hmm, how are we going to have an object lesson of our brutality? Let's skin people alive and use the skin for wallpaper down by the harbor.

And now Jonah preaches and they believe. The text says they believe God. This is hope. This is trust. If I was thinking with Reformation language, they have knowledge, they have assent, and they have trust.

That's the Hebrew word. They really believed. And it shows on the outside as well. Look at the text. They call for a fast. Here's the fruit of repentance put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least.

And so what's happening in our hearts? Our hearts are convicted. Our hearts are struck. Our hearts are mourning. And so while we can't put things on our heart, we can put things on our body to be symbolic of what's going on in our hearts.

So let's put some coarse cloth on our bodies. Let's do what a Jew would do. And a Jew would say, let's put on sackcloth and fast. By the way, the Ninevites wouldn't do this. The Ninevites would give some libation.

The Ninevites would be on their face praying to their false God. Ninevites repentance was not sackcloth and ashes, but Hebrew repentance was. And these people heard about the God of the Hebrews, the God who created the land and the sea.

And now they repent like a Hebrew would. They believe. Mourning over their sins. One prophet, one sermon, one God, and five Hebrew words, and they believe. Revival breaks out first day against all odds.

Responding to Skepticism About the Revival

Now some people think if you examine the word carefully in verse five, they believed God. Now some people would say this isn't real belief because it doesn't say they believe the Lord Yahweh. And so they'll pick and they'll say, you know what, there can't be such a big revival.

We don't have any historical records of this revival. And so they didn't really believe, it was just this external belief. Because it doesn't say Lord there, it says God there. And so scholars like Walton would say, quote, this isn't saving faith, it's just moral transformation.

Stewart said they remained by all accounts the same polytheistic, syncretistic pantheist they had been all along. So I ask you the question, do you think they really believed? And I just look at the text, and what does the text say?

They believed God. I think I can prove that they were really believers. Number one, Jesus said in Luke 11 that when they heard it, quote, they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Jesus said they repented.

And also, we're going to see God not punish the Ninevites. And if anybody can see through a fake heart, a hypocritical heart, a moralistic external heart only, I think the Lord can. And so God sees them, and he sees real repentance and real belief, and he's not going to judge them.

And so this is a real revival. They really become believers in Yahweh. And it was perfect providence, too, because the Ninevites were people who were superstitious. They had just seen an eclipse, history tells us, and so some other omen might come, some other prophet might come, national crisis, and they hear the words and they believe.

They didn't say, we want signs, we want wonders, we want to see people slain in the Spirit, we want to see people speak in tongues. They just heard the message and they believed straight up. That's the first repentance.

The King of Nineveh’s Public Humiliation

There's a second repentance found in verses 6 through 9. Jonah 3, three repentances, this is the second one. The Ninevites repent, and now the word trickles to the king and he repents, too, verses 6 through 9.

The word reached the king of Nineveh. So Jonah must not have gone to the king first. He goes to the town, he begins to preach, and now word gets to Ninevite king, and he arose from his throne. You can feel the language.

The Hebrew language is just fast. He hears it and he responds quickly. The people responded quickly with sackcloth, great to the least, and here the king arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

Well, I'll get around to repentance later. I'll live my life a little bit and kind of be wild now in college, and then I'll settle down later and repent. It wasn't that at all. When kings had robes, they were beautiful, they were expensive, they were elaborate, and he just throws it down and goes out, puts sackcloth on, and sits in ashes.

I can tell you this, he wasn't sitting in ashes in his palace. You don't have ashes on the floor in the palace. You've got to go outside to the street, and he's sitting, the king, in front of the people, in front of his kingdom, on the ground, without his robe, sackcloth, and ashes.

That's quick repentance. It's fast repentance. Sitting in ashes, publicly, no longer worshipping Dagon, the fish god, no longer worshipping the Assyrian fish goddess Nosh, N-O-S-H, from the kings to the poorest people.

Repentance. Sounds like Ezekiel 26 to me. Then the princes of the sea will step down from their thrones and remove their robes and strip off their embroidered garments. Oh, the king's repenting. We better make a royal rule and decree for repentance, verse 7.

And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh. You can imagine his people around him, the counselors around him, quickly trying to do this. Here's the proclamation published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles.

Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, verse 7, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water. We want to show that our repentance is from the heart. This is not just lip service. We're going to repent by our own actions and by our animals' actions, too.

Make it look like the horses are sorry, too. So that's kind of weird. That's what they did back in those days. A historical account with the historian Herodotus said in a time of mourning, quote, they shaved their heads, cut the manes of their horses and mules and abandoned themselves to such cries of grief that the whole city was loud with the noise of them.

I mean, I'm so repentant that in this culture, I'm going to take off my good clothes, put on bad clothes, sit in ashes, and then make sure I shave my dog. You look at my dog, you'll even recognize something's going on.

Self-denial, helplessness, repentance. Lord, we mean it. This shows sincerity is what we're after. Verse 8, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way.

That's general. Just if you've got a wicked evil way, turn from it. And then the Jews also like to give something specific. So generally turn from your evil way and something specifically, and from the violence that is in his hands.

And remember how violent the Ninevites were. So if there's any evil way in you, generally just let's turn from it. And if there's any kind of specific violence that we're doing, let's stop that, too. By the way, the word violence in Hebrew is hamas.

Violence. Let's call out with strength. Let's call out with conviction. Let's call out with responsibility individually. Responsibility, I'll own it. Verse 9, who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.

Hey, there's a possibility, and we know it's more than a possibility because Jonah knows what we know. Verse 2 of chapter 4. I knew you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.

The Assyrians, who feared no one, they were at the top of the food chain in the military world. And they say, you know what? We might perish, but we might not. Who knows? I still think this is fascinating, that the word of the Lord comes through a prophet who didn't even care about the people, and then the whole city is turned right side up.

Salvation is from the Lord. By the way, this language here in verse 9 sounds like chapter 1, verse 6. It sounds like the captain. The captain came to him and said, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God.

Perhaps the God will give us a thought that we may not perish. Same thing. Maybe God will relent. Maybe God will have kind of this emotional feeling and He'll see our repentance, He'll see the sackcloth, He'll see the ashes, He'll see the animals, and then He won't wipe us out.

Maybe He'll change His mind. Maybe the Lord will relent. Verse 10. So far in the text we've seen the people of Nineveh repent. The king of Nineveh repents. And now, God repents. Some of you just raised your head like, what's that all about?

Who has King James or Revised Standard Version? It would say, God repents. You could translate it, God relents as well. Let's define what it means. But for the moment, let's talk about God's repenting.

If you just can't stand it, okay, God's relenting. Verse 10. When God saw what they did. This is language again. Of course He saw what they did. He's omniscient. How they turn from their evil way. We're going to get God's response to this.

God relented. KJV, God repented. Of the disaster, of the evil that He said He would do to them. And He did not do it. Most translators say, God relented. Because then we don't get in the sticky wicket of repentance that God changes His mind, but God is immutable.

God doesn't change His mind. God's sovereign. He has one decree. He doesn't do flow chart kind of thinking. And so, the language of relenting is a little easier for us to stomach. Either way though, this is an anthropomorphic description using terms for men and women that we would understand and use them for God.

God's sovereign. God's omniscient. God's never learned anything. God wasn't up there saying, woohoo, now they finally changed. I don't have to do what I said I'd do. I need to undo what I have decreed.

This is, from our perspective, it seems like God has changed. God doesn't change. Men change. But as one man said, as a result of the changes that occur in men, often God appears to change. You see, God wasn't surprised.

Forty days, judgment's going to come. If you don't repent, you're going to get judged. Repentance came. God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His, what, mind. Numbers 23 and 1 Samuel 15.

How do I describe God with human terms? He said He was going to judge and He's not judging. Let's call that relenting or repenting if you'd like. No fire and brimstone on this city. The Sodom of a city was spared by the mercy of God.

God doesn't change His plan but the response to sinful people seems like God has. The message goes out. Repent. And the people repented and the king repented and God relented to the message of Jonah. So I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you the question.

The people repent. The king repents. Can you say, can you look back in your life and say there's a time frame, it's fuzzy, I don't know the exact day, maybe you can pick the exact day, that I change my thinking about who God is and who I am.

I used to think I was good. I used to think I was holy. I used to think I did the right thing and I don't think that anymore. This is especially important. Now hear me, this is very important. We live in a society.

80 of the people in this culture where we live in right now are Roman Catholics. They don't all practice but they would say they would be. Strangely, serendipitously, this week I found a file, an old folder with real paper inside.

I don't mean a folder, you know, software folder in my finder file but a real folder and I open it up and to my pleasure and to my happiness there was about 40 or 50 pages of some of my homework from 1973.

13 years old. Stacks and stacks and stacks. Some of the homework had 100, some of it had 75. I did find kind of a fluke and aberration that said 35 in this particular test and it was my confirmation study material from the Lutheran Church.

You get baptized when you're a baby and I need to confirm that I still believe these so I took a class. I couldn't believe all the stuff that I knew. What about the evil kings? What about Jehoshaphat?

What about Jeroboam? All these things I thought I know all that stuff. Here's why repentance is so important. I, growing up and many of you growing up and the society this church is providentially placed into that is a Roman Catholic system world neighborhood.

Friends I believed as a Lutheran that Jesus was the eternal Son of God. I believed the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. I believed in a triune God. I believed that God was a creator. He spoke things and they just came into existence.

I believed that He was a judge. I believed there was a hell a literal hell. I believed Jesus lived a perfect life. I believed that He was a perfect preacher. I believed that nobody talked like He did with parables.

And I have the test quizzes to affirm all these things that I believed. He died on the cross. There's no other way of salvation except Jesus' perfect life and death on the Calvary Calvary's cross for sinners.

I believe He was literally raised from the dead. I believe that He's coming back. I believed all these things. And most of your neighbors believe them too. You're not going to meet many of your neighbors who say Jesus was a fraud.

So what's the rub and why is repentance important? The value of Christ's death. How is it appropriated to a person? How is it given to a person? How is it received by a person? And the Lutheran church would teach me and the Roman Catholic church would teach her followers that it is received through faith plus the sacraments.

Faith plus baptism, faith through the Lord's Supper, faith through other sacraments, the other five. I never was told when I was a kid in the Lutheran church you must repent. You must be born again. Why?

Because I already was right with God because I received my rightness with God through my baptism. And it doesn't take you very long to go to a Roman Catholic funeral today and the first thing they say is so and so is in heaven for what reason?

Repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because they've been what? Baptized. Repentance and faith. Remember if you have a coin, on the tail side is like repentance. I agree with God about what he says about me, sin, salvation, exclusivity of Jesus and the rest.

I agree with him and I turn from and I turn to with faith and I believe what God says. When my kids were really little and I was trying to teach them ideas about the Bible and abstract thoughts and I'd make them march in the kitchen.

Sometimes we'd march around the kitchen table seven times. What story must have that have been? Sometimes I would put salt on their hands and make them lick the salt. I wonder what story that might have been.

Remember Lot's wife? Sometimes when I would go to the stories where David acted like a crazy man and he was like scratching on the doors and had a bunch of saliva coming out of his mouth? Well, I did it of course because I was trying to teach the kids.

Glad there weren't iPhones back in those days. And I would have the kids walk to the wall and I said you can't stop walking until I say the word repent and then once you get about your nose to the wall I'll say repent and you turn around and go the other way.

Because that's what repentance is. I understand and now I turn the other way. I turn from my sins. 1 Thessalonians 1 I forsake my old gods and I turn to the living God. That's repentance. What's the difference between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic?

What's the difference between my Lutheranism and Evangelical Bible belief? It's not that we say they deny the Trinity they deny the deity of Christ they deny the virgin birth they deny atonement they deny resurrection they deny second coming they deny the teaching of Jesus they don't deny any of those things.

They only deny that it comes.

Through the benefits of Christ come through faith alone. Repentance and faith alone. And so if you're here today and you say well I'm trusting in my baptism I'm trusting in being good some of my biggest fears are by the way that there are children growing up in this church and you think you're going to get to heaven because your mommy and daddy go.

You get to heaven by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance. Listen to Luke 11. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here.

That's what Jesus said. You've heard my message week in and week out Jesus says I preached for three years and you won't believe me and Jonah I mean I love you Jesus says and I've been preaching every day you won't believe me but Jonah doesn't even like the people he preaches to and he preaches judgment one message from a disobedient prophet and everybody believes and can you imagine just hearing the message of sovereign grace distinguishing grace how would you like to be forgiven?

You can be forgiven in Christ Jesus alone and then say no I'm just not going to do it. The Ninevites then would be better repenters than you. They didn't say well I've got to kind of you know go crazy in college a little bit then I'll settle down I've got to get this money earned first and then I'll settle down.

Jesus said in the great commission repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations. You can't get to heaven without repentance. So I ask you again have you repented?

You born again? Certainly there has to be someone here in such a large group that has not repented. There are other words in the Bible that talk about repentance without using the word. Have you inclined your heart unto the Lord your God Joshua 24?

Have you circumcised yourself spiritually to the Lord Jeremiah 4? Have you washed your heart from wickedness? Break up follow ground turn from your wicked way? Westminster Confession says this about repentance.

A sinner out of the sight and sense not only of the danger that is if you don't repent you go to hell but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sins as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent the repenter grieves for and hates his sins as to turn from them all unto God purposing and endeavoring to walk with God in all his ways and commandments.

I mean wouldn't it be a shame if the king of Nineveh repented. The wicked Ninevites repent. And then you go out of here today without having repented. John Murray said four things in your mind will change if you've repented.

You think differently about God. You think differently about yourself. You think differently about sin. And you think differently about righteousness. You know the backdrop to all this. So many people would say you know what I want Jesus as my savior but I won't take him as my Lord.

That just means I'd like Jesus to forgive my sins but I don't want to repent. You can't have Jesus for savior not Lord because he's both. Charles Spurgeon said to his pastor students if the professed convert distinctly and deliberately distinctly declares that he knows the Lord's will to repent but does not mean to attend to it.

You young pastors are not to pamper to his presumption but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. And so I will follow Professor Spurgeon if you have not repented from your sins and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don't care what your baptism did. I don't care what your Lord's Supper did. I don't care what the last rites do. You aren't going to heaven. But the good news is this I said to myself when I looked at those confirmation papers.

Lord you were so good to me to give me teaching in the Bible. I could have grown up as a Hindu. I could have grown up as an animus. I could have been running around being a Druid at night time or something.

My parents actually took me to a place where I learned some of the Bible and I could understand God's holiness.

And God's righteousness and God's judgment on sin. And who Jesus was God. Thank you for that background. I praise you that you can even take that and turn it into something good. So some of you know the Bible but you haven't repented.

Fuller said you cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late. I mean can you imagine the Lord Jesus. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. How would you like to be forgiven.

And the message isn't from Jonah to people he hated. The message is from the Lord Jesus Christ. Lay down your weapons of rebellion and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says you shall be what saved.

Wouldn't you like to be saved from your sins. And all that kind of language is tossed out when we have to tolerate and accept and buy into it. It couldn't be a more devilish satanic system. And it couldn't be worse for people because then they'll never have the long finger of Nathan on the sternum.

Spiritually you are the man. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 830 and 11 AM and Sunday evenings at 6 PM. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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