Jonah 3 Radical Message, Radical Faith

This week our pastor Don Pilsack brings us a message out of a series entitled Embracing the mission of God a study through the book of Jonah. I'm gonna give a just a brief introduction here to.

To the topic of the subject this morning. We're going through the book of Jonah has been mentioned a couple of times. We have two more messages in the book of Jonah this morning and then next week and we're done.

It's a pretty short book. But it packs a lot in just four short chapters a lot for us to consider and contemplate and think about and again. Well, we need to remember that when we come into this we come in and encounter the Old Testament.

We're we're encountering documents that are ancient that are old and have been around for a long time and yet they reveal something about our hearts. They show something about who we are as people and people have not changed dramatically over the thousands of years of history.

It's it's pretty crazy when we look at some of these things. I. As we've been going through this have you been growing through the book of Jonah that been good three of you good. Okay, I appreciate that for those three of you.

This is for you this morning. So Okay Jonah's been we go back kind of where we've been just catch us up to speed. Jonah's been through a storm. He's been through the depths of the sea. He's been through digestion.

Okay. All because he responded poorly to God's initial call on his life to go to Nineveh to a people he didn't even want to go to a people that his heart didn't Love and he wasn't really compassionate towards and he didn't even he didn't even care about them as a matter of fact.

He he kind of hated them. They were his enemies and he was called to go to that people group. Can you put yourself in his shoes and think about how you'd be feeling if you were called to go to your enemies and That was what God wanted and not only that but to preach with hopes of their repentance that they might turn to God.

That's a that's a difficult thing that he's been called to do. But in our text this morning, we're gonna see him make good on the vows that we saw him make yesterday I mean yesterday last week in the from the from the belly of that big fish.

So he was praying to God and he said I will complete my vows to you. I will I will turn back into your service and I will do what you've called me to do if you get me out of this fish, so the fish vomits him up and all that grossness and He is going to Nineveh we're gonna see that this week he will proclaim a message and yet it's going to be a message of destruction.

But the people of Nineveh we're gonna see this morning are going to throw themselves on the mercy of God and God is going to Show ultimately how merciful he really is. Now all of us need to have our thoughts about God tweaked a bit.

Would you admit that like you probably don't have God completely figured out? How do you raise your hand and say I maybe I maybe I got maybe I've got a couple things about God wrong in my mind. Okay, again, maybe seven of you on that one.

So we're getting we're getting more participation. I appreciate that on the rest of you probably have them all figured out and I'd like to talk with you about that. Some of us really a couple of errors that I think come into mind and opposite extremes really for us is.

Some of us think of God is the Big Daddy in the sky, right? You know what I'm talking about He exists for our joy to make us as comfortable as possible. I find that a lot of the atheists that are out there speaking vehemently are opposing this God.

They're like, well God doesn't do good things for you. Look at all the evil that's in the world. Look at all the bad things. So there must not be a God because this is the God that they oppose. Do you get what I'm saying there this Big Daddy in the sky who is just gonna make everybody comfortable all the time and that's his Job, right?

He's God so he's supposed to make us comfortable. Others think of God is like the cosmic killjoy who desires to make human existence as miserable as possible. We're sinners and we're under his thumb and he's just gonna make it miserable as much as possible.

Some of us try to ride the fence and think of God one way when things are going well for us. And then we think of God as a different way when things are going bad for us, right? Do you know what I'm saying?

So our God then becomes driven by our circumstances. So then we see God only in view of what's going on at the time and sometimes he's a good God and sometimes he's not A good God just as we swing the pendulum he kind of goes back and forth and That is where the Word of God is central.

That is where we must turn back here for a steadfast anchor for our souls to rest in who God is. How has he shown himself to us to? To embrace what God has shown us of himself from the Word. From here and to go as far as God's Word tells us of himself, but not to go further than that.

Does that make sense? So to embrace all of it and that's why we need to be students of the Word and that's what we're gonna see as we Get here in the book of Jonah. You see Jonah exists the book of Jonah the the the writing of Jonah pen on paper.

Exists to show us something about God. He is Genuinely truly a God of mercy. How merciful is your God towards sinners? Maybe we need to be tweaked a little bit in our thinking about how merciful is our God.

Toward those people and whoever every one of you in here has a those people. Right. So just just go ahead and fill in the blank with your issue. Is we all have issues. So who are those people to you? God is merciful towards them.

He sent his son to die for those. Does your God lavish? I love the word lavish because it's an extravagant word. It's a crazy word. Does your God lavish forgiveness upon his people? Take that too far.

Maybe your God is a pushover then right? It's got a pushover. Well, we could go, you know. So maybe if you feel that way. The word lavish the word grace. Those are intense words. But we will see in our text that God will lavish Unmerited favor on the people of Nineveh.

They don't earn it. They don't deserve it. He gives it and he gives them grace. They don't deserve and he is patient with them. Is there anybody here who maybe maybe we'll get a little bit more participation on this question anybody here.

Glad that God is patient with you. Okay. All right. There we go. I Know I am if he ceased to be patient with me right at this very moment I would justly be a pile of smoldering ashes up here and you'd have to have somebody else get up to speak.

It is scandalous that a holy and righteous God would listen and take pleasure in the praises of us. We're sin-filled and we're broken people. So as we read our text and then we come to worship let's sing out of gratitude out of gratitude that we serve a God who is patient and Merciful and gracious and we're going to see that in this text this morning that I want you to turn to right now Jonah chapter 3 and that's page 659 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you six five nine.

You can find that there and if you don't own a Bible We want you to take that Bible with you that was purchased with you in mind and we've got a box to fill those Gaps this next week. So go ahead and take one of those just please don't sell it on eBay.

We don't want anybody running a racket out of the church selling our our Bibles. Okay but uh Follow along as I read the entirety of Jonah chapter 3 659 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 so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh.

Not Tarshish this time Nineveh According to the Word of the Lord now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown 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. The word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne removed his robe covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes and He issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.

Let neither man nor beast herd nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. When God 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 and he did not do it.

Let's pray. This morning we're gonna see Jonah get a second chance you guys like second chances. I Love second chances and it's as if a rewind button has been hit in the book of Jonah. When we come into chapter 3 it's like They hit rewind and everything went back in time and all of a sudden we're back where we started again.

It's just Jonah and God and God is going to basically state almost identical wording the call to Jonah. Again right at the beginning of our text then the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying though the text began Jonah chapter 1 verse 1 said now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying it's the same starting of it's like we've we've started over again a fresh start and verses 1 through 3 of chapter 3 have the same feel and even some of the same Vocabulary in the same terminology and phrases as we see in the first at the beginning of chapter 3 here God calls Jonah a second time is the point and I think it's worth noting that God doesn't renegotiate with Jonah.

It's this is not a renegotiation. This is not some middle ground type of compromise where Jonah has run. The whole whale incident that is the ship the sailors all that stuff and now God's coming back saying well, okay I get your point.

Let's meet somewhere in the middle. Don't see that do you see God's gonna call him to do what he originally called him to do and there's not going to be a compromise in that Jonah hasn't talked to God into a different calling.

The calling is the same but also God doesn't in this text remind Jonah about the storm. He doesn't point a finger at him and say remember the storm remember the storm. Now I'm about to call you to do something.

So remember all the bad things he went through remember the whale. Remember the ocean remember how big those waves were. Okay. Now listen to what I have to say. He doesn't even no mention of those things and I think that's significant.

I think that's important. I'm just gonna say okay. We're gonna move forward here from this point. He doesn't even remind Jonah of the vows now remember you promised me you were in that whale. You were in that big fish in its stomach and and you promised.

So now here we go. God just calls him to go and speak to Nineveh a second time. Jonah's told that he's going to be given a message. He's going to be told and in what's implied by the order of events here is that Jonah isn't told right this event right now.

What the message is it's implied go to Nineveh. I'll give you the words to say. You ever been in a situation like that where you don't quite know what you're gonna say and you're kind of going into a meeting.

Or whatever and it's like gonna be one of those. Have any of you had that tough meeting? Before we're kind of just praying for the words as you're walking in because I don't know what I'm gonna say. I think that's where Jonah's at in this you're gonna get the words.

Trust me on this, but we don't find out what the message actually was until we get down to verse 4 but in verse 3 Jonah arose and he went to and I think a narrator reading this in Hebrew around the time that it was written would have just paused after every word with with a pregnant pause kind of just like What's Jonah gonna do next if you don't have the text written in front of you?

And we haven't already read it. I think there would be anticipation. Is he gonna bolt again? Is he going to run a second time? What's gonna happen here? But instead the text tells us in verse 3 he arose and went to Nineveh.

And he didn't just arise and go to Nineveh. But he did it according to the Word of the Lord. The text tells us so that that Hebrew phrase. According to the Word of the Lord it exists to show that he does so out of obedience.

That's what's motivating him. Jonah is back on track. He is following God and he's willing to serve him. The end of verse 3 Explains that Nineveh was an exceedingly great city huge city. Words of God about that city and It we also know that it's not just a huge city, but but it's also an exceptionally wicked city.

Jonah 1 chapter 2 told us that and It's implied also in verse 8 of our text that they lived a lifestyle of evil that was characterized by violence. Violence is the primary sin of this nation of this city.

It's a violent place. Nineveh was a bad place full of violent people a huge place full of violent people and So much so that their evil was said to rise before God in a way that grabbed his attention.

Now how many of you know that wherever God cast his gaze on humanity he finds sin. So what do you have to do to get God's special attention that he might send you a prophet to declare your sinfulness?

Like you get what I'm saying here as a question that's left unanswered in the text. How evil do you have to get before he would send a prophet to you to say you're gonna be destroyed now. I don't know.

I can't tell you how wicked that city was but I can tell you this Nineveh was was good at it. They were good at violence good at wickedness. They're perfecting it. They're doing a good job enough that they got they got God's attention.

Now scholars get caught up on this whole three-day journey bit at the end of verse 3. Do you see that there? It says so Jonah rose and went to Nineveh according to the Word of the Lord now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city.

Three days journey in breath is the way that the the ESV translates that. It's a little bit tricky because Nineveh has been excavated and it's only about eight miles in circumference. Meaning that at its widest point it would be around two and a half miles.

Wide two and a half in diameter if my math was correct. So scholars come up with all kinds of possible solutions. So I figured as long as you can just kind of throw out whatever possible solutions that you want because people begin to speculate.

Do you know that you ever read like your study notes or whatever and it just kind of turns into speculation people's thoughts opinions. I figured I'd just go ahead and give it a shot and speculate myself as to what this is so I think Jonah was really out of shape and So it was going to take him three full days to get across Nineveh because it's two and a half miles.

But he's a little bit lazy and he's out of shape and he's having a hard time. So he's going the whole time. He just can't get that far. I I'm not sure if that's the truth, but I made it up because other people other scholars.

Just got a chance to make something up to. What I really think is happening here is that Jonah is the author, right? So Jonah's writing this about his past experiences. So at some later date. He's going to sit down with a pen in hand and write about these experiences.

He's the author and he hasn't just giving out random factoids about cities and their size and things like that. Everything in the writing that he's putting down with a pen in hand. You know that parchment was expensive in those days not like he's gonna write down just something chintzy or trivial everything mattered to him and I think he's.

What he has to say about Nineveh is really. More about how long he's gonna have to be there. He's measuring Nineveh in time because he's a Jew. Now, what do you know about Jews and foreigners? Do they mix?

Well, does he want to be in Nineveh? Does he want to spend time with these unclean of unclean people? Absolutely not. So why would it be important for him to say how many days he's going to have to spend in Nineveh to reach them?

Because it's very very important in his mind because he is ready to be done with the job as soon as possible. So he's actually saying it's gonna take me three days to get this accomplished because he's not just he's not interested in walking across The center of the city is he what's his task?

What's he been told he has to do? Go and proclaim a message to them. So it's gonna take him three days. He's saying it's gonna take me three days to get across this city. Sharing with the people talking with them.

Does that make sense? Do you get that? It's a difference between just measuring how long would it take for me to walk from this side to that side versus the intention. Of the author actually saying I didn't want to be there.

But I had to be there and it was it was gonna take me three days in this nasty city. So he measures Nineveh according to the time rather than the actual mileage. So Jonah takes a deep breath, you know and then enters the corrupt air of Nineveh on the first day He spends that day proclaiming the message.

God has now given him a Simple message only five words in Hebrew. I think he might have delighted in the message that God gave. He didn't necessarily know what it was going to be, but I think he kind of enjoyed it.

Simple yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Yippee, whoo. All right. Here we go. This is more my speed God. I was hoping you were gonna let me judge someone and Now I get to do that. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Notice how simple and straightforward that message is a lot of detailed theology in it. No, not much really. I'm just basically him walking around telling people they're wicked and they're going to be destroyed.

There's apparently no language barrier and the message conveyed enough to the people of Nineveh that they were able to get it. Even in the opening words of his message We see the patience of God. So look at look at the phrase that he's given yet 40 days.

So even at that beginning part We see the patience of God. Does he need to give them a grace period? Could he not at the word of Jonah say you're smoked you're done. I'm out of town. It's done. Right, wouldn't he be justified in saying that but he gives them 40 days.

Implied in that notion of giving them 40 days is that there's a potential for him to do something, right? There's a potential for them to repent or to change their behavior or do something. He could have given them a day or just a week, but he gives them 40 days.

I guess here I was thinking about the biblical precedent maybe in this for the whole don't make me count to three routine with your children. Like I don't know if this is a biblical precedent for that or not, but and if you ever do that, you know.

Don't make me count to three. Sometimes we demand immediate obedience or something. Like I mean God's not even demanding immediate obedience with Nineveh. He's like 40 days. You're going to be destroyed.

Okay, there's going to be punishment here. By the way, don't really take that to heart about your parenting you you do what you need to do with advising your children. It's interesting to note that the word translated overthrown.

Is a hebrew word that can be either positive or negative in its context. At face value it's obvious that it's not a good thing the people who heard it in Nineveh knew that overthrow meant destroyed. Meant that they were going to be overturned plowed under it's not going to be good for them.

So they heard it that way. But in a very real sense at the end of 40 days, we will see that Nineveh is going to be overturned. Jonah's prophecy is going to come true. Just that that word overturned can literally mean changed radically transformed moved from one place to another.

And is Nineveh going to be changed. At the end of 40 days. Very radically changed right just a different nuance of that same hebrew word that can be translated for good or for bad. They understood it to be bad that they were in trouble with god.

And now comes the most amazing statement in the entire book of jonah. So many times we get hung up and thinking maybe the most amazing. Statement is that god appointed a great fish to swallow jonah that we miss.

What has really been going on here in the entire text? We get caught up in jonah's shenanigans. So we miss how central nineveh is. To the text from chapter one. We're supposed to be wondering what's going to happen in nineveh.

That's supposed to be in the back of our mind. That was the nature of the first call that we saw here. Will jonah go a second time? Yes, how will they respond? The text tells us in amazing words the people of nineveh believed god.

They believed him. And although some scholars refuse to make a big deal out of this I agree with the many who actually do make a big deal out of the hebrew words used for believe god. They're unique different kinds of words.

The phrase that's often translated believe in. It's a word that bears Trust. You know, you can believe something. And then you can believe in something. You know the difference like think about this. Some of you maybe have had this conversation with your doctor.

You're going to have a heart attack if you don't change your diet and begin to exercise. You know, can you imagine getting that kind of information from your doctor? You could believe it. Or you could believe in it there's going to be two different responses.

Likely yeah, you can believe it up here and not let it change your life not let it. You know, and then you just go about you know, um, three big macs, please or whatever. Um, You know what i'm saying?

Are you getting the difference between believing something and believing in it? This is the word that's used here is that nineveh believes in god. It's that phrase. Hebrew allows you to say both and they are believing in god.

They believe that he's real. They believe that he is worthy that they are worthy of his judgment. So the people call for a fast the people call for fast. We're going to see the king here of the city in a moment.

But the people call for a fast put on sackcloth, which is a cultural public way of mourning and humbling themselves. And it was all of them from the greatest to the least. All of them humble themselves before god.

In verse six the king who is not to be confused with the ruler over all of assyria. He is the ruler over this particular city. He catches word of this. And his actions are spelled out in almost a poetic symmetry.

In the text he starts on his throne. He stands up. He removes his royal robe. He replaces that robe with itchy scratchy burlap. He sits back down. But when he sits back down, he does not sit back down on his throne.

He sits in a heap of ashes. In utter abject humility. Can you imagine that kind of humility on the part of one of our politicians today. Would that be shocking. Would that be stunning? We're we elect our officials and we'll be shocked and stunned to see that kind of humility in any one of them.

And we need to remember in our text. We're observing. Not a senator. Not a president. We're observing a monarch a king. Who has absolute don't question me off with your head kind of authority. He's used to people jumping before he even asks them to.

And how many of you know that so this is would you call this a successful mission? You call this success on jonah's part. Yeah. Yes. Three think so and I mean about 60 of you aren't quite sure if it's successful.

Um, I think it's successful. I think that god's word is going forward and people are being changed by it. That's I think that's successful. That's really awesome to see them taking it in. Owning it and doing something about it applying it.

But how many of you know that jonah's success doesn't stem from his creativity or his ability to craft a great message. That's not where the success is coming from. God is doing his thing and jonah is barely even a willing tool.

Did I just call jonah a tool? Um. Sorry. Um distract myself here and. A whole nation is being radically. I mean not a whole nation. I'm, sorry a city is being radically transformed before his eyes. The people that he's been sent to are being changed.

The king proclaims a royal edict. It really has four basic commands in it. He says fast a fast for both people and animals and he says don't just fast not taste not taste anything. And not just from food.

But from water which how many of you would acknowledge that fasting from water would be a pretty serious thing. Like I mean that's health risk, right? That's getting dangerous. This king is taking this very seriously.

He genuinely believes that his his his city is going to be destroyed if something radical doesn't transform. Doesn't change and so he says don't even drink water. The second thing that he says is there's a dress code for Both people and animals.

You have a kind of a struggle with dress code for the animals in this context. But what you need to understand is that in that in these agricultural societies. Animals were so tight with the culture that that that's just the way that things went so when they talk about.

You know put dressing the animals up in burlap and the people and everybody's repenting and all of that stuff. They just include their animals in that. They're told to pray. And this is not the first time we've seen pagans crying out to god for mercy for deliverance in the book of jonah.

Can you remember who else we saw crying out for deliverance in the book of jonah? The sailors. Sailors. And we're seeing a mirror image of the sailors and all that they went through and Nineveh and what they are going through.

And the last thing. The king requests a fast from evil and violence. Just fast from food. Dress yourself scratchy pray. You know what i'm saying? And lastly fast from evil and violence. You scratch your head on this one.

Were he a good king? Wouldn't he have already asked them to refrain from violence to begin with. Right and yet here you have to make a special. Well, we'll make a special rule just for this time go ahead and stop being evil and stop.

Um, stop killing each other. Okay, just for just for a time here. We'll see how it goes. Um. The violence that they're being told to abstain from is that which is in their hands the phrase there implies a premeditated Commonality to it.

It's just they're just eager and ready. They're looking for opportunities to be violent towards one another. This is a pretty um messed up Jacked up society that we're looking at here. I'm wondering if the culture of nineveh was not like that of the alka indians.

Have any of you ever heard of the alka indians from ecuador a group of missionaries went down there? Um, and this was a a like a stone age kind of tribe in the mountains of uh in the river basins of um, of ecuador.

Back in the 50s and a missionary team went in there and they discovered this culture. There's a movie that just came out. I'm trying to remember the name of it. Does anybody remember the name of that movie?

End of the spear. So there was an actual full motion. Uh, uh, you know two-hour movie based on this but um that culture actually the culture that they found among those stone age that stone age tribe was literally a value of treachery and betrayal.

Like they valued that like that was held in high esteem. Like if you were going to invite somebody over for dinner. Feed them really good and halfway through the meal kill them. And that was valued that was like, oh, you really got him that time.

That was really that was amazing. But you roped him in and they thought you were a friend and boom. Don't you think that you're kind of trying to like find another tribe? At some point you kind of like maybe i'm gonna go over the mountain see what's over there.

Like you're just gonna head out and go in one direction into. I don't know but I get the picture that maybe that's what this Was like, I don't know what nineveh was like and but it's it's violent. They value that in verse 9 the king says.

So that king the king of a city who is violent like that kind of violence says perhaps maybe. Who knows god may relent and not destroy us. I think it's important to note that he He knows that he is not forcing god's hand by issuing this edict.

He's not forcing god's hand. God doesn't have to be merciful because oh we did this we fasted we did all these things now god has to Come through for us. So often we assume that because we've changed or we've done something nice for somebody that god now owes us something.

It's not the case. Even this pagan king knew that there was hope that god might relent. But this was a last last ditch hope. It's all up to god's mercy. The people of ninimum make some dramatic changes in their life.

Do you agree? You see what they did? They made some dramatic changes. But I want to want us to consider that these changes came after they believed in god. They heard his message and something inside of them changed.

You would not be following the story correctly. If you walked out of here thinking that fasting or following a dress code or cutting evil and violence out of your life. Makes you right with god. We don't need to act different.

We need to be made different. And that only comes from an inside out kind of transit transformation. Jesus referred to this concept as being born again. A phrase that's really misunderstood in our culture.

But I think one of the one of the best pictures of what it means to be a follower of jesus christ to be remade. Starting over that whole idea of a second chance at life. And that is really an awesome thing.

Jonah gets a second chance in our text the sailors earlier got a second chance. They thought they were goners and they were saved and now we see nineveh get a second chance. This is a book about second chances.

And when god saw how they turned that is they repented from their evil way. He relented and did not destroy the city and the disaster was averted. Now some of you might struggle with that and I think um I think I don't want to spend a lot of time on this and it's not even really in my notes.

But you might be confused like god changed his mind. Like can god change his mind? Didn't he say he was going to destroy him and then he didn't and how dishonest is it? Well, I mean, there's a simple answer and I don't think it's a cop-out answer.

I just really think it's the real answer and so i'm giving it to you and you might go. Oh, it's a cop-out and you can talk with me about it later. But i'm going to stick by this is it god knew all of these events unfolding and he never intended to destroy the city in.

The first place he declared this to them that they might change and he could use that as a tool to transform this place. But he knew the outcome. Does that make sense? Can you can you get your mind around that?

So he knew where everything was going to go and I think the same thing applies to our prayers sometimes and things like that. Does god know where history is going? Yes, does he use us as a part of that?

Yes. And so the whole process is in god's hands. So it's not like he was like, oh, I really wanted to smoke him around day 40 but you know i'm not going to now because They did this. And I changed my mind.

Do you get what you get the picture of what i'm saying? He knew they would repent and that was all part of the process that he used in this. If you're not satisfied with that answer, we can talk more about it later.

I think that's the genuine way that it actually goes is that he uses us as tools and as We we get the benefit the blessing of being included in part of the process that nineveh actually gets to repent in this.

It's kind of a cool thing. There's a fundamental question that needs to be asked from the text. Is your god eager? Is your god and I say your god not that because each one of us has our own god. We I hope we're all here gathered together serving the same god the god of scripture that Has revealed himself in jesus christ in the pages of this text.

But I say your god in your mind. What do you think of him? And I and then and then in that notion, I think we everybody is a little bit different, right? Our experiences with him and our understanding of him.

Is it varying degrees and things like that? Is your god eager? Or reluctant to show mercy to the world? I think if I ask the question differently, is your god eager to show mercy to you? You might answer that differently or more easily.

Because we all long for the mercy of god. Another way to state this question is how compassionate is god towards a wicked world. What do you think? I think your answer to this question will define a lot about how you live your life as a follower of jesus christ.