Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1650
August 18, 2024
Jonah 3.1-5 Click here for audio worship.
Dr. Ed Pettus
(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)
“Repentance to Redemption”
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5And 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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The Word of the Lord
Jonah is another well known story, certainly known by Christians, but also among non-Christians. The story of Jonah may not be as familiar as it was 50-60 years ago when our culture had some connection with Christianity and the Bible. People knew about Jonah in the belly of a whale in a similar familiarity with Psalm 23 or John 3.16 or at least how to misquote things like "money is the root of all evil". I know you know that it is the love of money that is a root of all kinds of evils.
Jonah has much to offer on topics like repentance, obedience, and the far reaching nature of God's mercy (beyond just Israel). When the Word of God first came to Jonah, he was unwilling to answer God's initial call to go to Nineveh and call out their evil. Instead, Jonah fled, which led to the whale encounter! The ESV just renders it as a big fish. Whatever it was, it was three days in the belly of a large sea creature that God sent to swallow Jonah. Take that lesson that if the Lord calls, go. If the Lord sends His Word, do as He says! But how can we know God’s call? The prophets seemed to have it good; they have a clear cut Word from the Lord, specific and direct. At least, it appears that way.
Jonah was a prophet to whom God’s Word came. Jonah 1.1, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah…” We wonder about how the Word came. It is the mystery of how God revealed His call to the prophets. We sometimes wish we had such a clarity of Word given to us. I want to say two things about this that may not be satisfactory to our desire to get a direct Word from God. First, God does give us a direct Word, the Bible. His Word gives us everything we need to know about what the Lord requires of us and all we need in order to do His will. I know we want to have more details about how to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We want more details, even an audible voice to tell us how to love our neighbor, especially the most unlovable neighbors. We want clear directions on what decision to make in any given situation and where to go and what to do. What we have for all of that is this Holy Book. The more we read it, study it, and trust it, the less important is the question of a “Thus says the Lord” moment. Second, the Bible does not seek to answer how the prophets knew that the Word of the Lord had come. The Bible assumes we take that at face value. The Word came, that’s it! No questions asked. Jonah is one of the rare prophets, perhaps the only one, who did not heed the initial call, so God called him a second time after the great fish spit him up on the shore.
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Heed the Call
In chapter three God calls Jonah again to go to Nineveh. Jonah responds in obedience this time and God works His grace and mercy in the city as the king calls all the people to repent before God. Sometimes we fail to respond to God, to do His Word. It may take us some "belly of a whale time" before we will submit to God's call to something He desires for us. But, God called Jonah a second time. He is the God who gives us second opportunities to do His will, to love, to serve, to wait and watch and pray. God kept after Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah was obedient the second time and he and God saw the people of Nineveh repent and God did not bring disaster upon them.
Jonah was not happy about Nineveh’s repentance and the forgiveness given. That may seem strange to us, but sometimes we also know people we might think could never repent of their sin. But God… what a great pair of words, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—" (Ephesians 2.4-5). God works miracles! God works His grace and mercy and love in the lives of those whom He has chosen and our responsibility is to respond in obedience to "go to Nineveh", to go to the lost and tell them about Jesus. "Go therefore, and make disciples…"
Jonah knew this about God as well. It is part of Jonah’s complaint against God. “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4.1-2). What Jonah knew was Exodus 34.6, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” What Jonah seemed to hope for was the second half of that Exodus passage, “but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” We may be more like Jonah than we care to admit for sometimes we just want the Lord to not clear the guilty but get ‘em! We must remember one gospel fact, that Christ has shown us His mercy and grace and love and faithfulness, forgiving our sins just as He forgave the sins of the people of Nineveh. A lesson Jonah also learned.
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Heed the Warning
The story of Jonah is about call and about warning. The warning was the message Jonah was to preach. Jonah 1.2, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” God sent Jonah to call out their evil, their sin, and it was not until chapter three that Jonah gives that warning, (3.4) “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Somehow, from that warning, the people of Nineveh believed God and repented of their sin. God saw their change of heart, their repentance and he reversed the plan to overthrow Nineveh.
Jesus had a similar warning that I have quoted with every minor prophet thus far, Matthew 4.17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Those sound just alike! Well, the result is the same, repentance and salvation. This is the gospel story, the gospel warning, the gospel good news. It is the warning and the call we are to give to others without apology, repent. Turn away from sin. Seek the Lord and His strength. Ask God to work His grace in your life, for that is the only way to know true life. Christ gave Himself a sacrifice for our sins. He died on the cross taking on Himself our sins, forgiving all who repent and believe. By God’s grace we are forgiven and set free for life in abundance and for the promise of life eternal.
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Repentance that Leads to Redemption
Nineveh’s story is our story, the gospel story. It is a story of call, warning, repentance, and forgiveness. Jesus quotes the story in Matthew 12.38-41, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The 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.”
If there is a more obvious connection between one of the minor prophets and Jesus and the gospel, I’m not sure where it is. We will wait and see as we journey through this series. Jonah is a sign for all that just as he was three days in the belly of the great fish, so Jesus was in the tomb three days. Just as Nineveh responded to the call to repentance, so should all who hear the good news of the Christ. The something greater that Jonah is Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords and Savior, the long awaited Messiah. Jonah points us in the direction of Jesus Christ. While Jonah’s story has its own unique place in the Old Testament and in the history of Nineveh, it also has a direct line to show us Jesus. That is amazing and wonderful and grace filled. May we heed to call to repentance that leads to redemption and pray for others to do the same. Amen.
