September 25, 2022
Jonah 3
“Course Correction”
Service Overview: While we don’t know why the Ninevites believed God and repented, what we do know is that their repentance resulted in God’s relenting. God is in the business of forgiving ANYONE who would but turn to him.
Memory Verse for the Week:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)
Background & Technical Information:
- After walking out on the job, Jonah returns to God with a repentant heart and is given a second chance. He embarks on the single greatest missionary effort of all time. Physically, the journey was difficult. Jonah’s trek from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean to Nineveh spanned approximately five hundred miles. (Charles R. Swindoll, Old Testament Characters, 92)
- Four times in this book, Nineveh is called a “great city” (1:2; 3:2–3; 4:11), and archeologists tell us that the adjective is well deserved. It was great in history, having been founded in ancient times by Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod (Gen. 10:8–10). It was also great in size. The circumference of the city and its suburbs was sixty miles, and from the Lord’s statement in Jonah 4:11, we could infer that there were probably over six hundred thousand people living there. One wall of the city had a circumference of eight miles and boasted fifteen hundred towers. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 96)
- In the description of the size of Nineveh we are told that it was a city of three days’ journey. Commentators take different views as to what this might mean. Some say it refers to the time it would take to circumnavigate the entire city. Others take it to mean that a thorough visit to every part of the city would take three days. Some believe that the days come from the first day of arrival, the second day of the visit proper and the third day of departure. A more recent view is that it comes from the appropriate period of protocol given to a foreign guest visiting an important city. In some ways it does not matter. We are told repeatedly throughout the book that Nineveh was great. This is the writer’s way of saying just how big the city was. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 70)
- When used of God, the word ‘repent’ is what the scholars call an anthropopathic expression — an expression borrowed, as it were, from our earthly, finite and sinful experience and applied to the actions in time and space of the infinite, eternal and unchangeable God. (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 100)
- Ashes speak of fire and judgement; dust speaks of the end of all men. The king is saying that, despite his earthly privileges, it is among the dust of death that he rightly belongs. Such an act and such a statement was all the more astonishing for the fact that he only heard the word of God second hand. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 79)
The question to answer…
How is it God could so easily and simply forgive a people as wicked and evil as the Ninevites?
Answer…
God’s grace and mercy are lavish and radical toward anyone who willingly, honestly, and humbly turns to him.
What radical matters are worth probing in this chapter?
- The second chance God gives Jonah.
(v. 3 | Psalm 86:15; Lamentations 3:21-23; Micah 7:18; Matthew 18:21-22; 1 John 1:9)
After the way Jonah had stubbornly refused to obey God’s voice, it’s a marvel that the Lord spoke to him at all. Jonah had turned his back on God’s Word, so the Lord had been forced to speak to him through thunder and rain and a stormy sea. But now that Jonah had confessed his sins and turned back to the Lord, God could once again speak to him through His Word. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 95)
- The path of obedience Jonah joins.
(vv. 3-4 | Exodus 19:5; Psalm 112:1; Isaiah 1:19; Jeremiah 7:23; 1 John 3:24; 5:3)
In an unforgiving world, many a career has been terminated by just one mistake. Even if someone gets a second chance, it is usually probationary and with less responsibility. But although he failed when first called by God to go to Nineveh, Jonah was both reinstated as God’s prophet and given the same commission to preach to the Ninevites! (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 79)
- The belief and repentance of the Ninevites.
(vv. 5-9 | 2 Chronicles 7:14; Proverbs 28:13; Acts 3:19; 2 Corinthians 7:10; 2 Peter 3:9)
But the plot takes another surprising—or even absurd—turn. Without so much as a whisper of disbelief, “The people of Nineveh believed God” (3:5). All, including the king, proclaim (“called out”) a fast and put on sackcloth. The king, moreover, decrees a ritual of penitence which involves even the beasts. All turn from their habitually evil ways, put aside the violence that is in their hands, and cry mightily to God (3:6–9). (David Gunn, Commentary on Jonah, Kindle Edition)
Behind whatever may have led the Ninevites to hope that God would spare them, lies the fact that God is a God of love, as well as of wrath. (Keddie, 93)
- The change of heart God exhibits.
(v. 10 | Ex. 33:19; Ps. 25:6; Prov. 28:13; Ez. 18:21-23; Mic. 7:18; Rom. 2:4; Eph. 2:4-5)
There has been a change in the heart of the people and a change in the heart of the king. There is therefore a change in the heart of God. This is not repentance in the sense of regretting something done earlier, but God’s response to a complete turnaround in Ninevite thinking and acting. (Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 82)
Conclusion… What should followers of Jesus embrace in light of this?
A. How obedience leads to life.
(Is. 1:19; Jer. 7:23; Mat. 7:21-23; Luke 11:28; John 8:51; 14:15; Rom. 12:1-2; Heb. 5:9)
Christ can be trusted to keep His Word that He will exchange our drab existence for joyous living, abundant life! And while true love, total acceptance, and complete security are rare in our frantic world, the biblical evidence that our desires in these areas will be fulfilled in Christ is abundant. (Josh McDowell, Evidence for Joy, 16)
The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God can’t keep you and the power of God can’t use you. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 97)
What God calls us to do for him, not only is to be done, but can be done by us because he provides the enabling strength with the commission. Jonah had to go back to square one and be obedient to his calling. (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 79)
B. How those forgiven are invited to forgive.
(Proverbs 19:11; Matthew 6:15; 18:21-22; Luke 6:36; 15:7; Rom. 5:8; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13)
Forgiveness is not foolishness. Forgiveness is, at its core, choosing to see your offender with different eyes. (Max Lucado, Facing Your Giants, 49)
God is the consummate forgiver. And we depend every day on His ongoing forgiveness for our sins. The least we can do is emulate His forgiveness in our dealings with one another. (John MacArthur, The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness, 10)
C. How Jesus never rejects a heart broken enough to change.
(Ps. 51:17; Prov. 28:13; Mat. 3:8; Acts 3:19; 2 Cor. 7:10; 1 Pet. 3:18; 2 Pet. 3:9; 1 John 1:9)
Jesus loves sinners. He only loves sinners. He has never turned anyone away who came to Him for forgiveness, and He died on the cross for sinners, not for respectable people. (Corrie ten Boom, I Stand at the Door and Knock, 20)
God is more concerned about His workers than He is about their work, for if the workers are what they ought to be, the work will be what it ought to be. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 95)
The root of God’s provision of salvation through Christ’s satisfaction of his justice is in the fact that wrath and compassion exist simultaneously in the nature of God. Both his wrath and his compassion are perfectly righteous and completely compatible with one another. A holy God is angry with all evil. And the same holy God is compassionate towards the work of his own hands — mankind and his fallen world. (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 93)
Gospel Application…
Jesus eagerly opens the floodgates of forgiveness for anyone who honestly and humbly turns to him.
(Luke 15:10; John 3:17; Acts 17:30; Romans 5:19; Romans 6:23; 1 John 1:9)
Do you understand what God has done? He has deposited a Christ seed in you. As it grows, you will change. It’s not that sin has no more presence in your life, but rather that sin has no more power over your life. (Max Lucado, Next-Door Savior, 69)
Spiritual Challenge Questions…
Reflect on these questions in your time with the Lord this week, or discuss with a Christian family member or Life Group.
- What might God’s re-commissioning of Jonah teach us about his character? Why didn’t God just get some other prophet to go to Nineveh?
- What stands out to you as you consider what the Ninevites did to demonstrate their repentance?
- What might the repentance of the Ninevites teach us about personal responsibility? What about corporate, or national, responsibility?
- What does God’s forgiveness of the Ninevites teach us about his nature? What does it teach and communicate regarding the good news of Jesus?
Quotes to note…
In the Hebrew text, there are only five words in Jonah’s message; yet God used those five words to stir the entire population, from the king on the throne to the lowest peasant in the field. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 98)
We may sometimes say too much in a single sermon, and give our hearers a field of wheat instead of a loaf of bread. But Jonah said what he was bidden to say, no more and no less: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” (Charles Spurgeon, Commentary on Jonah, Kindle Edition)
The person who says, “I can go ahead and sin, because I know the Lord will forgive me” has no understanding of the awfulness of sin or the holiness of God. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 96)
The sin of Nineveh was something in which the entire community shared. It was therefore appropriate that the entire community come together in repentance over it. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 81)
Why did God choose to forgive Jonah? Why — in the sense of for what purpose — does God forgive our sins? Why is God ‘reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them’? (2 Corinthians 5:19.) The apostle’s answer is that God made him that had no sin (Jesus Christ) to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are saved in order to serve. And so it is with Jonah. He is restored to God’s service. He gets a second chance. (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 78-79)
God employs Jonah again in his service. His making use of us is an evidence of his being at peace with us. Jonah was not disobedient, as he had been. He neither endeavoured to avoid hearing the command, nor declined to obey it. See here the nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty. (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, 839)
The servant might fail, but he is a servant still, as in the instances of Abraham and Job. (H.A. Ironside, Notes on the History of Jonah, 23)
By the king’s decree, cattle and sheep were also to be deprived of food and water. They, of course, did not share in the guilt that invited God’s judgement, but man and beast were bound together within the life of the community. The animals shared in the good times, they would suffer if harm came to their city and benefit if she was spared. It was therefore appropriate that the bellowing and bleating of distressed animals should mingle with the cries of the people as they sought God—one united voice ascending to the Lord, just as their wickedness had done. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 80)
Nineveh calls us to the foot of the cross and asks, ‘What will you do with Jesus?’ Nineveh points all men everywhere to the necessity of coming to the Lord in repentance and faith. (Gordon Keddie, Jonah: Preacher on the Run, 88)
