Jonah 3: 1-10
“A Change of Heart”
Vs. 1-4 And Now A Word From My Sponsor
Vs. 5-9 The Steps Of Change
Vs. 10 The Heart Of God
Intro
As most of you know, my first love is evangelism. I love to talk to people about God’s grace. Why? Because I have been one that His grace has been shed upon. God’s grace is truly amazing. When you think about it, God has a plan for you and me.
In chapter one, God told Jonah His plan for him, “Go to Nineveh.” Jonah did not like that plan, so he decided to go in the opposite direction. Now as I see it, Jonah took a boat of his choosing in the wrong direction, but God just put an end to that by way of a fish heading in the right direction.
Let me see if I can put this practically: Jonah did not want to follow God’s plan, but all that happened was that he went through a dying to himself and ended up right where God’s plan was all along! So as I see it, we can either do this the hard way like Jonah or we can do this the easy way and follow His plan! Now in this chapter we see the fruit of obedience. From a practical standpoint, we are going to look at the steps of making a change from disobedience to obedience!
And Now A Word From My Sponsor
Vs. 1-2 Now in these first four verses we are going to deal with how the Lord treats Jonah after his repentance, but first let me make a simple observation:
CHANGE IS NOT EASY! If you are like me and you know God is dealing with you in some area, you probably want to try to avoid whatever you are facing because we don’t like change. That’s what Jonah thought he would do, just run from change. You know the bumper sticker that says, “Refuse to grow up!” Growing up means that some areas that you have gotten comfortable with are going to be different. May I just say that growth is never supposed to be comfortable? Jonah’s change here could have been physically easier, but emotionally it still required him to die to himself! So what am I trying to say? Well, since change is inevitable, why not make the transition as smooth as possible? I mean, why get thrown overboard, drown with seaweed wrapped around your head, and get swallowed by a fish only to change your heart and repent so that you could allow God to change your heart? Folks, the story of change in our heart could be just a short story or a novel depending upon our response!
Vs. 1 Read this carefully: “Now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time…” ,This sentence gives me great hope because it shows us how God treats His children when they blow it then come back to Him! God does not refuse to speak to him; the moment Jonah repents, the “Word of the Lord comes…” Like I said, if you won’t listen to the Word of God in your life, you will listen to God through the works of God, but the moment you start listening again, He will go back and speak to you through the Word of God.
Hey, Christians, know this: even if you have left and deserted God, He has never once left you nor will He ever desert you. In Heb. 13:5 the Lord says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Furthermore, in Isa. 43:2 we have His promise that even, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.” You say, “Even if I stubbornly refuse to obey God’s will in my life?” Yep! Remember the Lord is more interested in you than He is in using you! Simply put, God is a God of many chances. Is it based on your own goodness? NO! It is based upon His character nature!
The truth of the matter is that God uses us even after our mistakes; in fact, it is because we are flawed failures that he uses us. That is what Paul says in 2 Cor. 4:7: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” Three days earlier, old Jonah was sailing in rebellion in the opposite direction; he repents, and God’s call is right there: There is service! You say, “What if Jonah, after being thrown up upon the shore, got on another boat going in the opposite direction?” Well, I believe that God would have again given Jonah another chance and another and another. Folks, eventually we Christians learn that it is better to dwell in His loving arms than to be drowned at sea!
Using the story of the prodigal son as an example, as long as you want out of the pigpen, you know God is still working with you. See, that’s the difference between believers and non-believers: believers may wallow in the pigpen, but they won’t want to make it their home!
Vs. 2 Notice that this is almost the exact commission that the Lord gave Jonah in chapter 1:2, except that this time the Lord only tells him to go. When Jonah was told what he was to say, he ran. This time God tells him to go, then He will give him the message. Folk’s God is willing to work with us, for He will only give us what we can handle.
Vs. 3 Here we are told what Jonah does with the Word of God: “Arose and went. ”Don’t go by this too quickly here because you may miss what God wants from those who stumble and fall.“ ARISE and GET GOING.” Folks, all too often, after we blow it, we just sit there. It is a pride thing; we had thought that we were a little more holy than we really were. Now we have egg all over our faces, and we start saying things like, “I’m not worthy!” Hey, when were you ever worthy?
I’m reminded of the story of Joshua just after he took over leadership of the nation of Israel to lead them into the promised land. So he has some victories. You remember they go up to Jericho, and they are facing overwhelming odds, and they trust the Word of the Lord, and the walls fall down. So they have some pride issues as they head over to Ai. The soldiers come back to Joshua and say, “We don’t need all of the army to defeat these guys; two or three thousand is more than enough! So Joshua lets them go, and they all run from the battle and get thoroughly wiped out. Old Joshua, man, he is bummed; he was undefeated as a leader, and now he gets whipped by a bunch of losers. So he falls down on his face and starts whining about the situation he is in when the Lord interrupts him and says, “Get up! Why do you lie on your face?” Perhaps you have blown it in your heart this morning, on your face whining about all of your mistakes. Here then is the Word of the Lord for you: REPENT, GET UP AND GET GOING!
Now we are told three times in this book that Nineveh was a “great city.” According to Gen. 10:11-12, it was actually four cities, all of which lay between the Tigris River and the Upper Zab River. One of the ancient writers says that it was 55 miles in circumference. So Jonah walks into the four-city region, travels some 15-20 miles, stops, and declares the message of the Lord.
Now notice what Jonah says: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” This word here used for “overthrown” is the exact word used to describe the destruction of Sodom Gomorrah. Furthermore, 40 is the number of judgment, so these guys could tell that they were about ready to be judged and destroyed. Hey, but you know what? I think that there was another reason for the reaction of repentance in the Ninevites.
Can you just imagine this guy coming into your city, hairless bleached white? Perhaps Jonah’s story of rebellion had already reached Nineveh. Some guys were out there fishing from the shore when the fish belched Jonah onto the beach. “Man, what happened to you?” “Well, you see, I was sent to preach against Nineveh, and I didn’t want to go, so I went in the opposite direction, and a storm was going to sink my boat, so I went overboard and drowned, and then this fish swallowed me up, and while in the fish I repented.” “So all this happened because you were disobedient to God’s plan in your life?” “Yep!”
Folks, last week I said that Jonah was a sign to the Ninevehites. I’m sure that Jonah had not planned it this way, but God’s discipline as a result of Jonah’s rebellion was most likely part of the reason for the success of the message. If I could pass one thing on to those who teach the Bible, it would be, “Be transparent!” You see, when the world sees this hairless, bleached white guy, it makes his message all the more real. I believe that Jonah’s message was received not just for the content but because they could see in Jonah the truth of what he taught, simply put, that rebellion doesn’t look too good, nor smell good, if you continue down that road, it will eventually kill you! And this, coupled with his message of judgment and total destruction, had an air of truth to it!
The Steps of Change
Vs. 5 Before I get into the steps of getting right with God, I want to show what it was that the Ninevites responded to because all too often those who are not Christians fault the messenger for their failure to respond to “the message.”
- They were given only one warning! Jonah walked for three days, but this was their one and only “evangelistic message.”.
- They only heard one prophet who admittedly could care less about their eternal souls.
- They heard only one monotonous message. “Forty days and you die!” I’m sure that Jonah said the word destroyed with a gleam in his eye!
Look carefully at that message from a Ninevites perspective:
- It was a message of destruction, not of salvation.
- It offered no hope.
- Nothing mentioned about repentance.
- Nothing mentioned about the love of God.
So? Hey, look at the response here of the nation! How much more are those who hear the gospel responsible to respond? Allow me to quote Jesus in the book of Matthew 12:41 as He rebuked His generation for their failure to respond to His message: “The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.”
Jonah used no gimmicks, no celebrities, and not even a Christian rock band. Jonah did entertain the crowd. When they heard Jonah’s message and saw him, they were looking at a man who had been dead but was now alive. And perhaps they thought, “If God would forgive Jonah when he did not deserve it, maybe He will forgive us when we don’t deserve it!” So what brought about the greatest response ever recorded to the shortest message ever recorded?
Vs. 5a “Believed God”: This is always where change begins in our lives. Notice that it does not say that they “believed in God.” 94% of Americans say that they believe in God. Folks, 600,000 Ninevites believed God when they heard that they were going to be judged. Did you notice here that it does not say that they believed Jonah? It was not about the messenger; it was about the truth.
Vs. 9 I want you to see that though no hope of salvation was offered, they still fled to the mercy of God. Simply put, it was not the fear of the wrath of God that drew them to repentance; it was the hope of the mercy of God. Most folks don’t need information about their sin; they know that they are apart from God. What they need is the motivation to change. When we see that we are cheating ourselves out of letting go of some choice, sin is a lot easier!
Vs. 5b-8 “Godly Sorrow”: It says here in verse 5b that they put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. Sackcloth was this heavy black goat hair garment that a person wore when a close family member died. Do you get the picture? These Ninevites were brokenhearted over their sin. As a matter of fact, their sorrow led them to do several things:
Vs. 8a Confess their sin: No one has told them what their sin was, and in verse 8 they show that they know exactly what it was that they did wrong. Simply put, they agreed with God or (confessed publicly) their sin! Hey, isn’t it interesting that there was no debate as to whether what they were doing was wrong in the eyes of the Lord?
Vs. 7 Stopped eating: They had been full of the world’s delights with no intention of stopping until they were convicted. Then all of a sudden, the things of the world that they had an appetite for, they no longer wanted anything to do with. They went from being full of the world’s ways to wanting to be empty of the world!
Vs. 8a Changed their clothes: Clothes are how we show our identity. Clearly they were identified with the world and comfortable in it, but now they changed their attire; they no longer wanted to be identified with the world. They went from worldly comfort to unconvertible with their old style!
Folks, repentance is not just a mental agreement; it requires a complete change:
- Of mind, what we think!
- Of heart, what we desire!
- Of will, what we do!
And that is what you see with the Ninevites. Some things had to change in their lives! Folks, you can come just as you are to Christ, but when you meet Him, you will not want to stay the way you came! They cried mightily out to God (verse 8) to the point where they covered all the animals with sorrow (verse 8a). They made no excuses or reasons for their sins (verse 8b).
The Heart of God
Vs. 10 A lot of folks try to make something weird out of this verse. They say God is not unchangeable, for here He changed His mind. Yet that is not what it says! The New King James bible puts it correctly when it says that God “relented,” not “repented.” Simply put, it is God’s response to man’s changed heart. When the Bible uses human terms to describe God’s characteristics, they are called “anthropomorphic.” You see, Nineveh had two options; even Jonah knew that (4:2b): they could reject God’s message or receive it. Like two forks in the same road, they chose the right fork, and of course, God knew all along which one they would choose. Num. 23:19 says that, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” So what’s it going to be for you? Are you going to respond to God’s grace or choose to face destruction?