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Jonah’s Leftovers // Jonah 3:5-9

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Sovereign To SPARE // Born Again

"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. 6The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And 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, 8but 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. 9Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” ~Jonah 3:5-9 ESV

BACKGROUND

This section of Jonah is looking at Nineveh’s response of repentance to the Word of God from Jonah.

VERSE 5

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.

REPENTANCE: NINEVEH BELIEVED

Jonah probably still smells a little “fishy” giving this message to the people of Nineveh. He’s not “polished or perfect in presentation,” as Pastor Cody said last week, but instead he just lays out the Word of God for the people and the people respond to this word as the text says they “believed God.”
 
“And… the people believed,” this is the connecting statement to last week w/Pastor Cody. As Jonah preached (last week) a message of repentance and (this week) we see the people believe what he said.
 
It’s important to point out this “believe” is 1 of the only 2 options that happen when faithful Bible teachers, faithfully preach Jesus.
–Option 1 is that – People will believe and receive the Gospel. And their life will be forever changed and their eternal destiny will be sealed OR–option 2 – People won’t believe and they’ll reject the Gospel. And their life will also be changed and their eternal destiny too will be sealed.
 
/ / APPLICATION / / Each of us must answer that same question when the Gospel comes to us: Will you receive it OR will you reject it?
 
Hebrew writers love to do what the writer of Jonah is doing here in Verse 5. We see a general summary statement that’s followed by a breakdown and more in depth pieces added to the original statement. We’ve already seen this same technique used in chapter 2 w/Jonah’s prayer.
 
This verse also is a reminder for us of Romans 1:16, that says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Jonah didn’t need to to do “anything,” (other than open his mouth) for the Gospel to bring the power of God to a city in need. When God gives you a message to be shared he’s going to go ahead of you and prepare the heart of the hearer right? Jonahs 5-8 word sermon seems pretty weak in summary, but it’s all that God needed in order to turn hearts back to him.
As a result of Jonah’s “faithful,” preaching (not ‘strength’ of preaching) the whole city repents! This revival breaks out and it hits everyone, from greatest to least, rich to poor, prince to peasant—no one is left out of this response.
 
The truth is that when you’re 40 days from judgment, it really doesn’t matter if you’re the greatest or the least because judgment is coming for everyone…because, God isn’t a respecter of persons in this regard.
 
This also is God’s great plan of salvation for the world, that everyone who might call upon the name of the Lord would be saved. Scripturally speaking “everyone is invited to the party,”…yet not everyone will come and join in.
 
We know that Nineveh “believed,” because their hands matched their hearts as the people responded as, “They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

VERSE 6

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

REPENTANCE: THE KING BELIEVED

“The word reached the king of Nineveh,” which reminds us that God’s word when it goes out never returns void. Isaiah 55:11
 
It’s not ironic that the King (a non-believer) initially responds in the “right way,” to God and the prophet of God initially responds in the “wrong way,” to God and runs away. We’ve seen this similarly to the scene with the sailors in Chapter 2; Jonah still hasn’t learned his lesson. This “response,” of the king is also a picture of our King of Kings Jesus. This earthly king kneeled down to save His people as Jesus Christ humbled himself coming to earth and stepping down from heaven.
 
The king of Nineveh goes from a robe to sackcloth and from a throne to the floor.

VERSE 7

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,

Repentance: Fasting and SACKCLOTH pt.1

“Fasting,” according to the Bible, means to voluntarily reduce or eliminate your intake of food for a specific time and purpose. You “fast,” as to be reliant on God the Holy Spirit, essentially saying that God is more important to you than whatever it is you are fasting from.
 
But, Why the animals? In the ancient east people would commonly pull their flocks into the fast so that as the animals would begin to “die,” from lack of food and water they would then be sacrificed as an offering to God.
 
This king is basically saying, “Hey guys, even if we lose everything, all our food, all our supplies, all of our business, all our stuff…it pales in comparison of our real need which is our need of Jonah’s God—YHWH and we’re not willing to lose Him.”
 
The king is well aware of his communities indictment and condition from God (further reiterating it’s highly likely Jonah preached longer than an 8 word sermon). The message was that wrath is coming, and it’s coming for everyone, no matter their social status.

VERSE 8

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.

REPENTANCE: FASTING AND SACKCLOTH PT.2

Imagine with me for a moment this scene if it happened today: Imagine the President of the United States set up a press conference and got on national television and said, “We’re interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for this important announcement. God’s wrath is coming, I’m commanding you to repent of your sin. Here’s how you’ll proceed. Grab your kids, grab your wife, grab your fur-babies and put on some funeral clothes (that’s what ‘sackcloth‘ represented), and sit and fast and pray.” Now imagaine a step further that everyone actually did it! There’s no protesting, there’s no picketing….just full surrender to God.
 
Just as Pastor Cody ended last week saying, “God may be angry at your rebellion, but he’s never angry at your return,” understand that God hears your prayer when you call out to him in surrender.
–2 Chronicles 7:14 proves this “If,” you would do these things,” God is faithful and “He will do these things too.”
 
Repentance isn’t “business as usual,” it means something HAS TO CHANGE. In their case the people stopped eating and they took off normal clothes and put on funeral clothes. The Ninevites have a “textbook response,” of repentance, which accidental but it’s been prescribed from Jonah. There are 2 aspects to repentance we need to consider: The ritual & the behavior.
—The ritual was: sackcloth, fasting, sitting in the dust.
But…would there behavior change along with the ritual? We get a clue in on this from the next verse.
 
SIDENOTE / / The fasting AND sackcloth, were both a picture of repentance especially in old testament times, so they were outwardly expressing what was going on in the inside. This is not dis-similar to baptism.
 

VERSE 9

Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

REPENTANCE: WHO KNOWS?

Who knows? Says the king…maybe God will turn away His wrath and NOT kill us…this is a way to show us as readers that the Ninevites were sincere. It’s one thing to repent with an understanding of God’s mercy, it’s a whole nother’ to repent of sin without that understanding.
 
This is a sign of humility from Nineveh (which is a great place to start in repentance btw), they don’t believe they can manipulate God just by going through the motions of a ritual. They say, “maybe God will spare us? Maybe not. Either way we are going to follow a new path here toward repentance and put our faith in YHWH.”
 
As you read the OT and read about Israel you see they had this problem a lot also, as they treated God like a cosmic vending machine, essentially saying: “If we put in our dollar then we’ll get this result….” and God says, “That’s not how I work.”
 
Here’s another reason Nineveh may have been prone to listen to Jonah ~ Historians have pointed out that about the time of Jonah’s mission Assyria had experienced a series of famines and plagues, revolts, and eclipses …all seen by the people as Omens of far worse things to come. Some have argued that this was God’s way of preparing the ground for the prophet Jonah…the people of Nineveh would’ve been unusually tuned in to what Jonah had to say if this indeed was the case.

SUMMARY

Against all expectations, the powerful  and violent city of Nineveh puts on sackcloth and fast…they believe God and repent. And as a result a revival breaks out. As God’s wrath is revealed, it causes the people to lean into the hope of the mercies of God.
 
Thankfully, we don’t have to guess saying, “Who knows,” if God might save us as we call out in faith. Because of Jesus we can have assurance that God always responds to the authentic confessions of faith from His people.
 
Who knows what God might do with a heart that’s fully surrendered to Him.
And Who knows what God might do with someone like you.

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