Sermons
They Believed In God
Series: Man Overboard: Jonah In JeopardyTHEY BELIEVED IN GOD
Pt#7 / Man Overboard: Jonah In Jeopardy
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / March 06, 2016
When Jonah went to Nineveh the second time he was a changed man.
He had learned first-hand about the marvelous, unmerited grace of God.
His time spent in the belly of the whale changed his outlook, and he hastened to his assignment.
Read from Jonah 3:1-4
What kind of response is Jonah going to encounter in the wicked city of Nineveh?
This story amazes us at every turn, and perhaps nothing is more amazing than the reception of the Ninevites.
Read from Jonah 3:5-9
Our first thought about Jonah’s preaching is to surmise that he will not be successful.
Perhaps that is due to a measure of cynicism that we’ve come to have about the power of preaching.
Sometimes we act as if the gospel has lost its appeal. In Rom.1:16, Paul proclaimed,
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…
And Heb.4:12-13 reminds us:
the word of God is living and active and shaper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul
and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the hearts. And there is no
creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
As we have noted throughout this series, the people of Nineveh were quite barbarian.
They were renown for their cruelty and they were an arrogant horde who knew not limits in afflicting pain.
Jonah’s message was given to him by God, but it doesn’t seem geared to making friends and influencing people.
But then, the proclamation of the gospel of Christ is not about making friends it is about delivering God’s message.
So Jonah preached: Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown (Jonah 3:4).
This is a kind of “in your face” message to a city and a nation who have been fearless in the face of enemies.
The “odds-makers” would likely have given Jonah a slim-to-nothing “chance” of persuading them to repentance.
Yet, here again, is that word “chance”, and Jonah wasn’t simply going with a lucky charm in his pocket.
God had Jonah’s back! He was supported by the all-knowing and all-powerful providence of the God of the universe.
One can’t help but wonder if Jonah knew of the groundwork and field work that God had already done.
It might well have been that as Jonah neared the city, God was encouraging him with words like those spoken by Jesus to His disciples, “Behold…lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are ripe unto harvest” (Jn.4:35).
God had already planted the seed (even before Jonah arrived on the scene).
And now Jonah’s assignment was to do some watering.
But, as Paul would write much later, “God was causing the growth” (1Cor.3:6-7).
Jonah would soon discover that he was but an instrument in God’s hand - - one of God’s fellow workers (1Cor.3:9).
We might be inclined to speak of the events in Nineveh as a REVIVAL.
Yet, the word re-vival implies a return to a previous state of being right with God. Since Nineveh had never
had a relationship with Jehovah God, this is not a revival, per se, but a wide-spread and first-time CONVERSION.
The people of Nineveh were not “turning back” to God, but were “turning to” God for the very first time.
We spoke a few minutes ago about how, well before Jonah’s arrival, God was busy preparing the field.
This preparatory work can be noted on several levels.
IN THE PERSON OF JONAH
Had Jonah gone to Nineveh at first (Jonah 1:1-2), there would not likely have been any conversions.
People are not stupid. Most can sense when a preacher is really serious about his topic.
When Jonah was first called he was not really ready to preach - - he himself needed a change of heart / repentance.
Jonah ran from God. His went to Joppa with plans to run as far away as possible - - to Tarshish (Spain).
But GOD RAN TO JONAH and sent a perfect storm and a great sea monster to expedite his change of heart.
Jonah got the message and with fervent prayer renewed his life with a vow (Salvation is from the Lord - - Jonah 2:9).
IN THE MESSAGE DELIVERED
God gave Jonah specific words to proclaim: Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown (Jonah 3:4).
Concerning Jonah and his message, Jesus stated, “they REPENTED at the preaching of Jonah (Lk.11:32).
Jonah’s sermon was a harsh message of JUDGMENT - - yet forty days and you will be overthrown.
Under normal circumstances this message would have met with strong resistance, if not utter contempt.
Lk.11:30 records the precise words of Jesus - - Jonah became A SIGN to the Ninevites.
A “sign” is always sign-ificant. And a “sign” was something that could be seen or visualized.
“In every documented case of a person having been swallowed by a large fish, the gastric juices from the stomach
of the fish have completely change the outward color of the person’s skin and removed all of their hair.”
(The Runaway Prophet by David Jeremiah, pg.83).
“When Jonah came to Nineveh to preach judgment upon the city, he must have been a sight to behold.
Most of the Jews and the Ninevites were dark-skinned peoples, and baldness was almost unheard of.
Here was Jonah with no hair, his skin a blotchy yellow and white, and as he walked through the
city as God’s messenger, no doubt the crowd gathered just because of his unusual appearance.”
It’s very likely that an added part of Jonah’s message was telling his own story - - an electrifying message for sure.
Jonah, himself, had tasted the terrifying judgment of God and, afterwards, God’s amazing grace.
Indeed, Jonah, like Jesus, appears to them as one who had arisen from the dead (Sheol / Jonah 2:2 & 6).
As Jonah preached, the people of Nineveh must have marveled at his courage.
“Here was their number one enemy, a Jew, bald and bleached white, preaching that they had
forty days before the judgment of God was to fall upon them.” / The Runaway Prophet, pg.84)
Furthermore, there was a boldness in Jonah’s words that must have captured their undivided attention.
On God’s behalf, Jonah was urging them (demanding of them) to REPENT.
Our preaching and teaching is right to focus on urging people to be better.
But we must take care to tell them that before they can be better, they must deal with sin through repentance.
IN THE WORLDLY EVENTS THAT WERE SHAPING THE PEOPLE OF NINEVEH
Jonah’s preaching was the last warning in a series of warnings that Nineveh had received.
In 765 BC a serious PLAGUE (famine , pestilence and disease) has swept through the city of Nineveh.
Two years later, on June 15, 763 BC, a total ECLIPSE of the sun took place.
In 757 BC a SECOND PLAGUE afflicted Nineveh.
We mentioneded last week that Jonah and Amos were contemporaries - - both preached around 785-745 BC).
The prophecy of Amos begins this way (Amos 1:1-2):
The words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders from Tekoa, which he envisioned
in visions concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days
of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before THE EARTHQUAKE.
This earthquake, which occurred in 755 BC, must have been quite noteworthy. It is referenced again in Zech.14:5.
People in ancient cultures reacted differently to disasters and heavenly happenings than western cultures do today.
Say what you want about them, but they were not secular in their worldview.
They believed that their “gods” were intimately involved in their daily lives.
If there was a disaster, they read such an event as punishment from their god(s).
When an earthquake shook their world … or when a plague ravaged their land …
or when a solar eclipse darkened the face of the earth, THEY TOOK SUCH SIGNS SERIOUSLY.
So when a bald and bleached prophet from Israel showed up in their streets, they were ready to listen.
And listen they did! Jonah 3:5-9 states,
Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least among them.
When the word reached the King of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth,
and sat in the ashes. And he issued a proclamation and it said, ‘In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: do not let man,
beast, herd or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth;
and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence that is in his hands.
Who knows, God may turn and relent, and withdraw His burning anger so that we shall not perish?”
You and I are called to be light and to preach the light of the gospel to those all around us.
The Bible is the message He has placed in our hands.
Our own stories of redemption work hand in hand with the Word of God to tell others about God’s amazing grace.
And surely, God still uses the events all around us to help prepare the soil.
Calamaties and disasters along with all manner of personal heartache and hurt still work to get our attention.
A. W. Tozer has written these words (I shared this quote with our Sunday AM Bible class on Joseph recently).
“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”
The truth of this quote is displayed in character after character throughout the pages of Scripture.
In our humanity we are filled with pride and that self-sufficient arrogance often blinds us to our need for God.
So God humbles us with the goal that we would turn to HIM - - our only source of real and lasting strength.
In the words of the apostle Paul (2Cor.12:10) - - when I am weak, then I am strong.
