JONAH 3:1-10

After the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1981, a bumper sticker said, "Now that God has your attention ...!" I wonder if God said something like that to Jonah. "Jonah, now that I have your attention, quit fooling around! You've had your sea cruise and your R. & R. in the Salmon Sheraton! Now, there's a job to be done - a message to be preached - a city to be saved! Let's go to Nineveh!" This time, Jonah got his compass heading correct. He headed for Nineveh to become the Preaching Prophet! What can we learn from this fellow today? What does the text have in store for us? Let's see:

1. WE LEARN THAT GOD IS WILLING TO GIVE ANOTHER CHANCE: V1:
1. The word of the Lord came a second time! God didn't speak once and then, not being heard, didn't speak again! God is the God of another opportunity!
2. But who got a second chance here?
1. Jonah did! He had been a rebel, a shirker, a disgrace to the name prophet. Yet God wanted to use him!
2. Nineveh did! It was a wicked city, corrupt, violent, immoral. Yet God wanted to save the people there!
3. Neither Jonah nor Nineveh had gone too far to be reclaimed, redeemed, and used IF they'd repent and turn from their sins.
3. The Gospel is first and foremost a message of another chance! The call to "repent!" is one of the most positive calls ever issued. It is an invitation to turn around and get right with God. It is an opportunity to go God's way.
1. "The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more," Romans 5:20 (NIV).
2. "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1-2 (NIV).
3. "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV).
4. "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away." John 6:37 (NIV).
4. Man! Talk about giving a second chance! The following news item appeared in the Grand Rapids Press: "A man who survived at least six attempts on his life, allegedly masterminded by his wife and her lover, wants the charges against his spouse dismissed because they have reconciled. Lawyers for the husband have filed a motion seeking to dismiss the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and shooting with the intent to kill. The motion said that the man and his wife Phyllis reconciled after the death of the woman's lover 2 months ago. According to the motion, the husband has decided he won't testify against his wife. The district attorney said that he wouldn't have a case without the husband's testimony." And regardless of how often we have sinned, when we humbly repent, the Lord continues to extend unlimited forgiveness.

2. WE LEARN THAT GOD'S WILL IS NOT ALTERED BY OUR REBELLION! V2:
1. Notice: same call, same destination, same task required of Jonah!
1. Not: "Well, Jonah, you've made it apparent that you don't care to go to Nineveh. I've reconsidered and will send you to the Bahamas instead."
2. Not: "After further consideration, perhaps I am out of step with the popular mind. What would you like to do?"
2. God will allow us to try to run away. He will allow us to rebel. But He will NEVER conform His will to ours! He is never intimated by our rebellion, He is never bullied by our hostility, He is never over a barrel by our resistance.
3. What must happen is that we shape our wills to His! What is necessary is that we conform our plans to His! What is required is that we surrender our wishes to His!
1. He has not changed His mind about sexuality or marriage or honesty or abortion or sins of any sort!
2. He has not altered His demand that we repent of sin, be immersed for baptism, and live lives which reflect the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
3. Neither the Supreme Court, nor Church Councils, nor atheists and scoffers nor popular human opinion can sway or alter the will of God.
4. God offers the chance to start over, but He will not negotiate the terms. It is still: "Go to Nineveh! Cry against it!' We obey or we fall.
4. Sometimes God has to do something unpleasant to get us out of rebellion and into His will. For Jonah, it was a guided tour through a digestive system. For solders in basic training in Florida it was something else: As the soldiers were running through an obstacle course, they came to a broad pond. They were to grab a rope, swing across, and continue through the course. It was sweltering. The water looked so cool that the weary men would "accidentally" make it half-way across the pond and then drop into the water. An enterprising Lieutenant solved that. He put a huge Florida Gator in the pond and after that the recruits left the ground 15 feet from water's edge and landed in the dust well beyond the other side. Their self-will didn't change the will of the army at all.

3. WE LEARN THAT REAL BELIEF CHANGES LIVES: VV4-10:
1. Note
1. The message in verse 4: "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." I.e: "In forty days this dump goes down the drain!" (And was Jonah tickled!)
2. The response in verse 5: "Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them."
3. Jonah preached, didn't even seemingly offer any hope, just a statement of doom. But the people believed, repented, and were saved. Their lives were changed!
2. If your car clunks and groans and you take it to be fixed, and when you get it back it still clunks and groans just like before, you'd be right to assume it wasn't fixed. If people claim to be saved and still live in wilful sin, you'd be right in questioning their salvation! Real faith always changes lives!
1. Paul makes that clear when he writes: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" Romans 6:1-2 (NASB) .
2. He writes further: "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." Galatians 5:13 (NIV).
3. And further: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NASB).
4. And finally: "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;" Ephesians 4:22 (NIV).
3. What conclusion would we draw from those texts?
1. If your faith doesn't change your life, it is not faith!
2. If your walk with Jesus doesn't change your morals, you are not walking with Jesus!
3. If your profession of belief is not matched by a performance suited to belief, you don't believe!
4. It doesn't matter how "Spirit filled and tongue talking" you claim to be, if you don't live a Christlike life you're kidding yourself.
5. Saved people live saved lives; they don't commit sexual sin: fornication, homosexuality, adultery; they don't cheat and lie and steal; they don't cuss and swear and use the Lord's Name in vain; they don't hate and bear grudges and seek vengeance. Their lives are changed.
4. I had a neighbor in Albany. He was a drinker, a fighter, a cusser and was into pornography. His wife became a Christian and he'd come to church once in awhile. He once told me not to call on him but to just leave him alone. He broke his ankle and his drinking buddies soon tired of visiting. In his loneliness he asked Marlene and I to come visit. Later I got to share the gospel with him, baptized him and his life was radically changed. He is now preaching in Ohio and is about to get His Doctor of Ministry degree. Real faith changes lives!

Return To Sermons On Jonah

Return To Archive

Return To Home Page