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Jonah the type of servant of the Lord who was willing to serve the Lord as long as Jonah himself could decide where he would serve. He would minister, just so long he himself could decide the specific group to whom he could preach God's Word. When God intervened and sent him to preach His Word to the people of Nineveh, Jonah said, "Oh, no Lord, I'm not going there." So he packed his bags, and bought his ticket. He took off on a ship to Tarshish. Yet he found himself running headlong into the almighty hand of God.

The hand of God which had reached out to reprove him, to correct him, and to chastise him. It was a most humiliating experience for Jonah.

The Lord “hurled” a great wind at that fragile boat! There was such a furious storm that everyone on the ship was in grave danger. They were all urgently praying, except the man of God. He was sleeping while people were in danger of perishing.

Through it all Jonah was brought by God to the place of submission and obedience. It was there, and only there, in the place of submission and obedience, where the Lord was able to get Jonah's full attention. Thus the Lord could speak clearly and decisively to Jonah once again.

Jonah moved out to accomplish his mission. We observe, in verses 14, he took steps to begin to obey the commission of the Lord.

Notice this comparison: Verse one and verse three in chapter three are very similar to verse one and two of chapter one. "The Word of the Lord came unto Jonah". Those words are identical in both verses. The first verse in each Chapter. Chapter three adds: "the second time''

It is crucial for us to notice the way in which God dealt with His servant. God had a specific area of responsibility for Jonah to fill. Jonah had disobeyed Him once. He had run away. He had done everything possible to evade and avoid his responsibility. What did God do in response to this? God brought His servant right back to the actual point of his disobedience. At that very point He required Jonah's complete and immediate obedience! God insisted on obedience at that point!

That is of great importance for us because it is in fact a dramatic illustration and a demonstration of the way in which God continually deals with us. If at any point we have chosen, through selfwill or for any other reason, to disobey the Word or the Will of God, then some how, some where, at some time God will bring us back to that very point.

God will inevitably confront us with that same challenge, even as He will require from us immediate and complete obedience.

Sometimes in the lives of so many of God's people this scenario has been repeated over and over again. Instead of being like Jonah and only running away once, there are some Christians who keep running away from their Godgiven responsibility. They continue to attempt to avoid the work to which God has called them.

Sooner or later we must learn this lesson. It does not matter how many times you run away. It does not matter how many ways you seek to avoid your responsibility. God will bring you back. He will not only bring you back, but He will keep on bringing you back as often as you force Him to do so.

That is, until we insist on pushing beyond the reach of His patient grace! Remember the Lord told Noah, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man for yet that he is flesh." Tragically that moment may well have been reached in the lives of some God's disobedient children, even today.

Continued disobedience can reach that point where the Holy Spirit is so deeply grieved that He leaves us! He turns to select and use another instrument. He chooses someone else, someone through whom He can work to accomplish that task which He had called the disobedient servant to do.

The message of this passage is so very important for us. When God brings us back to the point where His Word concerning His Will is emphatically clear and there is no mistaking what His plans are for our lives, we must be open and receptive. How important that we willingly obey. We let Him have His way.

In verse 3 we are told what Jonah's response was. The commitment he made is clearly stated there . "He arose and went to Nineveh according to the Word of the Lord." The Lord had his attention. He had his allegiance and He had his obedience.

By contrast, there are some Christians today who seem to feel that they can demonstrate their commitment to the Lord, their allegiance to Him, and their faithfulness to His Word in a variety of other ways: except by sincere obedience!

They attempt to suggest, "Well, we are willing to offer something else as a substitute. We know that the Lord wants us to obey Him at this point, but we believe that we should be able to present something else as an alternative! We will work out some aspect of service which we find acceptable. Surely, if we are willing to do that, the Lord should be willing to go along with us."

The Lord is not willing to go along with that kind of immature foolishness at all. There is no substitute for obedience. None! "If you love Me," He said, "You will keep My Word." That is obedience. The obedience He requires.

It is this level of obedience which we see expressed in Jonah's attitude. He went, "According to the Word of the Lord!" He simply got up, and he went.

That is the way our Lord is seeking to work in our lives. The point that He would bring us to is this: Where we respond in the attitude which clearly reveals that His Word has our total allegiance. His Word has first priority! So that, when He speaks and we obey! Immediately, and completely.

We have only a brief description of Jonah's ministry as it is recorded in the latter part of verse 3 and verse 4.

This city of Nineveh was a large city. It was quite an extensive city by the standards of those days. Remember it was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh also had a very large population. It was a very important city in both the politics, and the geography of that particular era.

“And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey.” At that point he began preaching to the people. He proclaimed the Word of the Lord exactly as the Lord Himself had given it to him. "Yet forty more days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

There is no doubt but that he had more to say than just that short sentence. The book of Jonah just gives us a capsule which focuses of the very heart of his message.

Yet that was the heart of his message, the message God had given to him. "Their wickedness is come up before Me", was what God had told him.

Jonah, the servant of the Lord, knew that the message of God proclaimed God's wrath and God's judgment on the sin and wickedness of the people of Nineveh. He knew that this threatened judgment was fully deserved.

We can be quite sure that Jonah's own experience of the intervention, the reproof, the correction of God guaranteed that when he preached that message he was totally true to it. He proclaimed the Word of God with conviction and with power.

The power of the Lord in His Word as it was proclaimed was so evident. Jonah spoke out of his personal experience of the wrath and judgment of God in his own life. Out of the severe correction and reproof of God which he himself had experienced.

When Jonah stood in the streets of Nineveh he was not like so very many preachers today. Preachers who are really not too sure about their message. They can only weakly “suppose” rather than proclaim the Word with strong confidence. Such apologetic preachers make "suggestions.", They insipidly offer, "perhaps", "maybe", and "possibly".

The result is that the message comes across with no conviction and no power. It is no wonder that the vast majority of people turn away in total disinterest, to continue to live in apathy.

It is truly frightening that some of God's people today have the audacity to apologize for God's message. We do not have that right. God will call us to account if we dare to apologize for His Word!

We need to be like Jonah and stand in the middle of the street if necessary and say, "This IS what God said He was going to do. And this is what God IS going to do!" Without apology! Without watering it down.

It would appear that the vast majority of Christians today do not believe the Word Of God when in it God Himself decisively declares, "The soul that sins, it shall die."

If Jonah was here today at least he would not apologize for the Word of God. He would not water it down. He would expound it the way it is.

It is time that we as God's people started saying it the way God says it is. And do so because there is no doubt about the fact that millions upon millions of people are lost and going to hell. They are! They desperately need someone to be honest with them.

How that fact ought to get hold of us!. It ought to break our hearts! It ought to send us out with the spirit of urgency, desperately wanting to win our generation to the Lord Jesus. Jonah stood on that street and preached the Word of God without apology knowing that God would do exactly what He said He would do. That is the message he preached!.

That is the message we must preach without apology! Not trying to water it down. God said it is true that is sufficient. IT IS TRUE!

Jonah faithfully and boldly preached the Word of God to the Assyrians of Ninevah. What was their response?

In their response we see the strongest evidence that the Word of God, which was so faithfully preached, was used by the Lord to arouse deep and true conviction of sin.

"So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth,, from the greatest of them even unto the least of them." That is such a glorious verse!

The people of Nineveh believed God. It does not say that they believed Jonah. Did you notice that? It does not say that at all. Jonah was not there preaching his own message. He was there faithfully preaching the Word of God.

Perhaps the reason so many of the people in our day and age do not believe the message of the Church is because the message of the Church is not really the Word of God being faithfully proclaimed for the glory of God.

These people in Nineveh heard what the servant of the Lord had to say. They knew that that word came to them with the authority of none other than God Himself. The Word of God brought strong and deep conviction, and they responded.

They were convinced that this message was completely true. They demonstrated the attitude of honest confession and deep repentance.

The Apostle Paul in writing in 1 Thessalonians 2: 13, makes this statement, "For this cause also we thank God without ceasing, because, when you received the Word of God which ye heard of us, you received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which effectually worketh in you that believe."

The ambassador of Christ has no word to preach but the Word of God. The Thessalonians received it as the Word of God. The people of. Ninevah received it as the Word of God. They responded personally. They responded dramatically. They acted immediately!

They proclaimed a fast! They put off their fine clothes and put on sackcloth. This was an open admission that what the servant of the Lord preached effectively exposed the evil of their hearts. It was a confession that they were guilty and responsible before God.

They opened and humbly expressed their genuine repentance. They sincerely confessed their sinfulness. This response included people from all walks of life, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

This was a most dramatic response. Far more dramatic than anything Jonah had ever experienced back in Israel. Jonah not expected this to happen in Nineveh. Never! But it did happen because he confidently, and with strong conviction, proclaimed the Word Of God, and God worked in mighty power!,

When we are faithful to the Word of God, God will work. He will work in almighty transforming power. We must expect God to work in and through His Word when it is faithfully proclaimed! We must be excited about the reality that our God will work in the lives of those who hear His Word today.

God said, "My Word WILL NOT return unto Me void but it SHALL accomplish that which I please and it SHALL prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

Jonah preached that Word! What glorious results the power of God accomplished in the lives of these people. An immediate response and

In verse 6, the King of Nineveh himself heard! This man who ruled the entire Assyrian Empire. This man of great military and political power and influence He heard the Word!

What did he do? He immediately humbled himself before the Word of God. He got down off his throne. He set aside his royal garments and he clothed himself with sackcloth. He humbled himself under the conviction of the Word of God, publicly sitting in ashes. This was an act of the confession of his sin. The admission of his personal need to repent. His desire to get right with God.

If God accomplished that through the faithful preaching of His Word then , He can do it today. He will do it again today. If we will confidently share His Word. If we do so with true conviction and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit's power.

The king then made a proclamation to the entire city. A proclamation which called the entire city, including all of the animals, to participate in a total fast.

The entire population was called to an act of public repentance. This was an incredible development, even as it was utterly unexpected by the servant of the Lord.

It is an amazing demonstration of the glorious power of the Word of God when it is proclaimed without apology. Let God's people faithfully share His Word without trying to explain things away on the grounds that they might be offensive to the sophisticated attitude of modern people, to watch what God will do!

Let the Word of God speak and glorious things do happen. An entire city was moved because one man was faithful in sharing the Word of God.

The King said to them, "Call to God!" Let there be a cry of total repentance and humility. The word is, "Cry mightily", "Cry urgently!" Not some pathetic halfhearted whimper! This must be the urgent cry of the man who knows that he desperately needs help and he needs that help now!

He so urgently needs help that he shouts as loud as he can so that he can be heard and receive the response that he needs.

Remember: This was a cry to the God whom they had never known. This was a cry to the God whom they had never served. But the God who had used His Word as a sword to thrust it into their very hearts in deep cpnviction to bring them to repentance and confession so that they cried out in their great need! God did this!

God can still do this! The immortal, the eternal, the infinite God whom we serve He can still do this today! He is doing it through the power of His Holy Spirit. Let us never limit His power through His Word to reach any person anywhere.

of the king as he calls his people to repentance, confession and prayer is recorded in the ninth verse:

"Who can tell if God will turn." "Who can tell if" - That is, if we are sincere, if we are genuine, if we really do mean all of these expressions of confession and repentance. Who can tell if God will then relent?

They did not know for sure. They hoped that He would. That was their hope. By the way that was their only hope! It is still man's only hope!

Could it be that you have never humbled yourself before God? You have never really acknowledged to Him your sinfulness and your sin? You have never confessed your need to be changed? Never repented? You have not yet come to that point in humility before this Holy God, the One who will call you to account! He does want to meet your need, yet you have never accepted Him as Savior. You have given Him no opportunity to meet your need!

If that is true you need to be doing exactly what these people in Nineveh were doing. You need to be humbling yourselves before Him and crying to Him for help. Praying as that man prayed whom our Lord spoke about, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Why? Because that is the only hope you have! It is the only hope any of us have!

Who can tell if He will hear? Who can tell if He will respond? Who can tell if there yet may be forgiveness?

You can be fully assured that if you will genuinely come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ, God Himself guarantees to forgive you! God Himself guarantees to accept you. There is no doubt about it. There is no uncertainty.

The people of Nineveh did have doubts, they did have uncertainties. The only message they had heard from Jonah was a message of judgment. The message of the wrath of God. They had not heard anything but that. This is why they had no choice but to express this as an uncertain hope.

But in the New Testament, with its glorious witness to the saving death of .the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, we have this absolute guarantee. When we meet God's conditions in genuine repentance, confession and faith, He will gloriously respond to meet our needs.

That is what the people of Ninevah wanted. To arouse in some way God's compassion. His mercy. They did not know what else to do.

The wonderful thing is that they did the right thing. They made possible God's forgiveness on the basis of His grace and mercy.

We do not see many people crying out like this to God these days, do we? We do not see many people so desperately urgent in their desire to get right with God.

Rather, today people talk so carelessly and so flippantly about God and sin. Sin is excused in so many different ways so that this easy excusing of sin has almost become an integral part of the very fabric of society. Acceptable and completely absorbed!

People live and act as though God is totally impotent. He can not do anything about sin. So, now, we can do as we please and get away with it. So many appear to believe!

Why have we reached debased level of degrading tolerance for almost anything? There is only one reason. People today are not hearing the Word of God with the note of urgency and spiritual power with which Jonah preached it.

When we get back to that note of urgency and spiritual power we will see far different attitudes to sin once again. When we get urgent about our business for God, others will get urgent about the need to get right with God.

When we really believe that these very people are lost, facing the incredible possibility of a Christless, hopeless eternity, then perhaps they will begin to believe that that is exactly what is waiting for them if they do not get right with God.

What a challenge this is to us to preach God's Word. As we do so, in faith expect The Lord to use His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. To use it in convincing authority and in convicting power.

God in compassion responded to their repentance. Their repentance was genuine, it was sincere. God saw their works. They had turned from their evil ways. That is evidence of true repentance. It is the response God requires.

There is a false “gospel” which is being taught in many places today. It is the kind of teaching which many people find to be attractive. It implies that “repentance” is no longer necessary. That you can accept Christ as Savior, and He will forgive you, and yet you can still go on sinning. You do not need to change your lifestyle or conduct. That is heresy. It is totally false to the very clear teaching of the Word of God.

It is obvious what the people of Nineveh did? They turned from their evil ways! That is genuine repentance!

If you think you have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior but you have not turned away from sin, you have not renounced sin, then there has been no genuine repentance. It is most unlikely that you have ever been saved. Rather, you have been deluded.

How could that happen? A lot of people make religious decisions, decisions which they can get very emotional about. But until we admit that fact that we are sinners and deliberately turn from our sinful ways, then there is no salvation, and there is no forgiveness. Getting emotional does not save anyone.

These people repented. Repentance included turning away from the life of sin. It was genuine and total renunciation of sin.

That was exactly what God was seeking to accomplish through His servant Jonah. To bring the people to repentance so that they would be saved from judgment and condemnation.

The Bible makes this quite clear. In the prophecy of Ezekiel 33:11, "God has no pleasure in the wicked but that they should turn from their sin" so that He could forgive.

They did turn from their evil ways, even as they turned to the Lord. God took careful note of their repentance. He was quick to hear their cry of confession and contrition; to hear and to graciously respond.

He always is quick to answer when we are genuine in our response to Him. When that repentance is real. When our confession of our sin is sincere. Then He immediately responds in glorious grace to completely meet our need.

Their understanding of God and His ways may have been very limited indeed, but that did not alter His desire to forgive. His desire to forgive is not limited in any way by our ignorance.

Sometimes it seems as though the people of God get the idea that it is repentance and faith, plus a full and complete understanding of all of the major doctrines and theologies of the Christian Church. The death of Jesus accomplishes our salvation. It is Jesus and He alone that plus nothing.

It is true that as we grow in grace we will learn more about Him. We will learn more about God. We will learn more about the doctrines of the Church. But our salvation depends solely on a right relationship to Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith brings us into that relationship.

The Book of Jonah informs us,”God repented of (turned away from) the evil that He said He would do unto them, and He did it not." Thank God that is true. He did not bring on them the destruction which He had threatened.

They deserved that destruction! They fully deserved the wrath, that judgment, that punishment. Even as today we deserve the full weight of the wrath and judgment of God upon us.

Thank the Lord, we do not have to bear it. Why? Because Another took our place. The Lord Jesus bore our sin in His body on the tree. The wrath and judgment fell on Him instead of on us. So, when we in repentance and faith we receive Him as our Savior and Lord, we are set free from that wrath and judgment. We are saved from it. Saved to enter into a new life as the beloved children of God.

The message of this third Chapter is so very wonderful, even as it is quite simple. It is this: Jonah went and preached the Word of God as God instructed Him to preach it! God worked in mighty power! There was a most dramatic response as the people believed God, repented, confessed their sin, and expressed the desire to be right with God!

That is what it is all about! That is what the Church exists for! We are called to go and proclaim God's Word to those who need to hear. It may on many occasions be one to one as we knock on their door. It may be in a small group. It may be in a regular service.

The Church exists to go and proclaim that Word, believing that, as we faithfully present the Word in our day, our God is going to work in mighty power and there is going to be a dramatic response. In our day men and women, boys and girls will repent of their sin. They will put their faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord and be gloriously born again.