Jonah 3:1-5 What Does it Take to Obey God?

A sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, 29 August 2010

 

vs 1-2 And it was the word of Jehovah to Jonah a second time to say, “Get up; go to Nineveh, the great city, and announce to her the proclamation which I say to you.

 

God is gracious to give a second chance

 

God is gracious to give the words to say at the right time

 

 

=========================

v.3 So Jonah got up, and he went to Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah.  Now Nineveh was a great city to God, a walk of three days.

 

Now Jonah is finally on track! He's going "according to the word of Jehovah!"

 

Orient to the map of the middle-east.

 

The greatness of the task: Nineveh was a big city – lit. "a city great to God,"

 

V.3 closes with the further description of Nineveh literally that it was "a going of three days"

·         This phrase is consistently used to measure distance in the Bible, such as the number of cubits in the temple of Ez.42, and the distance from Babylon to Jerusalem in Nehemiah 2:6 (BDB).

·         Not likely measurement of distance to Nineveh: Nineveh was some 400 miles as the crow flies from even the nearest coastline where the fish could have spit him out. That would take a lot longer than three days to walk, so I think we have to look for some other answer.

·         Not measurement of city: The ancient walled city of Nineveh is about three miles long by about one mile wide, making the circumference, if you were to walk all the way around it, 8-9 miles. That kind of distance could be walked in a matter of hours, and would not require three days, so this measurement must be talking about something else.

·         Could be a measurement including the suburban area outside the walls (note modern day map), even taking in neighboring towns. Genesis 10:11-12, says that Nimrod built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen, and calls all four towns together “the great city.” So the distance around the city could have taken three days to traverse if you counted the suburbs and neighboring towns.

·         Another plausible explanation is that, even though the city occupied only 3 square miles, it would have taken three days to stop at all its significant squares and major buildings to make announcements for all the city to hear (Keil). That’s the interpretation given by the NIV translation.

·         Most of the Jews of this day had never seen a city this large, so Jonah took the extra time in his story to give some idea of the great size of this city.

 

v. 4 Then Jonah began to go into the city a walk of one day, and he called out and said continuously, "Fourty days and Nineveh is overturned."

 

The first word, which most English translations render "began/ started," literally has to do with boring a hole in something or introducing some kind of foreign matter into an environment. You could say literally, "He penetrated to go into the city." This adds some color to the story--Jonah was not just walking, He was penetrating into a new environment, infiltrating the city with a message from God!

 

Jonah would have "entered the city at Nineveh [and proceeded] from Nineveh to Calah [where the king's citadel was]... he may well have walked twenty English miles, or a short day's journey, before he preached" (Keil 406).

 

Can you imagine what this experience was like for Jonah? There he was in an utterly foreign country--among lifelong political enemies, wandering the streets of the biggest city in the world with this outrageous message from God. This was the adventure of a lifetime--maybe even the adventure that would end his life for sure. He survived the fish's belly, but he may not have been so sure he'd survive the streets of Nineveh after telling them they were about to be overthrown!

 

Although it was a three day's journey to get all the way through the city, Jonah apparently only spent one day doing his prophetic business. The people responded right away, and Jonah doesn't mention ever having to spend the other two days going through the rest of the city to preach. (He doesn't have to go out the next day saying, "Now it's only 39 days and Nineveh will be destroyed!") In one day, the city of Nineveh is transformed!

 

The verbs describing Jonah’s speech are repetitive "and he cried out and said," and the primary meaning of the word translated "yet" by most English versions has rather to do with continuance or repetition. I have stepped away from traditional translations by translating that word "continuously" – He said over and over again, "Forty days and Nineveh is overturned!"

 

The word describing Nineveh's fate in 40 days indicates that the city is going to be "turned around/upside down/revolutionized. Whatever it was, this punishment is considered by God to be "evil" in v.10, and is the sort of thing Jonah wants to see from a safe distance (4:5).

 

But wait, you say, that's the wrong message! God is LOVE, isn't he? Why didn't Jonah preach love?

1.      "Hebrews 6:2 says eternal judgment is one of the basic foundations of Christianity. The writer says we must build on that foundation, but I wonder if we've even laid it! ...[W]hen Paul preached to the Athenians, who were the most sophisticated audience he ever preached to, he preached about judgment (Acts 17:31)" – (Fernando 50).

2.      But "Warnings of this nature are conditional; this should be understood. A principle of divine sovereignty was later recorded by Jeremiah: when God speaks to destroy a nation, if that nation turns from its wickedness, God will repent of the evil He had determined against it... (Jer.18:7-11)" (Hailey 75)  - READ Jeremiah 18:7-11

3.      The question is, did Jonah explain this? He didn’t explain God’s grace and forgiveness to the sailors, and he didn’t want God to pour out His grace and forgiveness upon Nineveh, so I suspect he fudged on the message. God is holy, and so we must speak of His judgment, but He is also gracious, and thus we must also speak of His love!

 

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO OBEY GOD?

1.      FAITH

2.      COURAGE

3.      CAREFULNESS:

 

Share EXAMPLE of my speech at City Hall Tuesday evening. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t know what to say. Exercise of Faith to trust God and His word and show up to glorify Him. Courage to speak (What if I choke? What if they get angry?) and Carefulness to quote Bible, and explain that God is the creator and judge. (I wish I could say there was a revival like there was in Nineveh!)

 

v. 5 Well, the men of Nineveh believed in God, so they proclaimed a fast and they dressed in sack-cloth, from their great even to their small.

 

·         Luke 11:30 Jesus said, "For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation." "Jesus' resurrection from the dead would be the sign to His generation, and to all generations since. So Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh. The report of Jonah being swallowed by the fish and released on dry land, would have a tremendous effect upon the people. The man who had been in 'Sheol' and had been raised as it were from the dead, would be a tremendous 'sign.'" (Hail. 76) The very sight of Jonah with hair and skin bleached white after his stay in the fish may have gotten him an audience!

·         The verb for belief is interesting in that it comes from the causal form of the word for "confirm/support"--these men caused confirmation of this God by their action of belief--they decided to find God faithful and confirm that to other people.

·         It's also interesting that the object of that faith is "Elohim/God"--not the "Jehovah" that has been the focus of Jonah to this point! Perhaps this is because Jonah may have tried to contextualize his message by using a common Semitic word for the great God rather than going into the minefield of naming an Israelite deity. When he was with the sailors, Jonah still had enough ethnocentric pride and God was working in mighty enough ways that he was happy to identify this deity as his hometown God, "Jehovah," but here in Nineveh, where he isn't so sure of himself, and where he is declaring a message from a God whose nation the Assyrians had conquered, and where Jonah is not sure that God is even going to show His power, he felt safer using a generic word for "god."

 

The people of Nineveh provide a tremendous example of repentance. They "believed," they "called a fast," and they all "wore sack-cloth."

·         "from their great even to their small" - "both old and young, all without exception" (Keil). This was a prophet's dream-come-true! How many prophets in Israel's history ever saw such a tremendous response? And here it is happening among "goyim!" Can you imagine what it would be like if the mayor of New York City was able to successfully command every living soul in the whole city to fast and mourn for their sins? I can't; it's too unbelievable. But that's the equivalent of what happened in Nineveh that day!

·         Do you think it could happen again? I pray that God would raise up modern-day "Jonahs" as His instruments to do it again!

 


Next Sermon

INTRO

Denver Post, JANUARY 20, 1905:

 

"For two hours at midday all Denver was held in a spell ... The marts of trade were deserted between noon and two o'clock this afternoon, and all worldly affairs were forgotten, and the entire city was given over to meditation of higher things. The Spirit of the Almighty pervaded every nook. Going to and coming from the great meetings, the thousands of men and women radiated this Spirit which filled them, and the clear Colorado sunshine was made brighter by the reflected glow of the light of God shining from happy faces. Seldom has such a remarkable sight been witnessed--an entire great city, in the middle of a busy weekday, bowing before the throne of heaven and asking and receiving the blessing of the King of the Universe."

 

The people of Nineveh provide a tremendous example of repentance. They "believed," they "called a fast," and they all "wore sack-cloth."

·         First, they believed--they took God at His word and trusted that He was telling the truth.

·         Then their response was to deny themselves by fasting and wearing sack-cloth. Fasting is a private sign to God that we prize Him over our physical sustenance. Wearing Sack-cloth is a public sign to show everyone that you are broken-hearted. Sack-cloth is a rough, loosely-woven cloth used in making sacks. It looks very drab and is very uncomfortable. This is what people would wear when they were mourning.

·         Does this kind of behavior reflect the way we ourselves respond when we realize we need to get right with God? We say we believe in God, but do we REALLY believe everything in the Bible? We hear of revivals where people get excited and stay in church longer than usual, but I wonder if they would do better going home to mourn over their sins and fast... We need to be brokenhearted over our sins and make real changes in our lives rather than treat our offenses to God with offhandedness or even with temporary conviction.

 

 

Jonah’s prophecy was not false:

Goldman: the concept of an "overturn" could carry both a positive and a negative dimension: "If they would not repent, it would be destroyed. But if they did repent, they would be "overturned," i.e. their hearts would change from evil to good" (Son. 146). So, whether there was a political revolution or a change of heart, God's word predicting a "turn-over" in 40 days would be true either way!