1 – Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:
2 – Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.
3 – Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city-a visit required three days.
4 – On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.
5 – The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 – When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
7 – Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:By decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.
8 – But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
9 – Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger so that we will not perish.
10 – When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened.
Over the past four years I’ve learned a lot about preaching. Of course, as you well know, I still have a great deal MORE to learn but even at this point in my pastoral development I have compiled several tried and true tips that help improve any sermon.
For example, I have found that any Sunday morning message worth hearing must be saturated in Scripture. I’ve also discovered the value of a good illustration. Your feedback over the years has taught me that if a sermon is to hit home it must be well-organized with points that are relevant to people’s lives. I’ve also learned how powerful humor can be to a message.
But you know, the most important preaching tip I have ever come across is the philosophy that says a sermon must not be too long! As a member of a church with hard, straight-backed wooden pews once said, The mind can absorb only as much as the fanny can endure!
The first time I preached a real sermon was at Leighton Baptist Church. I was about 19 and was serving as the minister of music and youth in that little country church and one Sunday the pastor had asked me to fill the pulpit for him while he was on vacation. Well, I agreed but I foolishly did everything in the service that day instead of delegating and getting some extra help.
I mean I did the invocation, the welcome, the announcements, led the singing…everything. Of course this saved a lot of time. Since we didn’t have to wait for different people to come and go from the pulpit the song service that day only took about ten minutes. When I began my sermon I was so nervous that I talked even faster than I do now which meant we ended up singing the invitation hymn twenty minutes after the service started. Now, I don’t think anyone remembered what I said that day…but I want you to know they LOVED my sermon! They talked about it for weeks…bragging to the pastor-not about the content but about the fact that they beat the Methodists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians to the restaurants that day. That day in Leighton I learned that a SHORT sermon can be a memorable sermon.
Well this morning we will discover that the prophet Jonah has held the record for world’s shortest sermon for over twenty-seven centuries! His message to the Ninevites was only 8 words in English, depending on which translation of the Bible you use and when he preached it, he did so in Aramaic…which means his sermon was originally a mere FIVE words! How would you like it if my messages were only 5-8 words long each Sunday?! NO ONE ANSWER THAT QUESTION!!!
Well, before we take a close look at his mini-message and the Ninevite’s response to it, let’s remind ourselves what has taken place in Jonah’s life up to this point. Jonah, the popular prophet of God from Gath Hepher, was sent East to preach God’s message to the Assyrians in Nineveh but due to his hatred of these people, he instead bought a ticket on a western-bound ship that was headed for Tarshish…a Spanish fishing village on the edge of the then known world. No sooner had his vessel gotten out of the harbor than God threw a storm his way…the worst storm the professional sailors who ran the ship had ever seen. They knew that it was no normal storm and encouraged everyone on board to pray to his or her god for their very lives. This forced Jonah to admit to the sailors that he was the reason for this tempest that threatened to destroy their ship and drown them all.
Well, at Jonah’s request the sailors of that ship reluctantly threw him overboard and the storm stopped and then as Jonah’s body came to rest on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, just as he was about to pass out and drown, at the last possible moment, this stubborn old prophet finally prayed for God’s help. And God answered by sending a huge fish or whale to swallow him. Jonah stayed inside that sea creature for three days and three nights and while there he did a lot of soul-searching and a lot of praying which led him to see his sin and repent and renew his vow to be God’s obedient spokesman. God then ordered the fish to vomit Jonah out on the shore probably at Joppa…the same place he caught the ship bound for Tarshish three or four days earlier. In other words, Jonah is right back where he started.
Think of it. Everything he had been through…the storm…his near drowning…the three days and nights in the belly of the fish…all this hardship could have been avoided if he had only obeyed God in the first place. Have you ever done that? I mean have you ever disobeyed God in some way and then come to your senses and realized how much time and effort you had wasted in that ridiculous behavior? I’m sure Jonah must have kicked himself repeatedly during the 30 day journey to Nineveh as he reviewed in his mind his senseless actions. He must have felt very foolish for rebelling against our compassionate, forgiving God. In fact, I think that realization must have made the statement in verse one especially meaningful to him. Perhaps his eyes teared up as he wrote it down. Look at those words with me and you’ll see what I mean. In the beginning of this chapter it says, Then the Word of the Lord came to Jonah a SECOND time.
You see, Jonah found out that God gives second chances. We never get back the time we wasted in sin. There are still consequences for our rebellion but through God’s grace when we repent we get a chance to start over…to begin again. And that is good news for all of us isn’t it?! Because each of us at one time or another has wished that we could have another shot. We have made sinful mistakes in our finances, our careers, our parenting, our marriages….which lead us to wish we could have one more chance. One time or other we have all longed for the opportunity to begin again. One of my favorite old bits of prose is a poem called, The Land of Begin Again by Louisa Tarkington. It goes like this,
I wish that there were some wonderful place called The Land of Begin Again, Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all our poor selfish grief… Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door and never be put on againI wish that there were some wonderful place called The Land of Begin Again.
Well Jonah’s experience reminds us that there is such a place! When we humbly admit our sin like Jonah did and express a desire to repent, God helps us start over. Throughout the Bible in fact we see God doing this for several people who asked for a second chance: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, King David, Peter, John Mark. Each of these great men had failed in one way or another but they repented and asked God for another shot and He gave them one! This is because ours IS is the God of the 2nd chance. He wants very much to forgive us and help us start anew. John Ortberg says,
If there is one way that human beings consistently underestimate God’s love, it is perhaps in His loving LONGING to forgive.
Remember? God’s love for us-His desire to help is start anew-is why He sent His only Son to die for us in the first place. He knew that this was the only way we could have our sins washed away and start clean. So when you see the folly of your sin and yearn for God’s forgiveness and a second chance, yield to that yearning. Ask God to forgive you and help you start over!
Warren Bennis once wrote of a promising junior executive at IBM who was involved in a risky venture for the company and ended up losing ten million dollars in the gamble. He was called into the office of Tom Watson Sr., the founder and leader of IBM for 40 years…a business legend. The junior exec, overwhelmed with guilt and fear, blurted out: I guess you’ve called me in for my resignation. Here it is. I resign. Watson replied, You must be joking. I just invested ten million dollars educating you; I can’t afford your resignation. I think this illustrates why God longs for us to repent: so He can forgive, so He can be faithful and just to cleanse us from unrighteousness, so He can cast our sins as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more, because He has invested the life of His only Son to make it possible for us to begin again. Ortberg says,
Redeeming is what God is into. He is the finder of directionally-challenged sheep, the searcher of missing coins, the embracer of foolish prodigal sons. His favorite department is ‘Lost and Found.’
As Jonah discovered, when we repent we can start over…no matter what mistakes we have made. This is what II Corinthians 5:17 says, If anyone is in Christ he is a NEW creature; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.
You know, another preaching principle I have discovered is that, whereas you would think the primary purpose of a sermon is to teach the congregants, the listeners, that is not the way it usually works out. I mean, I think I learn much more from my sermons than you do. Whereas you spend about thirty MINUTES a week on my sermon, on the average I spend thirty HOURS a week wrestling with it’s content. You hear the text read ONCE. I read and re-read and re-re-read the text over and over again. It is in my constant thoughts and prayers every waking moment…and often it invades my dreams as well. In fact sometimes I feel like each week’s sermon possesses me. It is ALWAYS on my mind. And one side-effect of all this thought and study is that I learn more from my messages than those who listen to them or read them on the Internet.
And I think we could say Jonah discovered this truth as well as he delivered God’s brief message to the people of Nineveh. Because it is pretty obvious in this third chapter that Jonah learned more through the experience of delivering his five word sermon than the Ninevites themselves. In fact, today I want us to do a little sermon study by reviewing the things God taught Jonah through his preaching in Nineveh.
1. First of all Jonah learned that God uses a preacher’s pain in a powerful way.
And this is very true. In fact the best preachers and teachers I have heard are people who have encountered tough times in life. Because their pain has helped them in so many ways. They are more empathetic with their listeners because they understand better the tough times they are going through. Their difficulties have taught them that God is trustworthy and that they can rely on Him when push comes to shove.
And the pain Jonah endured in the storm and in the belly of the fish worked to his advantage as well. It not only led him to renew his vow to be God’s prophet. It also made people stop what they were doing and listen to his message…all five words! Now, why did they listen as Jonah stopped at every street corner to deliver his sermon? Well, I think one reason was because Jonah’s 72-hour fish stomach acid bath changed his appearance. His skin was probably bleached white, as was his hair, unless the acid burned it off completely. His clothes were probably bleached as well and full of holes. Jesus infers that something like this must have happened because in Matthew 12 He referred to Jonah as a, SIGN to the Ninevites. In other words Jonah’s appearance when he reached Nineveh indicated something unusual had happened to him. Think about it. If you lived in Nineveh and a hairless man with skin that was bleached white walked up and said, Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned wouldn’t you listen?!
Several commentary writers go so far as to say they believe that Jonah’s disgorging from the great fish was witnessed by others who happened to have been spending the day at the beach when he arrived. If this is true, then the story of his experience must have preceded him to Nineveh via caravans or traders and made people all the more anxious to hear what he had to say. David Moore also tells us that the main god of the Ninevites looked like a big fish. So can you imagine what people were saying? I’m sure the nightly newscasts said something like, Jonah….a powerful prophet who has just spent three days inside a huge fish god is coming here with a message…stay tuned for more details. So when he arrived and began preaching, you had better believe that they listened all as a direct result of the tough time Jonah had endured.
And God does the same thing with our pain. He takes the bad in our life and uses it to His advantage. As Paul says in Romans 8, We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. I don’t know about you, but I listen to people who have gone through great difficulties. I tend to believe them when they say God will help us when we have to endure tough times. For example, David Ring was born with Cerebral Palsy. Because of this disease he walks with a limp and talks in a stilted fashion. But he is a powerful evangelist who keeps audiences spellbound. He says, I’m like E. F. Hutton. When I talk people listen. He challenges others to be more faithful in their own evangelistic efforts saying, I have cerebral palsy. What’s your excuse?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was good that Jonah sinned because that gave him a lot of pain which then provided him with a powerful testimony. No. I believe God could have used him even more powerfully if he had been obedient to His call in the first place. But, as Jonah learned, when we repent of our sin, God redeems the experience and uses it for His glory and this leads to another thing Jonah learned from his sermon.
2. Jonah found that the results of his message depended on God’s power and not his own.
When Jonah crested the final hill and saw Nineveh in the distance he must have been overwhelmed because, as it says in our text, Nineveh was …an exceedingly GREAT city…
and it was. In Jonah’s day Nineveh was very impressive…especially to a country preacher from the hills of Palestine. The Bible says that Nineveh was so big that a visit required three days. This is because the greater Nineveh area included five surrounding cities together which were 60 miles in circumference. There were great aqueducts and canals, huge gardens. There was even a library from which archeologists have discovered 16,000 volumes…some of which describe creation and the flood. Nineveh proper was surrounded by a huge wall 10 stories high and wide enough on the top for three chariots to run abreast. There were 1500 towers equally spaced around the wall each 20 stories tall. These towers served both as watchtowers for any approaching enemy and as storehouses for weapons. These weapons could be transported quickly on chariots or wagons that would speed around the top of the wall to places where they were needed in time of attack. The combined population of the area must have been between six hundred thousand and a million. We can guesstimate this based on the fact that God said in chapter 4 that there were 120,000 who didn’t know their right from their left-a reference to children. So, Nineveh was no insignificant place and Jonah must have thought,
How can I alone have any impact on a city this size. Besides they obviously already have everything they need…so why would they listen to me?
Well, as Jonah discovered, he needn’t fear because when we obey God, HE SPEAKS THROUGH US. When we follow Jonah’s example and give people GOD’S word instead of our own. When we obediently speak what He wishes, whether we are preaching or teaching or sharing our faith, then amazing things happen because as God promises in Isaiah 55:11,
My word will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
And that is what happened in Nineveh. The text says the people listened to Jonah’s sermon and BELIEVED GOD. They heard God speaking through this reluctant and somewhat self-righteous prophet. In this little phrase, they believed God, the Hebrew text makes it clear that the Ninevites personally trusted God. Theirs was a response of faith. The exact same phrase is used in Exodus 14 to describe Israel’s response of faith for what God had done to release them from Egyptian bondage. It is also used in Genesis 15:6 to describe Abraham’s faith in God. So you see, these pagan people heard God speak to them through this little sermon.
This shows that when we are obedient; when we make good on our vows to God, like Jonah, we become vessels filled with God’s power and when you are powered by God nothing is impossible.
As II Corinthians 3:5 says, We are not competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. The truth of this text was clearly seen in Jonah’s experience because God used the five words of his sermon to stir the entire population of the greater Nineveh area, from the king on the throne to the lowest person in the field. They were given 40 days but didn’t need that long to repent. The entire city responded to God’s message very quickly. Understand, this was the greatest revival in the history of the world! More people turned to God in repentance and faith as a result of that sermon than at any other time. It makes what happened at Pentecost look small for, not just a few thousand turned to God but hundreds of thousands did-all because a man named Jonah allowed God to speak through him. You know, the greatest thrill of being a pastor are those moments when you feel God’s power, those times you know that the things you are saying do not come from you, but from God. And I want you to know that God doesn’t just empower pastors to speak. He empowers all of His servants! I encourage you to try it. When He gives you an assignment like He gave Jonah, accept it! Let God speak through you!
3. And then Jonah’s sermon also helped him to understand that there was an urgency in his task.
Those people needed the Lord. They urgently needed to hear the sermon God had given him. You see, they may have looked mighty and powerful and self-sufficient but at this point in their history the people of Nineveh were having some real tough times. History tells us that they had recently suffered two plagues that had killed thousands and that they had gone through a total solar eclipse, a very frightening thing to people who did not understand that kind of natural phenomena. Plus, Babylon was rising in power at this time, as were other nations that bordered Assyria which meant the Ninevites faced potential war on four fronts. For these and other reasons these people were hungry for help from above. They were ripe for repentance. So when they heard Jonah say, Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned…..ears would have perked up. People would have stopped what they were doing and listened intently!
By the way, in the ancient Near East the phrase forty days would have had religious significance. The number forty always suggested a time of waiting for divine activity. Think of some of the instances in the Old Testament when this was true: Israel wandered in the wilderness forty years…during the flood it rained forty days. Jesus wandered in the wilderness forty days and remained on earth forty days after His resurrection. So when the Ninevites heard that in forty days something was going to happen it was like a trumpet blast of warning: There is danger coming and you better pay attention. It also inferred that this time period was a time in which God gave the people to repent which is what the King understood the sermon to say. In verse 9 he urged his people to repent of their sin saying, Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger so that we will not perish.
Now, as Jonah watched those people both listen and respond he must have seen that no matter how together a person seems to have it…no matter how depraved they seem, they still need God. And you and I need to glean this from Jonah’s experience as well and remember that regardless of exterior appearances, all people need the Lord. As Philip Yancey says,
We must ask God to give us ‘grace-healed eyes’ so that we see even people who offend us not just as immoral people but as THIRSTY people, like the Samaritan woman at the well.
All people desperately need the Lord we know and love and serve. A life insurance salesman was talking to a customer about a policy. When he finished his presentation, he said, I believe this is important, but I don’t want to force it on you. Go home and sleep on it tonight. And IF you wake up in the morning, give me a call. There was more truth than humor to that approach. Some people will not wake up in the morning. Every fifteen seconds someone dies in our country.
And the Bible says that if a person dies without Christ, they face the reality of an eternity of separation from God. We must never forget that people need to hear the message of love God has commissioned all Christians to share!
And then, Jonah learned another thing in the way the people responded to his sermon.
4. He saw what true repentance looks like, as he heard the king’s instructions to his people.
- First of all they were to show HUMILITY. The King ordered them to all wear sack cloth and sit in ashes. Through this action they were saying, We make no excuses God. What we have done is wrong. We agree with You.
- Secondly everyone was encouraged to cut themselves off from the source of their problems. This was to be accomplished through fasting and prayer. In this way they were admitting that their problem was due to their love of the things of this world and by ceasing to eat or drink they were severing their ties with material things. Think of it, these people, many of whom were no doubt alcoholics were forbidden to drink even water. Instead they were to …cry urgently to God. This phrase refers to wholehearted prayers of repentance, physically using one’s whole being to cry out to God confessing personal sin.
- And finally, the king spoke of the FRUIT OF REPENTANCE. That is to say they were to turn from their evil ways and their violence. These people who were known for their wickedness were now asked to stop living that way. And in a nutshell that is what repentance looks like. For us to experience God’s forgiveness and restoration we must humbly agree with Him that what we have been doing is wrong. And we must turn completely from doing it.
Repentance is not like the person who sent the IRS a check for $150 with the remark, If I can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest. No it is a complete turning from sin.
And then Jonah learned one other AMAZING thing.
5. He saw that it is possible for a sermon to affect God Himself.
I say this because since the people responded to Jonah’s sermon by repenting, God relented. He changed His plans. No fire or brimstone fell on this Sodom-like city after all. God pulled back His hand of judgment. Now, many people think this conflicts with Scripture like James chapter 1 where it says that, God does not change like shifting shadows. But understand God did not change. He has always hated sin and always loved sinners. As I said earlier He longs to forgive us when we repent. In Jeremiah 18:7-8 God says, If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.
So, God did not change. The Ninivites did. They heard God’s word spoken by Jonah and then repented and aligned themselves with God and He responded to their repentance in line with His character.
So, Jonah gleaned a great deal of wisdom from his 5-word sermon. He learned that God can use our tough times in a powerful way. He discovered that success in being God’s representatives is due to His power and not our own. Jonah saw that people need to hear from God. He also witnessed a great example of true repentance..and realized that it is possible for our sermons to affect God Himself.
What have you learned from Jonah’s five-word sermon? Has God spoken to YOU personally through our study of this message? Has He called you to share His word with a lost friend or neighbor or co-worker. Has God convicted you of some sin…some act of disobedience…calling you to true repentance? Have you realized this morning how much you need God in your life? If God has spoken to you and helped you to see the need to respond publically, then I encourage you to do so right now. Come forward and profess your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Walk an aisle and share your decision to join our church….or come and pray, confess your sins to God and ask for His forgiveness. However you feel led…respond now as we stand and sing.