Two weeks ago, we started a 4-week series on Jonah! This is a small book in the OT about a REBELLIOUS PROPHET and a RELENTLESS GOD. Here is the bottom line for this entire book:

God doesn’t just work THROUGH US, but IN US and ON US!

Aren’t you glad? If you are just joining us, let me catch you up on the first 2 chapters of Jonah. Chapter 1 is the story of God calling Jonah, who was a prophet of God to go to the most evil and violent city on the planet at that time, Nineveh and preach to them. Jonah does not want to do that and RUNS. He gets on a boat headed to Tarshish, otherwise known as Timbuktu, in the opposite direction. God sends a storm, the sailors determine by lot that it’s Jonah’s fault, they throw him overboard, sea gets calm, Jonah gets swallowed by a great fish. In Chapter 2, Jonah PRAYS. He turns around and vows that he will obey.

If you missed either week, I really encourage you to go back and watch or listen. I think it will really be worth your time. That brings us to chapter 3. And here is our bottom line for this chapter:

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

Has God ever asked you to do something you didn’t want to do? Have you ever told Him “NO” in words or in actions? Most likely, in some way, you have. Aren’t you glad that our God is the God of second chances? Let’s go through chapter 3 little by little. However, before we do that, let’s pick up where we left off last week. In the last verse of chapter 2.

Did anybody see Jonah emerge when the great fish spewed him on the dry land? If so, the story must have spread rapidly and perhaps even preceded him to Nineveh, and that may help explain the reception the city gave him. Had Jonah been bleached by the fish’s gastric juices? Did he look so peculiar that nobody could doubt who he was and what had happened to him?

Listen to what Skip Heitzig, in his book, “The Bible from 30,000 Feet” says about this:

“The Assyrians had assimilated the worship of a Philistine deity, Dagon, into their own religious practices. Dagon, powerful and mysterious, supposedly controlled…THE SEAS and was revered throughout the Assyrian empire. They had probably heard the story of how, when the ark of the Hebrew God had been captured and taken to Dagon’s temple in Philistia, the statue of Dagon had fallen on its face before the ark (I Samuel 5:2-4). Imagine, then, their reaction when a prophet belched from the belly of a great fish – and very possibly bleached white by the digestive juices in its stomach – entered the city like a bad omen and preached repentance and the power of that very God. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when He stated that ‘Jonah BECAME a sign to the Ninevites’ (Luke 11:30). Jonah didn’t perform a sign; he WAS the sign! And now Jonah went from running from God to running with Him, and the result was a massive spiritual shift in the least likely city in the world.”

Let’s get to chapter 3

Isn’t that amazing? Jonah turns back to God and God SPEAKS to him…AGAIN! Jonah discovered:

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

Why does this stun us? Why are we shocked? Is this not the God that we serve? Is He not the God of second chances? Do you understand the Gospel? He STILL wants to use you!!!
· The sailors got a second chance
· Jonah got a second chance
· The Ninevites got a second chance
· YOU get a second chance!

I feel like Oprah giving away gifts on her show! See, nobody is on take 1, we have all had second chances…but what if you are on #499? If you still have breath in your lungs, you can still TURN your heart to God in humble repentance and He will hear you and He will forgive you. He IS the God of second chances.

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

When we fail, our enemy wants us to believe that our opportunity is over, we blew our one chance, that there is no opportunity for recovery. But our God is the God of the second chance.

God is the God of redemption stories! Now, listen to WHAT God spoke to Jonah that second time.

Take 2. The message God wanted Jonah to deliver had not changed. This was the same message God gave him in chapter 1 that he ran from. Now, he gets a second chance.

How different Jonah’s life would have been had this been his response the FIRST time! How much pain he would have been spared. But in God’s grace, He gave Jonah a second chance! And THIS TIME, Jonah OBEYED! He found out:

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

Not only did God give Jonah grace in this way, God was also getting grace TO the Ninevites! WHY? Because He loved…even...them!

Throughout Scripture, the number 40 seems to be identified with testing or judgment.
· During the time of Noah, it rained 40 days and 40 nights (Ge. 7:4, 12, 17).
· The Jewish spies explored Caanan 40 days (Num. 14:34),
· The nation of Israel was tested in the wilderness 40 years (Deut. 2:7).
· The giant Goliath taunted the army of Israel 40 days (1 Samuel 17:16),
· Jesus was tested in the wilderness for 40 days
· The Lord gave the people of Nineveh 40 days to repent and turn from their wickedness.

Something interesting about this sermon by Jonah. In the Hebrew, it was 5 words long. Jonah did the least amount of speaking. He didn’t even give the full message. The Ninevites would not have known WHO was threatening to destroy them or WHY they were being destroyed. Or can they do anything to avert it? What God does Jonah represent?

Something smells FISHY here…pun intended.

Perhaps it was Jonah’s attempt to be obedient to God BUT still try to thwart God’s plan. Maybe he was hoping they would NOT turn to God. He might have been the first preacher to intentionally do a bad job, SO THAT people would NOT be moved to repent AND would NOT turn to God. Would THAT be consistent with Jonah’s character to this point? ABSOLUTELY!

However, sabotage or not, the sermon works.

Jonah’s 5-word sermon goes viral!

The king, has an amazing response. He takes off the things that says that he has the ruling authority, his royal robes and he humbles himself. He intentionally sets aside the very things that gives him the authority to determine good and evil, right and wrong. And he lowers himself. He declares that there is ONE above him that he is bowing down to. This was his hope:

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

Then the king tells everyone in the city to fast and pray earnestly to God. To TURN from their sins and violence. He even has them put sackcloth on all the animals, to SHOW how sorry they are!

Again, verse 5 said that “The people of Nineveh BELIEVED…”

I hope you are encouraged by their response like I am. This shouldn’t be an excuse for us to do a poor job in our speaking or our sharing, but it is a great reminder that the results are TRULY in God’s hands. The BEST impact is when we do our best to ‘study and show ourselves approved’ but we TRUST God to carry that message not our skill.

God blesses perhaps the WORST sermon in human history to have the greatest impact in human history.

The whole city REPENTS! Can you imagine the entire city of Milwaukee turning to Jesus over one weekend, because one man preached a 5-word sermon? CRAZY! The king, the leader of their large city and his nobles, the city council, decrees

The word “TURN” in the Hebrew is the word SHUV (SHOOVE). You are heading one direction, have a change of mind and heart and TURN AROUND. This was the proof of whether someone actually BELIEVES God! Let’s get to verse 9, which, by the way, isn’t going to make it onto our favorite coffee cup or T-shirt. This is part of the kings decree sent out to EVERYONE.

We wrestle with this idea of God being a God of wrath or judgment. This isn’t a popular topic in our culture, not even among Christians. Many followers of Jesus just aren’t sure what to do with God’s wrath or His anger, or His judgment. We struggle with how to balance that with His love, His mercy, His grace.

Too often, we end up picking one of these and ignoring the other. We might even say something like, “I just focus on Jesus” or “I just focus on the love of God.” But it’s an incomplete message if we don’t understand God’s wrath or God’s judgment. See, the biggest trap we fall into is thinking that God’s judgment is the opposite of God’s love, but it’s not. The opposite of God’s love would be apathy, NOT CARING.

People sometimes accuse God, in these sections of Scripture that talk of His judgment, as being hate-filled, wanting to crush us, destroy us. But is that true? What is the goal of God’s JUDGMENT? Let’s look at the last verse in Jonah 3.

This is GREAT NEWS, that God is willing to change His mind when people REPENT. God told the prophet Jeremiah that He would do that.

It was God’s love that rendered the judgment and when the people responded to God’s judgment and TURN, then God responds with His love in action and provides GRACE. The purpose of God’s judgment is correction not revenge. In other words:

Grace is the goal of God’s judgment!

God is not out to destroy us but to show us we are going the wrong way, SO THAT we can turn and find grace and new life. God’s judgment is a GOOD thing. It is an expression of His love, His care FOR US and it’s AIM is RESTORING people to relationship with Himself. So REPENTANCE, TURN, SHOOVE, is a BEAUTIFUL word. It is how people get reborn, restored and renewed. When we realize that WE are NOT God.

When you TURN, you learn God is RIGHT THERE!

The Good News is all wrapped up in God’s Love, God’s Judgment and God’s Grace! Tim Mackie says it this way:

It’s the story of a king, who oversees His good world. He sees the people in this world are ruining each other, they are ruining themselves. And out of His LOVE, He renders a JUDGMENT – “THIS is NOT RIGHT. Something has to be done. This has to be dealt with.”
But the GOOD NEWS is that this King brings about His judgment in a way that no one else could ever imagine! THIS king, like the king of Nineveh, ALSO gets up off His throne. He ALSO takes off His robes and in the language of Philippians 2, He humbles Himself, becoming human, taking on the status of a servant. And on the cross, the Son of God absorbed His own righteous judgment onto Himself, on our behalf. He absorbed our selfishness, our self-deception, our pain, our sin, the tragedy of who we are. It literally kills Him! But because His love is stronger than death. It’s stronger than our sin and our selfishness…Jesus resurrection from the grave makes possible this NEW WAY for those that will grab onto Him in belief, and accept that His judgment on us is right. That we are messed up, that there is no hope for us beyond His commitment to us. And when we turn to Jesus, the risen Savior, we find GRACE. The CROSS is where all of these attributes of God come together in perfect harmony. The cross is a statement of God’s love AND His judgment and it creates the opportunity for grace.

This is the power of this picture of REPENTANCE, of TURNING in Jonah chapter 3. It is BEAUTIFUL! It’s aim was to RESTORE Jonah, to impact Nineveh, not SMASH them. It was a POSITIVE word! And Jonah’s obedience changed an entire city!

Do you know that your obedience can lead to others finding God?
· Your faith in God, that He actually has forgiven you...
· You believe that you actually ARE a new creation.
· Your ability to believe and walk in that understanding can actually bring freedom and deliverance to the people in your sphere of influence.
· Your life can be a flag of hope in a dark world that says, “IF God did it for me, He can do it for you!
· “I was bound, I was addicted, I was living in sin. I was walking the other way, but God He set me free!”
· “He is no respecter of persons! He will do it for you. He is waiting to do it for you! He is the God of second chances!”
· Do YOU need that second chance?

Let me remind you of something:

“The people of Nineveh BELIEVED God’s message.”

Here was that message. “TURN” FROM His judgment. The NT makes that point too.

Will you TURN from YOUR WAYS, will you step off the throne of your life and surrender to Christ? Bow your heart to Him as the King of your life?

In the headers of some Bibles, it has Jonah this way, through chapter 3.
· Jonah runs
· God throws
· Jonah prays
· Jonah GOES
So often in life, people get caught up in the first 3 as a repeating cycle in their life. We run from God. God throws us in a storm for our own good, so we do not destroy ourselves. We pray…but then we never actually walk in obedience. So then we run again. Another storm comes, and then we come back to church and we pray again. And God, we mean it this time. But we walk out of these doors and right back into rebellion. We walk back to our sin. We walk back to our compromise. We just keep repeating the cycle.

Jonah didn’t just pray. It didn’t stop there. It says, “JONAH GOES”. He then took that first step of obedience. He DID what God told him to do!

God is not giving you the second chance so that you can continue to walk in your ways, in your sin, in your brokenness, but so that He can heal you! But you have to make a decision that you will GO! That you WILL walk with Him!