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!