God never promised that being a Christian would be an easy thing. As a matter of fact, maybe you have been faced with certain struggles and even trials in your own life as a result of your being a Christian. It is sometimes difficult to stand up for what you believe, especially in the pluralistic society in which we live, a society which says that you can believe whatever you want to believe and that all beliefs are equally valid. Of course, Scripture reminds us that this is not true, that all beliefs are equally valid and that there are many ways to heaven, rather Scripture reminds us that there is only one way to heaven, for there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, and that name is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This exclusive claim, that is that there is only one way to heaven is why Christians are so hated in our world today. Jonah understood our struggles. Jonah understood what an unpopular thing it would be to proclaim God’s law and so he did not do it. Instead, he ran away, at least until the Lord brought him back.
Maybe you remember the account of Jonah and the whale. Our text is the conclusion of that historic event, so before we get to our text let us take a moment to review the first part of the narrative. The account of Jonah begins with God coming to Jonah and telling him to go to Nineveh. Nineveh was a great city and a city great with sin. Jonah was to go to Nineveh and proclaim that the Lord knew their sin and that He was about to bring destruction on them because of their sin.
Jonah’s response to this call of the Lord was that he went the other way. He did not want any part in the deed that was to be done. As you read the book of Jonah, and if you have some time this afternoon or this week you might want to do just that, it is a short book and can be read in a relatively short period of time. But as you read the book you will notice that at the beginning, after God first calls Jonah and he decides to run away, everything goes down hill, at least until Jonah repents and decides it is best to do what the Lord was calling him to do. Jonah went down to Tarshish, he went down to Joppa, he went down into the ship, he went down below the deck of the ship, he was thrown down into the sea and he was swallowed down into the belly of the fish. This is exactly what we should expect to see happen to us when we run away from the Lord or when we attempt to run away from the Lord and what His will is for us in our own lives.
What happened to Jonah was somewhat of a miniature of what was to happen to the Ninevites, they were to be thrown down into destruction because of the sin in which they were living. Jonah was on a downward spiral because of his running away from God, yet, through this downward spiral God brought Jonah to confession and to repentance. With repentance and God’s absolution, everything began to go back up for him. He was thrown up out of the fish, up onto the land so that he could go up to Nineveh.
Now, getting to our text. Our text begins at the point where God comes to Jonah a second time. We begin at verse one, “1Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.’ 3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’” (v. 1-4).
God gives Jonah a second chance. He tells Jonah to go to the city and proclaim the message He gives him. The message that God gave Jonah was a message of Law, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” In just forty days the Lord was going to destroy Nineveh because of the great sins of the whole people of the city. The people had forty days to repent and to leave the city. Here we might be reminded of the forty years the children of Israel spent wandering around in the wilderness and even the forty days Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by the devil. These forty days were the amount of time it would take for the Ninevites to hear God’s Word, for that word to take root in their lives and for them to repent.
Our text tells us that the city was a great city. The city was great, that is it was both great or large in size and people. The city was large in people needing forgiveness.
For three days Jonah proclaimed the sins of the people in the city. These three days might remind us that earlier in this account of Jonah we are told that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three day. In the New Testament we are told that Jonah is a type of Christ in that Christ was in the grave for three days, from His crucifixion to His resurrection. During His three days in the grave Jesus descended into hell to proclaim victory over the devil. Here, Jonah is, for three days, proclaiming the Lord’s condemnation of the sin of the city. It was for their sins and for ours that Jesus died on the cross and then descended to hell to proclaim victory over our sins.
As we continue in our text we are reminded that God’s Word is a Word with power. God’s Word does what it says. We read how the people heard the message and repented. We pick up at verse five, “5And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them” (v. 5).
God, working through His Word, the Word which He gave Jonah to proclaim, the Law, which showed them their sin, and the Gospel, which proclaimed to them their Savior, through this proclamation the Word changed the people, so that they believed Jonah and his message from God. God’s Word is a Word that does what it says. God’s Word works repentance.
Because of the proclamation of God’s Word, the people believed God and proclaimed a fast. They fasted to show their repentance. They fasted to show that they acknowledged their sin, that they were sorry for their sin, that they repented of their sin, and that they turned from their sin.
And God’s Word worked so thoroughly that the whole city repented. Everyone in the city, from the greatest, from the king of the city himself, to the least, the lowliest, poorest person on the street, everyone repented. What a great outcry of repentance that must have been.
Our text skips to verse ten where we read that God had compassion on the Ninevites. But so we get the complete account from Jonah we will read the skipped verses as well. So, we pick up at verse six, “6The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.’ 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” (v. 10).
In the verses that were skipped we see the power of the Word of God in that the Word of God gave faith, at least to some extent as the king believes that God is gracious and perhaps He will turn from His anger so that they will not perish.
In verse ten we are told that “God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways,” to say that another way, God saw the fruit of the Word of the Law and the Gospel. God saw that His Word did what it said it would do.
Next we are told that God “had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” Here we are reminded of the difference between God’s usual work and His alien work. God’s alien work is the law. God’s alien work is death and destruction. Scripture reminds us that God’s Law is to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him, whereas His Gospel is for thousands of generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.
God had mercy on the Ninevites which is His usual work. God saw what a great opportunity was before Him. His Word worked faith and repentance which was shown in the actions of the people and now He had the opportunity to show what a great and loving God He really is. Because they had repented, because He worked repentance in them through His Word, He could now show them what great love He had for them.
God works with us the same way. God gives us His Law which shows our sins. The Law is that part of God’s Word which tells us, we are to do this and that and which shows us that we are unable to do this and to do that. The Law shows us how we have failed to live up to what God’s Word tells us we are to do and not do. The Law reminds us of our original, inborn sin and our actual sin which are sins we commit because of something we do wrong and because of the things that we do not do to help others.
God works through the Word to bring us to repentance. That does not necessarily mean that God would have us sit in sackcloth and ashes, but He would have us repent of our sins. He would have us be sorry for our sins, not sorry that we are caught in our sins, but sorry that we have committed sins against Him and His people.
And God gives us the Gospel. God gives us the Gospel which tells us that Jesus gave His life for us on the cross to earn forgiveness for us. His Gospel gives us forgiveness, faith, strengthening of faith, life and salvation, that is eternal life in heaven. His Gospel gives us peace of heart, soul, mind and body.
Today is actually officially the Sunday we celebrate as Life Sunday that is the Sunday we are reminded of the atrocities and sins of our country and the legalization of killing pre-born children. Indeed, God sends us yet today, as He sent Jonah, to proclaim the great sin of murder that happens each and every day in this country. Unfortunately, too many people today are rather apathetic to this great atrocity even many who would rather simply not discuss the issue. Yet, there are many who continue to work to undo what was done so long ago. Certainly speaking out against abortion may be difficult and we may even act like Jonah and run away. Yet, many do gather, as many did yesterday in Washington D.C. and Austin to march against this murderous sin. At the same time, as Jonah knew God to be a forgiving God, so we too know that God does forgive the sin of abortion as He forgives all sins. So as we stand up and proclaim this sin, we also are ready, willing and able to proclaim God’s forgiveness to those who have sinned because we know that there is no sin too big for God to forgive.
So, we are continually reminded that God works in us the same way He has worked with all of His people since the beginning of time. He comes to us proclaiming His Law so that we might see our sin and repent and proclaiming His Gospel so that we might see His forgiveness, earned for us on the cross. He comes to us proclaiming His Law and Gospel through His usual means, the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments. He comes to us through His Word, a Word with power to do what it says. He comes to us through Holy Baptism which is water connected to His Word, which gives faith and forgiveness. He comes to us through confession and absolution which is our confessing our sins and His speaking His words of forgiveness on us. He comes to us through the Lord’s Supper which is bread and wine connected to His Word and His body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. He comes to us and gives us the gifts He has to give because that is His nature. And finally, He comes to us to move in us to say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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