The Third Discourseman
Since there might eventually be people who support me in my ministry-training looking at this blog, and seeing as I write a couple of talks a term, either for the sake of practice/receiving feedback or actual talks I deliver for the sake of teaching, I thought I’d start uploading some of them as blogs, along with any feedback I received plus my own reflections. This is the first- a talk on Jonah chapter 3 I gave yesterday to a group of male students as part of a student retreat my church is running. I’ve left in some of my formatting. Bold headings weren’t said aloud, but they show the rough structure of my talk. The ‘template’ I’m using is AEIOU- grab their ATTENTION, ENGAGE their interest (show them why the talk is relevant to them), INSIGHTS (give your insights into the passage, i.e. the actual content of what you think God is saying in the passage), OVER to U (end by putting the ball in their court- what are they going to do/think/change after hearing this?). I’ve left the AEIOU headings in too, so you can see roughly what each paragraph is hoping to achieve. Bold words are personal notes for me about which words I want to stress/emphasise as I’m speaking.
Attention grabber
How would you react if you believed the world was going to end? Environmental activists Extinction Rebellion believe this- on their website you can read, ‘We are facing an unprecedented global emergency. Life on Earth is in crisis: scientists agree we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown, and we are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making.’ And because they believe this, they do some pretty strange things. One I thought was among the more amusing was this (see this article), where protesters disrupted a House of Commons Brexit debate by stripping down and gluing their hands to the glass of the public gallery. Two were even wearing grey body paint and elephant masks, apparently as some sort of reference to climate change being ‘the elephant in the room’.
Or think about how governments across the world have reacted to COVID. Believing the virus to pose a serious threat, we have seen our entire way of life overturned as even basic things like travelling to a family member’s house could, at points, have resulted in a fine.
These reactions are extreme because the things at stake are serious. When people really believe that their world is ending, that’s bound to evoke a strong response, to make a big difference to how they live.
Engage
In our story today, the Assyrians living in Nineveh find themselves in a similar scenario, as they are confronted with, and react strongly to, a message concerning the end of their world. But their example comes to us in God’s word, as part of God’s message to us to make us wise for salvation and equip us for doing good in the world. And it is so useful to us because we too are facing the end of the world, not from climate change or corona virus but from God himself, who will one day send his Son to judge the whole world. And here we learn things about God, and about how we should respond to him, that provide a crucial challenge and comfort to us today. So let’s dig into this next chapter in Jonah’s story, and try to determine what God is saying to us in it.
Insights
A fresh start
Right at the start, 3:1-3 should be ringing bells. The book started- ‘Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish…’. Here we read ‘Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.’ The phrasing is very similar- it’s as if 1:3-2:10 hasn’t happened, the story has reset, and God just picks up with Jonah where he left off in 1:2.
It was only a few verses earlier in the book that Jonah was praying from the guts of a fish- perhaps he still stinks of sick as he approaches Nineveh. It was only a chapter before that when Jonah decided to run away from God’s presence, in the opposite direction to where he was supposed to go, disobeying all God had commanded him, choosing death over preaching to Nineveh. The first big surprise in chapter 3 is that God doesn’t find himself another prophet.
But God is determined to use Jonah to reach Nineveh with his message. Jonah made every effort to get as far away as possible from God and Nineveh in chapter 1, and yet here he is at the start of chapter 3 with nothing to show for all that effort. God appointed the storm, then the fish, and now Jonah’s back where he started, with the same mission and the same message. Throughout the old testament (and indeed the new testament) God chooses to speak through men who proclaim his words. Jonah chapter 1 raised the question- what if such a person refuses? What happens to God’s word if his human instruments rebel and refuse to speak it? The answer here… ‘not a lot’- chapters 1 and 2 were nearly deadly for Jonah, but they had no impact whatsoever on God’s message for Nineveh. Eventually Jonah does what he is told, all according to the word of the LORD.
From what Ed told us yesterday we should be suspicious about Jonah’s motives. Has he had a change of heart or does he just not want to end up inside another fish? And what he does is pretty underwhelming. He goes a third of the way on his journey, and calls out ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown’. And that’s it. His message is 8 words long in the ESV, 5 words in the Hebrew. The sermon makes no mention of God, or of what Nineveh has done to deserve this disaster, or whether they can do anything to stop it.
But this is God’s message. Verse 2 is very clear about ‘the message that I tell you’- ‘I’ being God. And in 3:5 we see that the people of Nineveh believed God. We can say that Jonah is still being half-hearted and reluctant. That he’s doing the bare minimum he can get away with. But the message he delivers is God’s message. Chapter 1 verse 2 made it clear that the message God gave Jonah is calling out against Nineveh because of their wickedness. And that’s how the Assyrians in chapter 3 understand Jonah’s message- that disaster is coming upon them for their wickedness.
And so we have to say that God’s message for Nineveh is one that God really cares about- one that he is determined for Jonah to deliver. And it is at heart a warning of delayed judgement- a delay of 40 days before the people of Nineveh get what they deserve for their wickedness. That is the content of what God wants Nineveh to hear.
The delay is crucial- a message along the lines of ‘Now you will be overthrown’ is hopeless, useless. It is the delay that makes this message loving- Nineveh is warned ahead of time, which means perhaps some hope remains for them. But it is a hard message to swallow. I wonder how you react to the Bible’s talk of judgement? To Jesus’ message, much like Jonah’s, that a day of judgement is coming, not just on one city but on the whole world? It is incredibly kind for Jesus to tell us about it before it happens, to give us a chance to get ourselves and those we know ready. And it is amazing that God is as committed as he is to the spread of this message- that even through broken people like Jonah he will get his message out. So this is a message we need to be behind, to believe in.
Remarkable repenting
But the message to Nineveh is very short. Perhaps we’re expecting verse 5 to describe the rest of the message, or Jonah travelling the rest of the 3-day journey, or some violent or mocking response from the people of Nineveh. Everything seems set up this way- we have Jonah’s previous disobedience coupled with his persistent reluctance. Nineveh’s violent reputation and pagan religion. The magnitude of the task- Jonah is on his own, and Nineveh is an exceedingly great city.
Whatever we expect to happen, surely verses 5-9 isn’t it. Throughout Israel’s history, generation after generation, king after king, consistently failed to heed the warnings of their prophets. And yet here this violent, pagan nation of terrorists, after hearing Jonah’s 5-word message, are turned upside down. We read ‘And 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. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And 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…”’
The people believe that Jonah’s message has come from God, that they really are in great danger. So they fast and put on sackcloth, demonstrations and expressions of mourning, desperation, humility. And as the people on the streets spread the message, it eventually reaches their king, as we see in verse 6, who then from his position of authority issues a proclamation to the people on the streets. This again is a big surprise- the king, the one with power, authority and status chooses to join the people in their response. Everyone, from the greatest to the least and even the animals, puts on sackcloth and fasts from food and drink. The whole thing is extravagant, over-the-top, to the point of being comical as even the animals are made to repent. The point is to see just how remarkable and ridiculous this repenting is. Ironically, the king of Nineveh here does a much better job of leading his people in repentance than most of the kings of Israel and Judah ever had. As the king puts it, ‘let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.’ Nineveh have gathered that God is angry at them for their wickedness and violence, and that this is a terrible thing, something that is terrifying and upsetting and demands a posture of humility and grief and desperation, of begging God to have mercy and of turning from their wicked behaviour. There’s no complacency here- no expectation that God will relent, no feeling that he owes them forgiveness. Like the pagan sailors in chapter 1, these people do not know the LORD yet. They don’t know what he’s like, that he’s a gracious and merciful God- and so they can only hope that he might relent. There’s huge contrast between Jonah’s extravagant and wilful disobedience, running away from the God he knows is merciful, in the opposite direction to Nineveh, and the humble, unassuming cry for mercy from evil pagans you’d be least expecting to be receptive to such a message.
Despite all the previously mentioned setbacks, the response is unparalleled in its extremity. To put this in perspective, could you imagine if at next years’ CU mission week, a speaker came who had been down to come the year before, only he never came. And when he finally does arrive, his entire talk is ’Yet forty days, and London shall be overthrown!’. And every student in the room repents of their sin, to the extent that the media covers the reaction, the mayor of London finds out and makes a public announcement that all of London, including the pigeons, needs to repent of their evil, because then maybe God will show mercy on our city. I think I’d probably be more likely to believe it’s some sort of prank or publicity stunt than a genuine reaction. I’d certainly find it bizarre- perhaps even irritating that such a useless character with such a short sermon got a bigger response than I ever have.
That’s what’s going on with Nineveh in chapter 3. We should all be wondering ‘how does this message, from this prophet, to this people, lead to this response?’ The sailors who had a similar reaction at least were confronted by God’s power to unleash a storm on them, and to calm it once his disobedient prophet was given over to death. Their response is sort of explicable. But these people just have a fishy prophet and God’s message of judgement. All the odds seem stacked against them. It is surely then the power of the message itself, of God’s word of judgement, that evokes this response. There’s even a hint that Jonah’s message implies this. The word ‘overthrown’ means just that, for something to be overturned, flipped around. And Nineveh is overturned, flipped upside down, as the whole city from top to bottom repents. Ultimately Jonah’s sermon comes true- it all happens according to the word of the LORD.
The people of Nineveh here give us a masterclass of what humble, contrite, heartfelt repentance looks like. This comes in stark contrast with Jona much of the history of Israel, whose people and kings repeatedly failed to heed their prophets’ warnings, a nation whose story from the moment it was formed was a downward spiral into ever-worsening violence, idolatry, lawlessness and rebellion. The story of Nineveh would surely challenge Israel on two fronts- that the response of these people is so good, and that this response comes from Nineveh of all places, a city full of wicked Assyrians who do not know the LORD.
It is unsurprising then that Jesus holds it out as such, as the standard by which the repentance of the Jews in his day were to be measured, as a challenge to their lack of response to his preaching and miracles. In Matthew 12 we read this as Jesus responds to scribes and Pharisees asking for a sign:
‘The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.’
That Jesus is greater than Jonah is clear. We have the perfectly obedient Son vs the foolish and disobedient prophet. One who willingly went to his death for the sins of others vs one who was thrown into the sea for his own sins, after nearly causing the deaths of the innocent men onboard. One who was raised from the dead after spending 3 days and nights in a tomb vs one vomited from a fish after spending three days and nights in its guts.
And yet Jesus came with a very similar message, one of a looming day of judgement, of a time window until that day, and of the need to repent. And he came with ‘the sign of Jonah’, as Jesus himself puts it. His 3 days in the grave, and his glorious resurrection and ascension, is held out by the apostles in Acts as the clear evidence that Jesus has been declared God’s king and judge, who will soon return to judge the whole world, spelling disaster for all those today who persist in wickedness as Nineveh did. If Jesus is so much greater than Jonah, shouldn’t his preaching garner a greater response? In fact, aren’t all those who don’t respond put to shame by the men of Nineveh, who showed such remarkable repentance off the back of one short sermon from a prophet perhaps still reeking of fish?
This is where I want to major with application, since it is the repentance of the men of Nineveh that takes up the bulk of the passage. In some ways the response of the men of Nineveh is weird and surprising. But I think the surprising thing is that they believe Jonah’s message. Because actually, if they really believe disaster is coming on their entire city in just 40 days, their reaction makes some sense. We started off by thinking about people in our day who react just as extremely to the various things they perceive to be life-threatening disasters. It is a fact of life- people do strange things when they think their life is at stake. When they see a disaster coming that they need to prevent somehow.
I wonder what your reaction is to the news of God’s judgement? Have you become complacent and wilfully disobedient like Jonah, chasing sin and death until you reach the brink, hoping that God will pull you back before you truly face the consequences of your actions? Do you presume on God’s mercy, failing to realise what an astonishing thing it is to expect him to forgive you? Has your response to your own sin lost its edge? Do you still mourn your mistakes, grieving over the ways you’ve wickedly disobeyed God, falling at his feet in humility and desperation and sadness? Or do you just get on with life as if nothing has happened?
We have a much greater prophet, with a much greater message and a much greater 3-day resurrection story testifying to him. If the men of Nineveh do put us to shame, let’s repent of our unbelief, of the ways we have ignored Jesus’ message of judgement and failed to turn from our evil ways with the seriousness required.
Amazing grace (remarkable relenting?)
The final stage of the story is told in one verse ‘When 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’.
Perhaps we’re so used to passages talking about God’s judgement and his mercy that we barely even bat an eyelid. We’ve hardly registered what’s at stake- that the total destruction of an entire city has just been averted, that thousands of lives have been spared. Or perhaps we’re good enough Christians to already know that God is merciful. And so we expect him to relent. Maybe we even think he’s obliged to– after all, they repented. Isn’t God sparing them basically the right thing for him to do?
But let’s remember who the Assyrians are. Terrorists who thrive off fear and violence. Does their repentance really get them off the hook, mean that they deserve to be spared? Of course not. They still deserve destruction. Even their own king knows this, which is why he is so unsure whether God will relent. And yet salvation belongs to the LORD. And so when he sees their repentance, God relents, because he is a merciful God. This really is astonishing, uncomfortably so. God’s grace extends even to the most violent of sinners, the most terrible of nations.
And this is amazing news for us and our friends and family. No matter how bad we are, there is hope for us, if we repent. Again, we are more privileged than Nineveh. We don’t have to say, ‘Who knows, maybe God will relent.’ We can know that he will, because that is what he has revealed to us in the gospel. The Lord Jesus and his disciples have made it publicly known that there is forgiveness of sins for all who repent and believe the gospel, who call on the name of Jesus to be saved. And when we look at Nineveh, we can see that this really is the heart of God, to save sinners. We can see how far his mercy goes- far enough to rescue us from our failings. So whilst we don’t want to be complacent, and do want to turn from our wicked ways with the same sort of strength as the men of Nineveh, we can do so with the great comfort that God will turn from the disaster he had planned for us, that he does forgive all who repent and believe.
Over to U
So how will you react to the message that God will one day judge the whole world? If you believe it, shouldn’t it make a difference to how you live? I wonder if we’ve made more radical sacrifices this year for governments trying to slow down COVID than we have for Jesus? If Extinction Rebellion seem more sure about the fact that we’re living in the last days than Christians do? But if God’s word of judgement delivered by Jonah can evoke this response in the Assyrians, then surely the greater word of the gospel delivered by Jesus can evoke a greater response in us? So let’s pay attention to Jesus’ voice, and believe what he says about judgement. Believe the news that we are now in the brief time window before God judges the world. And that this is a powerful, necessary, loving word that the world needs to hear if they are to repent.
And then let’s repent! Let’s come together in humility, mourning our sin and putting all our hope in the mercy of a gracious God. Let’s call out to him in prayer and turn from our wicked ways. We must not be among those who are put to shame by the men of Nineveh on the day Jesus returns.
I was supervised while writing this talk- so I sent it as an outline, then as a full script, then as a final script, to one of the staff at my church, and I also delivered it live to him a couple of times. So both the script and my delivery received quite a lot of feedback before I did the final run. I also started probably a month in advance, if not more, of actually giving it. As such, I think it’s a pretty well-honed script with little to feedback on at this stage (given it’s already been changed based on several rounds of feedback). The main thing I had to change was length- I normally write too much for the time I’m given, and subsequently speak too quickly.
The main theological wrestle I had was to what extent Nineveh’s repentance should be like ours, and to what extent an initial act of repentance of an unbelieving nation can be compared to subsequent acts of ‘repentance’ as, for example, someone who is already a believer recognises some sin in their lives. I’m not entirely sure I thought this through enough before the talk. I think my application of measuring our own repentance against that of Nineveh is valid since a) that seems to be the most likely way an Israelite would take it, given Israel’s history of ignoring their prophets b) this is how Jesus uses it in Matthew 12 c) God in the passage clearly views their repentance as the right response to Jonah’s message, which is similar both to the message facing Israel just before they went into exile, and Jesus’ message to the Jews of his day d) you can see similar repentance models in places like Joel 1.
But there’s still the question as to whether we should compare that to our initial repentance (when we first believed God’s message of judgement), our continuing acts of confession when we as Christians acknowledge our sin and turn from it, more serious Christian repentance (i.e. turning from a point of being on the brink of falling away) or to the non-repentance of unbelievers. I think the best application is to non-Christians, showing their need to repent, and to people who would call themselves religious/ God-fearers but who live unrepentantly (like the Jews in Jonah’s/Jesus’ day, like Jonah himself, perhaps like many professing Christians today), as this seems to fit the context of the men of Nineveh best. But I think it is also a valid challenge to Christians, as we should expect Christians to be more, not less, serious about sin, judgement and the need to repent. But I’d probably balance that by saying that, as Christians, we are by definition people who will be spared God’s judgement, and so in that sense there probably is something inappropriate about a Christian who fasts and mourns every time they sin, though it probably is a more appropriate response to a particularly dreadful sin (see David in 2 Samuel 12, Psalm 51) or to a person changing direction after a period of falling away. These musings probably provide more questions than answers, but it’s a good thing to think about.
The Four Discoursemen 