Jonah 3

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.”

Where the NIV puts “proclaim to it the message” the Hebrew is more literally translated “proclaim the proclamation”. This is a God telling it as it is; after all this messing about he says to Jonah, "proclaim the proclamation". You can't really do very much else with it, it's use is when it's told, do with it what it was designed for.

How should this simple message influence the way we think about “telling the good news”?

What is the Good News?

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.
Jonah has become the perfect person to go to Nineveh, he is someone who has faced God’s anger, has repented, and has been shown mercy. What better person could there be to take a message to Nineveh that God was not going to put up with their behaviour anymore! Jonah is living testimony of the mercy of God.

4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”

Nineveh is told it has forty days before God's judgment comes on them. This number is a significant one in terms of overcoming sin.

Where else do we come across the Number 40 in the Bible?

Gen. 7:12 Rains fell for 40 days and nights in the time of Noah
Exd. 16:35 The children of Israel ate manna in the wilderness for 40 years
Exd 24.18 Moses was on the mount with God for 40 days and 40 nights when the law was given.
1 Kin 19:8 Elijah fasted for 40 days and nights
Mark 1:13 Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights

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.

The Ninevites did not take much convincing that their actions were leading to trouble. All they needed in order to change was someone to come and tell them that they needed to do so.

Are you put off from working with people who seem particularly bad in there behaviour for fear of how they will react to the Gospel?

“Sat down in the dust” could be better translated sat down in ashes. The people of Nineveh fasted and put on sackcloth but the King went one stage further, he got up off his throne, took off his royal robes, symbols of his authority, and sat down in ashes. In doing so he recognised how far above him God is as a King. Nineveh’s kingship is nothing in comparison to God’s.

Sackcloth and Ashes are symbols of despair, of repentance, of mourning.

The King led his people by example, before he told anyone to do anything; he did it himself. He didn’t just tell his people to sort out their lives, and to repent, he repented himself.

Do you respect leaders more who lead by example? What modern or historical leaders follow this model?

7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:

“By the 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.

The inclusion of the animals in the mourning process is as a result of the effect that sin has on everything, on all of creation. While the animals did not have a choice, that does not mean that they, and everything else were not tainted by the sin of the Ninevites (Rom 8:20, 22). In including even the animals in the mourning, the Ninevites show that the change they want to bring about is not just one on the surface or at the edges of their life, but is rather a complete transformation.

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

The process described here for repentance is three stages:
· Show that you are sorry
· Cry out to God asking for forgiveness
· Give up the past behaviour
Carrying out stages 1-2 without changing our behaviour is meaningless. For our prayer asking for forgiveness to have meaning our behaviour must change.

9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

The Ninevites did not know God, they did not know that he has a merciful character, that he is a God that forgives, yet even without that knowledge, even with only the vaguest possibility that he might show mercy to them the people of Nineveh turned around their lives.

Do you think our knowledge of Gods mercy results in us taking it for granted that he will forgive us, and so take sin less seriously?

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.

When God sent Jonah to the Ninevites he did so with a message saying "its all over, you are living lives that are so evil, that are hurting so many people that the only option I have is to destroy you." When the Ninevites changed their behaviour, the relationship God had with them also changed, the change of their behaviour in response to fear of God's judgement, opened the door for Gods mercy.

When a Christian stands before God, we do so with the judgement of God having already taken place. Jesus has already died for the sins we have committed. In becoming a Christian we, like the people of Nineveh, say sorry for the things we have done wrong, we cry out to God for forgiveness and with the help of the Holy Spirit set about changing the way we live our lives in the future. As Jesus has already died for things we have done wrong in our lives, we are assured of God’s forgiveness, unlike the Ninevites who had just the vaguest of hopes of God's forgiveness we have the certainty of it.