The City That Repented

Order of Service

• Review of Previous Lesson (Jonah 1-2)
• Opening Discussion Question
• Scripture Reading: Jonah 3:1-10
• Sermon
• Class Discussion
• Closing Prayer

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Sermon Title: The City That Repented

Scripture: Jonah 3

I. A Second Commission and Partial Obedience (Jonah 3:1-3)

• A. God gives the word to Jonah a second time
  1. God does not owe His prophets a second commissioning. He could have left Jonah a rescued man with a revoked office.
  2. The wording nearly matches Jonah 1:2. Jonah's flight, the storm, and the fish changed nothing about God's intent. The flight only delayed it.
  3. The second commission is itself mercy, and God showed that mercy before Jonah repented.
• B. Jonah's obedience is real but not yet whole
  1. In Jonah 1:3 Jonah rose to flee. In Jonah 3:3 the same verb sends him toward Nineveh.
  2. Walking toward the assignment is a form of repentance, though his prayer in chapter 2 had no confession.
  3. The text records Jonah's action but says nothing of his heart, and chapter 4 will show that.
  4. This is progressive sanctification in motion: real movement with more work left for God to do.

II. Five Words and a Turned City (Jonah 3:4-5)

• A. Grading Jonah's sermon against the class's list of ingredients
  1. The class listed gospel content, the name of God, a call to repentance, an offer of mercy, a loving preacher, prayer, and relationship and trust.
  2. The Hebrew sermon is five words, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." It is delivered by a man who did not seem to want it to succeed.
  3. Whatever changed Nineveh, it was not the eloquence of the preacher.
• B. The weight of the word "overthrown" (haphak)
  1. The same verb is used of Sodom in Genesis 19:25, so hearers would take it as a threat of destruction.
  2. It also means "to turn" or "to transform," as when Saul is turned into another man in 1 Samuel 10:6.
  3. Nineveh was overthrown in the second sense. The city was turned, and so it was never destroyed.
  4. The forty days echo Scripture's number for testing and dealing. A God who intended only fire would not have published a schedule.
• C. "The people of Nineveh believed God"
  1. This is Abraham's verb from Genesis 15:6, the verb on which Paul builds Romans 4.
  2. They believed Elohim, the general name for God, not Yahweh, the covenant name. Grace meets people with the light they have.

III. The King's Decree (Jonah 3:6-9)

• A. Repentance runs from the greatest to the least
  1. The people fast and wear sackcloth, and the word reaches the king, who comes off his throne and sits in ashes.
  2. Even the livestock are covered in sackcloth.
  3. The city now "calls out" (qara) to God, the same verb God commanded of Jonah in chapter 1.
• B. The king's decree contains what Jonah's sermon lacked
  1. It adds clarity by naming evil and violence, calling for repentance, and hoping for mercy.
  2. The pagan king preaches a better sermon than the prophet.
• C. "Who knows?"
  1. The king has no covenant, no Exodus 34:6 creed, and no promises or prophets, yet he casts his city on a mercy he cannot name.
  2. Jonah has the covenant name and the creed, yet he resents the mercy the king merely hopes exists.

IV. Does God Change His Mind? (Jonah 3:10)

• A. God does not change (Numbers 23:19)
  1. Scripture will not let us say God learned something on day thirty and adjusted course.
• B. The warning was an instrument, not a fixed forecast
  1. Jeremiah 18:7-8 explains how prophetic warnings work. If a nation turns from evil, God relents.
  2. The threat itself was the means of the mercy God purposed from eternity.
  3. Calvin called this accommodation, God speaking in language scaled to our capacity.
  4. The relenting is God's unchanging character meeting a changed city.
• C. Mercy is what God delights to do
  1. Jonah ran because he knew the God of Exodus 34:6 would meet repentance with mercy.
  2. Micah 7:18 says God delights in steadfast love. Thomas Watson called mercy the attribute God most delights to exercise.

V. Who Gets the Credit When a Sinner Repents?

• A. The answer is God alone
  1. The sermon cannot take the credit. It was five reluctant words that missed most of what a sermon needs.
  2. Jonah cannot take it, since he wanted the mission to fail.
  3. The king cannot, since he could only hope.
  4. The people's sincerity cannot, since even their faith responded to God's initiative.
  5. Chapter 2 declared that salvation belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2:9), and chapter 3 demonstrates it on 120,000 people at once.
• B. Two implications
  1. Comfort for our witness: God's power does not depend on our polish or on the softness of the audience. No one on our "impossible" list is further from repentance than Nineveh was.
  2. Boldness in prayer: If God alone gets the credit, prayer for the lost is the real work. We should ask whether our prayers request God to act or ask Him to bless our plans.
  3. This does not excuse us from sharing the gospel, which is a command.
• C. "Something greater than Jonah is here" (Matthew 12:41)
  1. Nineveh repented at the lesser preaching, and their repentance will stand as evidence against those who hear the greater and do not repent.
  2. Jonah hoped the city would burn. Christ set His face toward His own city knowing it would kill Him.
  3. Jonah's sermon announced a judgment Nineveh escaped by turning. Christ absorbed the judgment in His own body, so the sentence is already served for all who turn to Him.
  4. The searching question is whether we have repented at the greater preaching or merely approved of it.

Class Discussion Highlights

• A. Encouragement and application
  1. God uses unwilling and unpolished messengers, as Paul rejoices in Philippians 1:15-18 that Christ is proclaimed whatever the motive.
  2. The contrast between "but Jonah rose to flee" in chapter 1 and "so Jonah arose" in chapter 3 shows a change.
  3. Sanctification is progressive. We are disciplined repeatedly and learn slowly.
  4. God may save people in spite of us, but that is no excuse to withhold the gospel. The command to preach to all nations carries the same weight as any other.
• B. Homework and next week
  1. Find the one verse in Jonah where Jonah is glad.
  2. Next week is Jonah 4.
  3. Take-home question: does the way we pray for the lost reflect who actually gets the credit?