1 Then 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.” 3 So 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. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 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.
Romans 8:28 says, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” This was certainly true for the prophet Jonah. The entire Bible is the story of God’s plan of redemption and grace, which comes to us not because of us, but in spite of us.
It’s been said many times that God is the God of second chances, and this is certainly true, but He is more than that. He is the God of third, fourth, fifth, and as many chances that it takes to work all things together for good, according to His purposes.
Vernon McGee tells the story of a ministry conference where he gave a teaching on Jonah, and he was asked what would’ve happened if after his miraculous rescue, Jonah had gone back to Joppa and bought another ticket to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh. He replied that there would have been a second fish waiting for him, but that wasn’t necessary because Jonah had already learned his lesson.
The opening verses of chapter 3 teach us about the second chance Jonah was given. “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.’” (Jonah 3:1-2)
These words are very similar to the opening verses of the book of Jonah, but with a couple of important differences which we will come to in a moment. “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.’” (Jonah 1:1-2)
As we have seen, Jonah disobeyed. He fled for Joppa and boarded a ship bound for the most distant port possible. But God intervened with a great storm that threatened to destroy Jonah’s ship. To save the ship, the crew threw Jonah overboard. But instead of drowning, he was swallowed by a great fish that God had sent. In the belly of the fish, Jonah recognised his desperate need for the very same grace he had withheld from Nineveh. He repented and called out to God, and the Lord answered his prayer by delivering him safely to dry ground.
Now Jonah was called a second time, which gives us a wonderful picture of the grace of God. In his book on Jonah, the theologian Palmer Robertson wrote, “God forgets, and never holds the thing against you. Think of how wonderful are the implications of that one fact for your life. God simply does not hold grudges against people who humble themselves and ask His forgiveness through Jesus Christ.”
Jonah was given a second chance by God, just as He does with everyone who repents of their sin and calls upon the Lord. Probably the most well-known Biblical example is the grace shown to Peter after denying that he even knew Jesus three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest. This gives us such encouragement.
We know that we serve a God who offers us the grace we need when we face up to our disobedience and sin in repentance. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
An important lesson we learn from Jonah’s story was not only the grace he received, but the Lord intended to get His way with Jonah. Jonah’s extraordinary deliverance through the fish was not a way out of God’s calling on his life. God still called Jonah to preach in Nineveh, so the grace he received not only saved him, but also restored his calling to serve as a prophet of God.
Peter was not only forgiven, but he was called and equipped to be a major player in the early years of the Christian church. Acts 2:41 records that as a result of his bold preaching on the day of Pentecost, some 3000 sinners were saved by grace.
It is to the glory of God’s grace that our salvation lifts us not only to forgiveness, but to full restoration to what God has called us to. We were created as God’s image bearers, but sin has driven us away from Him. However, our salvation in Christ restores us both to our lost calling and to our lost status. Christians are children of God. We bear the light of God’s grace and mercy in this dark world as we proclaim God’s praises through our witness and our work for God’s glory.
God not only forgives us, but He gives our lives a whole new purpose and meaning when we live for Him instead of for ourselves.
When Jonah obeyed God and went to preach in Nineveh, he did so as a living testimony of the grace of God, which means that even Jonah’s rebellion and sin was used by God to serve His purposes. God is never to blame for our sin, yet in His sovereign plan of grace He uses even our sin and rebellion to fulfil His purposes. Every Christian is called to be a walking, talking witness of the grace of God.
When Jonah received his second call to Nineveh, he answered it as a man who had been changed by grace.
John Calvin wrote, “Through Jonah we learn how well God provides for us and for our salvation, when He corrects our perverseness. Though sharp may be our chastisements, we know that nothing is better for us than to be humbled under God’s hand.” Having been changed by God’s disciplining grace, Jonah was now ready to serve as an instrument by God as he preached the Gospel.
Jonah learned some important lessons the hard way, not least of which was the realisation that he himself was a sinner who had been forgiven. Before, Jonah refused to preach to Nineveh because he did not think that such great sinners deserved to receive God’s grace. That kind of spiritual arrogance is so dangerous, and it is a trap we often fall into. As I said at our Wednesday Bible study last week, when we get to heaven there are going to be some people who we will be very surprised to see, and they will be very surprised to see us…
How easily we forget that no-one deserves the grace of God.
In the ESV translation, in both 1:2 and 3:2, Jonah is called to go and preach “against” Nineveh. This is a rather clumsy and unfortunate translation into English because in the original Hebrew text, different words are used. Most other English translations like the NIV, NASB and NKJV do a better job than the ESV. In chapter 1 Jonah is called to preach “against” Nineveh, while in chapter 3 he is called to preach “to” Nineveh.
In both cases, Jonah would go to the same place and do the same thing, but now he would go with an attitude of grace. Jonah was to call the Ninevites to repentance, but now with the understanding that he was a recipient of the same grace the Ninevites needed. He could point to himself as an example of what the grace of God can do, even for someone who disobeyed and tried to run away from God.
We have all found ourselves falling back into sin, but amazingly, God can and does still use us to serve Him, and we are often the better for the hard lessons we have learned along the way. The reformed slave trader John Newton was a despicable man, yet when God changed his life there was an authenticity to Newton’s ministry which made people sit up and listen when he spoke.
The words of his most famous hymn say it perfectly, because his were the words of experience. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” Those whose hearts readily sing these words are most useful for the Gospel in this world.
The change we see in Jonah’s life is shown in how he responded to God’s renewed call in chapter 3. The first time God called Jonah to preach against Nineveh, he tried to get as far away as possible from God and Nineveh, but this time, “Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.” (Jonah 3:3)
His gratitude for God’s grace was reflected in his newfound obedience to God. Our response should be the same. How can we, as recipients of grace we do not deserve, not want the same grace for others?
The forgiveness we have received should spur us on to serve God in whichever way He calls us. Once we recognise our sin and our need of a Saviour, and God, by His grace saves us, He places within us a desire to see others coming to salvation in Christ.
A truly regenerate heart, once previously lost, will have a heart for those who are still lost, and in need of the saving grace of God.
Another change we see in Jonah is in his response to God’s renewed call. Now he was a man who had prayed and been heard by God. Having been in the stomach of the fish, Jonah knew what it was like to be in total need and his utter dependence on God’s answer to prayer, only to find how faithful the Lord is to all who call on Him in faith.
Our focus on the story of Jonah is almost always on the great fish, which means it is very easy for us to underestimate what it meant for Jonah to finally obey God’s calling to go to Nineveh. Jonah was about to make a long and dangerous journey into the heart of the most violent empire of his day. Jonah was then to call out against it. God said, “for their evil has come up before me,” as God said in 1:2.
Think of the worst possible place you could go to today to preach the Word of God. That’s what Jonah was called to do. He was about to enter a city full of violence and evil. Not only that, but he was to threaten them in the name of God with complete destruction unless they repented. The term “entering the lions’ den” flows very easily off the tongue, but Jonah was about to enter a far more dangerous place.
He had nothing with him except the presence, the faithfulness, the power, and the protection of God. Of course, we know that this is more than enough, but in his humanity, Jonah must have entered Nineveh with more than a little trepidation, and who can blame him? But still he went. What a remarkable transformation we see in Jonah.
It was by grace that Jonah obeyed the Lord, a grace that he learned in desperate prayer while in the stomach of the great fish, and it was by grace that he boldly walked the streets of Nineveh, preaching the impending judgment of God.
It is only in the power of God that we can do the same, whether it be preaching to a hostile crowd in a modern day Nineveh, or witnessing one on one with someone over a cup of coffee.
Another important detail in Jonah’s story is his obedience as defined in verse 3. “Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.” In other words, his obedience was defined by his faithfulness to the command of God’s Word. The message Jonah spoke in Nineveh was the message God had given him to speak, and we are to be just as faithful to the Word of God.
We are not free to water down the truth of God in order to make it more appealing and less offensive to those who hear it.
The warning which Paul gave to Timothy applies to us today. “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:1-4)
It is the task of the church to faithfully declare the truth as revealed in the Word of God. 1 Timothy 1:15 says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That is at the heart of what we are to proclaim as the church, but in many cases, because we don’t want to offend people, we tend to avoid words like sin and repentance.
The problem is that the good news about Christ can only be appreciated against the backdrop of the bad news. What the Bible says about us in our fallen state, is by its very nature, an offensive message. John MacArthur wrote a few years ago, “Don’t ever water down the Gospel. If the truth offends, let it offend. People have been living their whole lives in offence to God. Let them be offended for a while.”
But of course, we are not to just leave it there. We need to be praying that as the Holy Spirit convicts the lost of their sin, that they would come to an understanding of the amazing grace He offers them.
Jonah’s experience and the change made in him by God’s grace went beyond mere obedience. It brought him a boldness as he was faithful to God’s command.
Verse 4 says, “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’”
This would not be a popular message, and part of Jonah was probably expecting that he would be hounded out of the city, but God had gone ahead of him. For three days he faithfully preached the Word of God.
Jonah had experienced for himself the reality of God’s power and how God worked His purposes out in Jonah’s life. Jonah suffered tremendously for his disobedience, but he also received the blessings of God’s grace, and this is what made the difference.
Calvin wrote, “He is not now moved in any degree by the greatness of the city, but resolutely follows where the Lord leads. We hence see that faith, when once it gains the ascendancy in our hearts, surmounts all obstacles, and despises all the greatness of the world.”
A major theme of the book of Jonah is the grace of God, but we are also given a clear picture of the sovereignty of the Lord. Romans 8:28 again: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”
Someone once said that God draws straight lines with crooked sticks. Like Jonah, we too have disobeyed the Lord and tried to flee to our own Tarshish, but God uses even our disobedience and sin for His purposes in accordance with His own sovereign will. As God guides us through life, we learn (more often than not the hard way), an increased awareness of our need for grace and the forgiveness we find in Christ, often after a long period of struggle.
Jonah finally arrived in the Nineveh and began preaching: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” This was a warning of God’s judgment, and it was precisely the message he was commanded to preach. At first glance this does not seem a gracious message, until we realise that this warning is actually a blessing.
The Christian author William Banks wrote in his book on Jonah, “The warnings of judgment are evidence of God’s mercy, for He is not willing that any should perish.”
This is a vital Biblical principle that we need to understand. The warnings of God’s impending judgment are in themselves messages of hope and grace. When we are warned and when we warn others of the perils that await those who die outside of Christ, those warnings are evidence of God’s mercy and grace which saves us from the wrath of God.
The grace of the Gospel begins with warnings of God’s wrath at and judgment against sin. Withholding the truth of God’s wrath at human sin is not being kind or considerate to others. It is the exact opposite. God’s judgment is coming, whether we like it or not, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer to that judgment.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote in one of his books, “The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the law, and it is because the law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism. So evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the demands of the law, the punishment meted out by the law and the eternal consequences of evil and wrong-doing. It is only the man who is brought to see his guilt in this way who flies to Christ for deliverance and redemption.”
And then we come to verse 5, which records one of the greatest revivals in history. “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.”
From the text is clear that as soon as Jonah began preaching, people started to believe and repent. Notice that verse 5 does not say they believed Jonah. He was just the mouthpiece, the messenger. They believed God.
The repentance and revival we see in the people of Nineveh had nothing to do with the eloquence or persuasive preaching of Jonah. It was the power of God’s truth that pierced their hearts. We cannot save sinners. We cannot bring them into the Kingdom of God, but we are called to tell them about the hope that Jesus brings.
It is God and His truth that people will believe. We are nothing more than instruments in the hands of God, just as Jonah was.
Even the apostle Paul recognised this. He wrote to the Corinthian church, “I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
When God sends His message of grace through the witness of His people and His church, He sends it to save the lost. This is why we need to pray for His mercy for those that God calls us to witness to. We have the greatest message the world has ever heard and will ever need. Don’t underestimate or neglect the power of prayer when you are sharing the hope of Christ with those who have yet to receive it. Nothing is too great or difficult for the almighty power of God working through His Gospel.
Jonah 3:5 tells us what the people did after they believed God. “They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”
This proves the authenticity of their repentance. Confession of sin and mourning over our guilt is always the sign that God’s Gospel message has not only been heard, but believed. Ephesians 2:9 reminds us that repentance, like faith, is a gift from God, which means that when God draws the lost to Himself, even the worst of sinners can be brought to faith. Acts 11:18 says that through the Gospel, God “has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Jonah lived nearly 3000 years ago, but what we learn from him is so relevant to us today, because our message to the lost is the same as his. Like Jonah, Jesus was sent from the Father with a message of warning and salvation to the world. Jesus said of Himself in John 3:18, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
Despite the many years that separate us from the days of Jonah, and the innumerable changes that have happened since then, our world is not really that different to then. Solomon was right when he wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
The warning and the invitation that the prophets, the apostles and the people of the church throughout the ages have brought has not changed.
The world is still under the wrath and judgment of God, and the only means of escaping that judgment is the same: Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
The Word of God and the hope of the Gospel is the message the world needs to hear. If God can save the Ninevites, He can save anyone - even you and me.
Incredibly, the response of the people of Nineveh to Jonah’s message was immediate and profound. From the greatest to the least, they heeded the call to repentance, declaring a fast and put on sackcloth as a sign of their mourning and humility before God. Even the king of Nineveh, after hearing Jonah’s proclamation, repented.
The response of the Ninevites to Jonah’s message gives us a wonderful picture of the amazing grace and compassion of God. As we will see next week, when they repented, God showed mercy and did not destroy them.
This proves God’s willingness to forgive those who humble themselves before Him and turn from their sin. It serves as a powerful reminder of God’s unfailing love and desire for reconciliation with the lost.
We are reminded of the universal call to repentance that is given to all. Regardless of our past failures or even our current failures, God invites us to turn to Him in humility and seek forgiveness for our sins.
The story of Jonah also challenges us to examine our attitudes towards those whom we regard as unworthy or undeserving of God’s grace. Just as Jonah struggled with prejudice towards the Ninevites, we are called to extend God’s love and compassion to all people, realising that His mercy knows no bounds.
Just the 5 verses we have looked at today serve as a powerful testament to the transformative power of repentance and the mercy of God. Through Jonah’s reluctant obedience and the repentance of Nineveh, we are reminded of God’s unfailing love and His desire for us all to be reconciled to Him.
The church’s call to the world today is the same as Jonah’s to Nineveh.
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
Homegroup Study Notes
Read Jonah 3:1-5
Compare verse 2 with chapter 1:2.
Depending on which translation you have, Jonah was first commanded to preach “against” Nineveh, and now is told to preach “to” them.
Discuss the important difference between these verses.
It is easy to overlook how bold Jonah was to preach such a message in such a wicked city. This gives us a clear picture of the power of God at work.
How have you experienced His power in your life, and in particular, when witnessing to others?
An important detail in verse 5 is that the people believed God – not Jonah.
What does this teach us about not watering down the message of God’s wrath against sin and the hope of the Gospel? (See 2 Timothy 4:1-4)
Having received the grace he needed, Jonah was totally transformed.
How has the grace of God you received changed your views and opinions of other people?
Today’s Hymns:
Jesus is Lord
An Army of Ordinary People
Amazing Grace
Bless the Lord, O my Soul (10,000 Reasons)