Jonah 3:4 / I am Jonah - The Message
It’s good to see you all today. I’m glad you’re hanging out with us. We are midstream in a series through a little four-chapter book called Jonah, and it has been a fascinating journey. We’ve watched our boy Jonah enjoy, so far, some high points and some very hard times. He was called by God in chapter one to be God’s mouthpiece to a pagan city, but instead of choosing obedience, he chose disobedience. We walked through that process in chapter one and into chapter two, and we realized that disobedience comes with a pretty stiff price tag. It’s hard to run from an omnipresent God.
We saw Jonah trying to flee instead of going where he ought to. He tried to go the exact opposite direction, and God caused those who were around him to come into fear of their own lives. Eventually, he gets thrown into the sea. As we saw last week, Jonah was sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea when God got his full attention. We laid out last week that really what God is doing is calling us. He’s calling us to recognize what cause He’s placed on our heart, or He’s calling us to identify the sin that’s in us and begin to deal with those issues. We can choose the road of obedience, or we can choose disobedience. As Jonah learned, disobedience usually comes surrounded by a wee bit of pain.
The God of Second Chances
Jonah learns the hard way, and we catch him now in chapter three. In context, Jonah just got puked up by a fish after a three-day and three-night slumber party in its belly. He gets vomited up on the beach and begins now to obey God’s call. One of the things I want you to notice right off the bat is the grace of God. God had already called Jonah in chapter one to go to this great city and proclaim His message. Here in chapter three, God once again says, “Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation that I’m going to tell you.”
Even in our disobedience, God is still patient with us. Aren’t you glad? I mean, how many times has God laid something on your heart, you said “thanks for the input,” and went the opposite direction? God got your attention, swallowed you up with His own proverbial fish, puked you right onto the shores, and all of a sudden you wanted to be obedient. God gave him a second calling.
Jonah 3:1-3 (NASB)
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’ So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.
Nineveh was an exceedingly great city—a three days’ walk. It was a massive place. It was also some 500 miles away from where he got puked up, so he’s got a heck of a journey on his hands. It would have taken him several weeks to get there. I don’t know how you are on road trips, but I tend to think a lot when I’m on a road trip. So he’s got several weeks, stinking to the heavens I’m sure, walking to Nineveh. In this journey, he most likely had some time to reflect and process.
It must have been a surreal experience for him. The city of Nineveh was massive; its inner wall was 100 feet tall—about ten stories—and 50 feet thick. Imagine walking in the desert and seeing this ginormous ten-story wall as you’re heading that way. And you’re wondering the whole time, “What am I going to say to these people?”
I wonder, too, if Jonah noticed a specific omission in this second call. In chapter one, God said, “Go cry out against it, for their wickedness has reached to the heavens.” In chapter three, God never mentions their wickedness. It’s as if God is beginning to show Jonah His cards, as if to say, “Jonah, I know what I’m going to do with that city.” Remember, the battle in chapter two was ultimately about who decides salvation. Jonah finally tapped out and said, “Salvation is from the Lord.” God has plans for this “great city.”
An Eight-Word Message
Jonah is finally obedient. It’s interesting how obedience often comes after we’ve paid the price for disobedience. Jonah heads to the city, but he still doesn’t have a message to preach. When did God finally give him the message? And when he finally got it, what did he say? Look at verse four. Here is the message he gets. It is eight words:
Jonah 3:4 (NASB)
Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’
You can almost see Jonah sitting down with his iPad, waiting for the sermon notes. “Yet forty days… got it. And Nineveh will be destroyed… got it. Is there more? Are you there, Lord?” No, that’s it. Here is Jonah the prophet. He’s walked 500 miles to knock on the doors of Nineveh—their enemies, a wicked people who would skin you alive for fun—and he has to preach an eight-word message about their destruction. I think God was reminding him that, contrary to Jonah’s belief, it really wasn’t about him. The hero of the story is not Jonah; the hero is God Almighty.
So Jonah goes. He knocks on the door. I imagine the people looking at him—he’s been 500 miles on foot after three days in a fish belly. He’s probably a wee bit haggard, fatigued, sunburned, and frustrated. They ask, “Who are you?” He says, “I’m the prophet of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”
They knew exactly who he was talking about. The renown of the Lord had gone before Jonah. They knew what happened in Egypt with the plagues; they heard about the Red Sea and the defeat of pagan kings. Now, this fatigued prophet is walking through their city like a man lighting brush fires with eight words: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.”
The Uncomfortable Reality of Judgment
Jonah’s message was simply about the judgment of God. Doom was coming. The storm clouds were on the horizon. It’s interesting to me that this was his message, because in our day, this is a hot topic. When you talk about the concept of eternal judgment, you’ve got people’s attention.
Everyone has an opinion. Your Eastern friends might believe you’ll pay for your sins and then reincarnate for another shot. Humanistic friends might believe in annihilationism—that when you die, you just go away because they can’t handle the notion that a loving God would send anyone to hell. Even in some Christian circles, people are sliding toward universalism, the idea that it all works out in the end and “love wins.”
But this isn’t an issue of preference or opinion; it’s an issue of biblical authority. As a pastor, if there were any way for me to explain hell away, I would prefer to do that. But as a student of Scripture, I can’t justify it away in the text. The message of Jonah was that judgment was coming, and the message we need to hear is that judgment is still pending.
God created us as eternal beings. This is not our home. We are not temporal beings who are here and then done. We will spend eternity somewhere. But sin has come into the world. The depth of our depravity is an incredible offense to an infinite God. Some would argue that we are naturally good people, but I say: read the paper. Watch the news. We have drug wars, terrorism, sex trades, and child abuse. This is the world we live in because we are sinful people.
Romans 8:5-8 (NASB)
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able [to do so], and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
The good news is that in the midst of this talk of judgment, God has provided salvation. You won’t find it by meditating at the base of a tree. Salvation comes from the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Titus 3:5 (NASB)
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
Salvation is an infinite work of Christ on the cross for us. This is why 1 John says that God loved us and sent His Son to be the “propitiation” for our sins. That word means to satisfy or make payment for. The concept of the cross is that we all deserve eternal punishment, but God poured out His wrath upon Christ so that all who believe in Him would not perish.
Where We Go When We Die
If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you will live eternally in the presence of God. Jesus said He is the only way.
John 14:6 (NASB)
Jesus said to him, ’I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
1 John 5:11-13 (NASB)
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
For the believer, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. It is as sweet as closing your eyes and going to sleep. But what about those who reject Christ? In Luke 16, Jesus tells a story about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus.
Luke 16:22-31 (NASB)
’Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. ’In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. ’And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ ’But Abraham said, ’Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. ‘And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and [that] none may cross over from there to us.’ ’And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house– for I have five brothers– in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ ’But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ ’But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ ’But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’’
What fascinates me about that story is that Jesus uses real names. In parables, He usually says “a certain man,” but here He names them. Is this a glimpse into what eternity looks like? We see a place called Hades or Sheol—a place of torment, agony, and flame. It is often described as the outer darkness, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is the holding place of the wicked dead before the final judgment.
Revelation 20:11-15 (NASB)
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one [of them] according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Friends, it is a very real place. Some try to allegorize it, saying “hell” just means the grave. But look at what Jesus says in Matthew.
Matthew 10:28 (NASB)
’Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
That wouldn’t make sense if He were just talking about the grave. He’s talking about a place of spiritual and physical torment—eternal separation from God. And what sends people there? Be careful how you answer. It’s not just “sin” in a general sense; it is the rejection of Christ.
John 3:18 (NASB)
’He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:36 (NASB)
‘He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.’
There is no second chance. There is no purgatory where you can be prayed out or baptized out. It is appointed for man to die once, and then comes judgment.
The Gift of Time
There are no guarantees in this life. Our life is a vapor. It’s like dew on the ground that vanishes when the sun comes up. We buy into the lie that “it won’t happen to me,” yet car accidents happen. Strokes happen. I think of friends from high school who were living just like I was, but their car veered off the road and they were gone. Just like that.
Every breath is a gift from God.
Acts 17:25 (NASB)
nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all [people] life and breath and all things;
We think we have control because we work out and eat right, but then we feel a lump and everything changes. All the while, people say, “I’ll deal with God later.” It makes me think of Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He said, “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” He argued that God is more angry with many people currently on earth than He is with some already in hell, yet by His grace, He withholds His hand.
God sends us the same call He sent to Jonah. Jonah told Nineveh they had forty days. He gave them the greatest gift possible: time. Time to repent.
Romans 2:4-5 (NASB)
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
Jesus said the people of Nineveh will rise up and condemn this generation because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and something greater than Jonah is here. We have a resurrected Savior who rose from the dead to proclaim victory over sin and death.
Matthew 12:41 (NASB)
’The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
If you have not placed your faith in Christ, I implore you: do not waste the time God has given you. Don’t just invest in relationships, because relationships won’t appease the wrath of a holy God. Don’t waste your time accumulating stuff. What does it profit a man to see the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower and forfeit his soul?
Take the time God has given you to call upon the one who can save you. John Piper once said the reality of hell should drive us either to insanity or to the gospel. My hope is that it drives you to the gospel. There is no other name, no other religious hoop to jump through. There is only the finished work of Jesus Christ. Respond while there is still time.
Closing Prayer
Father in heaven, this is a heavy thing. In my heart, I don’t fully understand it, and I don’t like how it feels. But God, I can’t get away from it in the text. I see the snapshots of judgment, and I see how gracious You were to give Nineveh forty days to get it together.
I think of those who can hear my voice right now. You have given them the gift of time. May You warm their hearts. Draw them to You—the rock, the shield, the strong tower. Draw them to Yourself so they can enjoy rest and peace with no fear. This life is not our home; we were created to be with You. We will all bow our knees to You, either in worship or in judgment. Father, may we cry out to You while You can be found as our Savior, not our Judge. We thank You in Jesus’ name, Amen.