The Christians Hour

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Today, we continue in our journey through the book of Jonah, and we come to one of the most powerful scenes of repentance in all of scripture. In Jonah chapter three, we see the reluctant, runaway prophet finally obey God’s call to go and preach to Nineveh. And when he does, something remarkable happens. From the greatest to the least, the entire city turns from their wickedness and humbles themselves before a holy God.

And in response to their repentance, scripture tells us that God relented from the judgment he had warned them about, showing his mercy and compassion toward those who turn back to him. In today’s message, Pastor Rick Atchley of the Hills Church in Fort Worth, Texas, takes us into the heart of this passage, helping us see God’s relentless pursuit of people and his gracious invitation to change. You’re not going to want to miss this powerful and hope-filled message. Here now is Pastor Rick.

Rick Atchley: Today, we are going to look at what might be the shortest sermon ever. And it may be the most effective sermon in history. It launched the only revival in the Old Testament outside of the nation of Israel. And the amazing thing is that the man who preached the sermon that launched the amazing revival didn't even want it to happen.

I'm talking about Jonah. We've been looking at his life the last couple of weeks. We saw that when God called on Jonah to go and preach a message of repentance to the Ninevites, he went the other way. He did not want the Assyrian people to receive the grace of God. But I told you last time, if you are running from God, his storms are faster than your ships. And he will catch you. And Jonah, after spending some time in a belly of a fish contemplating what he should do next, decided if he got the chance, he would obey God.

So we're going to pick up the story there in chapter three. Because chapter three of Jonah is in my top five most amazing chapters in the Bible. So follow along with me. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah’s warning 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. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. Every time I read this chapter, I am full of amazement. It starts with Jonah walking through the city, shouting, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown." Now, is that maybe the worst sermon opener ever? Imagine inviting me to come and speak at your company or your school or a family reunion, and this is how I start my message: "You're all a bunch of sinners and you're all going to be going to hell real soon." That's basically his sermon.

And it wasn't delivered in love. In fact, he would have loved it if every word of it came true. But what happened next is, in my opinion, the greatest miracle, not just in the book of Jonah, but maybe the Bible. A lot bigger than whether or not a man could live a few days inside a fish. It says the Ninevites believed God. And all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

Now, sackcloth was a scratchy, burlap-y kind of material. And in the ancient world, if you saw someone wearing sackcloth, what they were saying was, "I feel as uncomfortable on my inside as I am on my outside." And even the king put on sackcloth. And it's significant; he got off his throne. He's making a statement that, "I am recognizing a sovereignty greater than mine. This prophet represents a king that even this king needs to bow to."

See, one can only conclude that God has started preparing before Jonah ever started preaching. That's something we need to remember. Don't you ever assume that God is not working in a place or among a people just because you don't know about it. God is at work all over the world among some of the hardest-to-reach people. Some of you my age will recognize this man. In his prime, he was one of the most popular rock stars in the world. His name is Alice Cooper. And he lived the rock star life. In fact, he said, "I was drinking over a bottle of whiskey a day. My life was a wreck, my marriage was a wreck."

His wife couldn't take it anymore. And to find some level of peace and comfort, she started attending a church. And she started listening. And she became a believer in Christ. And she told her husband, Alice Cooper, "You come to church with me or we're not staying married." And he started going. And he started listening. And he became a follower of Jesus. Now that's something to celebrate. But what I appreciate is he said later, "I've had the opportunity to witness to some of the most famous and rowdiest rock stars in the world. And it might surprise you to know that the ones you think are the most out there tend to be the ones most willing to listen."

Don't ever assume that someone is so far from God that he can't work in their lives. And that's what happened in Nineveh. And God saw it. Repentance isn't vague. Repentance is observable. God saw what they did and that they turned from their evil ways. We call this repentance. Repentance is when I change my mind about something so completely that it changes my life radically. If you say that you're walking with God but your life hasn't changed any, you're not walking with God. You're walking with yourself and you're just having occasional thoughts about God.

They changed their ways. What happened in Nineveh was real repentance. So much so that Jesus said, "On the day of judgment, the people of Nineveh are going to be there to rebuke those who heard an even better word and did not repent." And when God saw what he saw, the text says that he relented and he did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. You can sum up chapter three in one sentence: the Ninevites changed their ways and God changed his mind. Notice he did not put the Ninevites on probation. He didn't say, "I'm going to give you one year to prove it's real and then I'll decide whether or not I'm going to destroy you." No, when they repented, he relented.

Now some of you are ahead of me and are thinking, "Wait a second, pastor. I thought the Bible says that God doesn't change. I thought the Bible taught that if God says he’s going to do something, you can count on him to be faithful to do it. But it says right there in my Bible he changed his mind." Or your Bible, if it's a King James, says "God repented." What's going on? How can a God that never changes change?

Okay, allow me for three minutes to be a theological nerd. I love this stuff because I think what we're going to explore is going to bless you. Here's one thing to remember: that any portrayal of God to man must use accommodating language. You parents understand this. Your children ask you to explain a reality, and the words that would best explain it are words they can't handle. So you have to use language that's inadequate for the reality because you have no other option. Do you understand that when we use words to describe God, all the words we use are less than God? And that's a good thing to remember when you read the Bible.

But second, let me suggest this: that God's change of mind was completely consistent and aligned with his unchanging nature. In other words, what I'm saying is because God cannot change, God had to change his mind. Because God cannot change, he is unalterably opposed to those who turn from him. Because God cannot change, he is unalterably gracious to those who return to him. Listen to God's own words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. God said, "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned."

You see, Jonah knew this about God. This is why he ran away. He wanted the Assyrians destroyed, but he knew what kind of God he served. When God said, "Tell them in forty days," Jonah knew that means he’s giving them time to repent. He’s giving them time to change their ways. There is no hope for revival without repentance. But there's no chance for repentance without a grace period. And that's what God was giving them.

And one more thing: always remember God values compassion above the perception of consistency. Jesus told a parable about a bunch of guys who worked in a field. Some worked all day long, some just worked a couple hours. They all got paid the same amount and some said, "That's not fair." Let me tell you, grace isn't fair. Grace is when you give a gift to someone that didn't deserve it. Grace will never seem fair. And God is completely okay with that.

Heard the story about an atheist chiding a Christian friend, saying, "You're a fool to believe God exists and I can prove it." And he looked up to heaven and said, "God, if you're there, you've got five minutes to strike me dead." Five minutes later, he turned to his believing friend and said, "See, I have proved that God does not exist." And the believing friend responded, "No, you've only proved that he is a gracious God." God is gracious to sinners and that will never change. But they might.

In a sense, God did overthrow Nineveh because they changed. And the wicked city he was prepared to judge no longer existed. It's God's greatest miracle. And God is still doing miracles. Some of you listening to me right now, God has been working in your life. He's been preparing you for a time to return to him. You're in a forty-day season right now. And do you know why God has given you this window? It says in Second Peter, "God is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to be lost. He wants all people to change their hearts and lives."

If that's you today, what do you do with that? I've got two big ideas. One: you need to change your truth source. That's what happened in Nineveh. You won't change how you behave until you change who you believe. And did you notice it doesn't say the Ninevites believed Jonah? It says, "And the Ninevites believed God." And one thing I love about this story is that it shows us that the power of God's message to change lives transcends the attitude of the messenger. Jonah's heart was not in what he preached. But that doesn't stop God from changing the hearts he preached to. Because God's word transcends the vehicle he uses to bring it.

Now I've got to tell you, this is something I learned years ago that has been one of the most helpful and heartening things to know as a preacher. God's word transcends the messenger. Because there have been some Sundays when I have preached some bad sermons. Now don't come pat me on the back, "Oh pastor, I've never heard you preach a bad sermon." Trust me, I've preached some bad sermons. I've preached sermons I thought as soon as I'm through, "I'm never going to preach that again. I'm throwing that away." Almost every time I feel that way, someone walks up to me with tears coming down their face, and they say, "Pastor, you have no idea how that sermon blessed me."

God's word transcends the frailties and the attitudes of the person that brings it. You know why? Because God's word has a power all its own. Because it's alive. God's word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us where the soul and the spirit are joined to the center of our joints and bone and it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts.

Some years ago, we had a speaker named Liz Curtis Higgs. And I love the story of her journey to faith. Because as a young woman, she was an unbeliever, she was proud of the fact that she was an unbeliever, she was a radical feminist, she was in the radio industry, and she lived a wild, profligate, immoral lifestyle. She's working in Louisville, Kentucky, and a couple of friends at the station invited her to come with them to church on Sunday. And the only reason she went was because they said, "We'll buy your lunch."

She's sitting there, and that day my friend is preaching through the book of Ephesians. And his text that day was Ephesians five about marriage and about wives submitting to husbands and the husbands being the head of the wife. And her friends are thinking, "This is the absolute worst day to bring Liz to church." And then my friend says, "Husbands, you love your wives like Christ loved the church and that means you are willing to die for her." And Liz turned to her friend and said, "If I met a man willing to die for me, I'd marry him in a heartbeat."

And her friend with spirit-infused wisdom just said, "Lizzy, a man has already died for you." God used that moment and that crack in that hard heart to plant the seed of faith that led her not only to believe in Jesus but now to be an amazing speaker for God. That's why I believe in inviting people to church. That we need to get people into the presence of the living word and let the Holy Spirit do his work. Because even when the heart seems harder, God's word remains sharper.

And the word of God has been calling some of you to become his next miracle. That uncomfortable-on-the-inside feeling you've been having, that's God preparing you to become a miracle. So what do you do? Next thing: you change your clothes. That's what they did in Nineveh. They got a new wardrobe. That's what you do too. Paul said to the Galatians: "For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ like putting on new clothes."

Now the book of Galatians is Paul's defense for the gospel; we're saved by grace through faith, not by our works. So in that book, defending the gospel of salvation by grace through faith, Paul champions baptism. Because Paul knows baptism is not an addition to your faith; baptism is an expression of your faith. Repentance is important. But repentance doesn't take away sins. It doesn't make an unrighteous person righteous. Nineveh was unrighteous. Nineveh deserved judgment.

God didn't say, "Oh, I guess I'm not going to do anything about that. I guess I'm going to overlook that. I guess I'm just going to forget that ever happened." No, he took the judgment that Nineveh deserved and he put it on his son at the cross. And what you do when you get baptized is you are publicly declaring that you are trusting in the death and the resurrection of Jesus to make you righteous, to make you right with God.

Did you know the very first Christians often baptized in the nude? They would do a gender-specific baptisms; women would baptize women and men would baptize men. Or if they did it all together, they would have you take off all your clothes except just your undergarment. And when you got baptized, you did not get to put your old clothes back on. They would give you a new set of clothes to put on because they understood at baptism you're not just wanting to turn over a new leaf; you are asking God for the miracle of a brand new life.

You've changed your clothes. And this miracle is going on all around us for those who have eyes to see. Paul knows about miracles; he is one. He met Jesus and Jesus said, "You go and you'll be told what to do." Ananias came to him and he said, "Why wait any longer? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, trusting in him to save you." That's exactly where some of you are. God has given you forty days. Why wait any longer?

Maybe you're waiting because you're saying, "Well, pastor, I was baptized when I was an infant." Your parents were wanting to dedicate your life to Christ, but there comes a time when you have to decide, "Is that what I want? Am I going to own my faith?" And when you publicly declare Christ yourself, you're actually doing what your parents always hoped you would do. Some of you might be afraid of water. I understand. But I can just tell you that when you follow Jesus, there are going to be times when the right thing to do is the hard thing to do. He will always give you courage to do the right thing.

Some of you are waiting because you think, "Well, I just don't know enough yet." You're not saved by your knowledge. Do you know that Jesus is the son of God and that his death and his resurrection are sufficient to make you right with God? You know enough to be baptized. Some of you are saying, "But I'm not good enough." You're not saved by your goodness. You don't get it all together and come to Jesus. You come to Jesus and his spirit helps you get it all together. If the spirit is working on your heart, why would you wait any longer? God calls us to repent. That will never change. But you can change. And Jesus Christ can give you a brand new look. I'm wondering if you are supposed to be his next miracle.

Guest (Male): So how about you? Is there a need for repentance in your life? Have you recognized the patience of God or the ways he may be trying to reach out to you right now? Don’t ignore his invitation. Listen, transformation is still possible today. It begins with turning to Jesus, acknowledging him as your Savior and making him Lord of your life.

And if you’ve already made that decision, maybe your next step is baptism, that outward expression of that inward change, a picture of dying to self and being raised to new life in Christ. This is what Jesus has called his followers to do. I want to encourage you to find a Bible-believing church if you’re not already plugged into one, where you can grow in your faith and let them walk with you in your next steps.

And if you need help finding one, we’d be honored to help you. You can email us anytime at thechristianshour@gmail.com. Well, friend, don’t miss the patience of God in your life. Don’t wait another day. Well, our thanks to Pastor Rick for that powerful message. And our thanks as well to Acappella Ministries for their music of worship.

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