God's Love for the World - Jonah 3:1-10

I've often said there are three beautiful love stories in the Old Testament. Ruth tells us about God's love for His church, and Hosea tells us about God's love for Israel, and Jonah tells us about God's love for the lost world. The tragedy is Jonah didn't love these people. Jonah was not concerned. The only reason that Jonah went to Nineveh to do the will of God is because he was frightened. If he did not do the will of God, he might end up being chastened again. But God was concerned. God has grace enough for lost sinners, and He knew how many children there were in the city. Look at Jonah 4:11. God is speaking to Jonah, and God says, "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand." That would be 120,000 children. And also much cattle. Remarkable, the last word in this little book is the word cattle. God even had compassion for the animals. Why? Because when people are wicked, they will be wicked to God's creation.

We today have ruined the ecology, we have ruined nature because of our selfishness and our wickedness. Here's a great challenge and a great concern. And God is concerned today about lost humanity. God is concerned that people come to know Christ as their Savior. You see, we have the idea that we have this thing called missions because of a commission. Well, that's true. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But missions grows out of the very nature of God. Our God is a giving God, our God is a loving God. And because God so loved the world, we have this thing called missions. Yet there are some of God's people who aren't concerned about missions. Here's a man or a woman, a couple, a family goes out into the wilderness, out to the battlefield and lives there for four or five years and comes back and wants to share the burden with us, and here's a church officer who says, "I don't want to listen to a missionary. I'll give my money as a substitute for listening to a missionary." That's sad. Because our God is a God who has a great concern.

Now in verses 2, 3 and 4, we have a great confidence, the confidence that God can work. This seems ridiculous that one little disobedient Jew could make a difference to a whole city. A million people or more. Here's a Jew going to the Gentiles with an unpopular message of judgment. So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. We have to obey what we preach. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city of three days' journey. That meant you had to take three days to get through the city. It was a large, large complex of four cities. The word great is found 14 times in the book of Jonah. Four times we're told about a great city, Nineveh. We're told about a great wind and a great tempest, and a great fish, and a great fear, and a great displeasure. Jonah was exceedingly displeased with God. And here we have this great city and Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, "Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

Now can you think of anything that is sillier? A little reluctant Jew going to evil, violent Gentiles with an unpopular message of judgment and telling them they'd better get straightened out or God's going to wipe them off the face of the earth. But you know what happened? God used His word in power and God did the impossible. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, which is an expression of sorrow and humility, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. Now that's really repentance if a king does it. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying, "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God."

Now this is the God of the Jews, not their own false gods. They worshipped Ishtar, who was the goddess of love and war. Now they're going to cry out unto the God of the Jewish people because salvation is of the Jews. "Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?" There's that word perish again. We ran into that word back in Jonah 1:6, when the shipmaster came and awakened Jonah, "Arise, call upon thy God. If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not." And then in Jonah 1:14, the sailors cried unto the Lord and said, "We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee. Let us not perish for this man's life." Throughout this book you find this word perish. That's what's happening to a lost world. The lost world is perishing, perishing. A great confidence. God did the impossible. He used the message, he performed a miracle, and something happened to the lives of the people in Nineveh.

You say, "Well, I have a visit to make, or I have a sermon to preach, or I have a lesson to teach, I have a job to do. And it's just too big for me." Well, just look at Jonah. Here's this one man, a Jew, going to a million Gentiles with an unpopular message of judgment. They could have killed him. But he obeyed God, and because he obeyed God, there was a miracle in that city, which leads us to the fourth factor.

We began with a great challenge and a great concern and a great confidence. Now we see a great change. They heard the message. They knew the time was short. And the word says that they believed. Jonah 3:5, "The people of Nineveh believed and they repented." Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is our message today. Now they believed the message that Jonah proclaimed to them. And because they believed, they cried out to God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. They got serious about their sin and they repented. Now the word repent means to change your mind. But true repentance involves the whole person. It involves the emotions, they were afraid of judgment. It involves their mind, they changed their mind about their sin and about their pride and about their evil ways. It involved their will because they turned from their violence and from their evil, and they sought to obey God. God used Jonah in a remarkable way, and there occurred a great change.

You know, pastor, there may be some man in your community you've been trying to reach for Christ. There may be some family you've been trying to win, and you've just about given up. They are your Nineveh. You're saying to the Lord, "Lord, I don't want to go there anymore. I don't want to make one more visit. I'm not even going to pray for them anymore. I am just fed up." Well, don't be that way. Because just about the time you think nothing can happen, a great miracle is going to take place. One of the best witnesses and soulwinners I ever knew was a man who used to bring his family to church and park out in front of the church and read the Sunday paper. He wouldn't come in, he wouldn't listen to reason, he wouldn't listen to witness. He was a kind man, but he was a stubborn man. Well, his wife was a loving witness and she prayed and the church family prayed, and one Sunday he decided to come into church, and that was the Sunday that God met him. And he came down that aisle and he said, "I want to give my heart to Jesus Christ." And that man became a great servant of the Lord. God has brought you to a place that is just like Nineveh, walls and towers and stubbornness and sin and violence and disobedience. And you're probably saying in your heart, "Nothing's going to happen here." Well, something's going to happen. You just obey God.

In Jonah 3:10, "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not." Now, they were not saved by their works. They were saved by their faith. You notice that they repented of their sin and they believed God. But you see, when we are truly repentant and when we have believed God, it will evidence itself by our works. Something changed on the outside because they had repented on the inside. And God repented. Now that doesn't mean that God has to change His character or change His attitudes. God said, "All right, they did what I wanted them to do. They have repented of their sin, now I will turn and not do the judgment that I was going to bring to the city of Nineveh." Our God is so willing and ready to forgive. In Jonah 4:2, Jonah says this, "I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentest thee of the evil." Our God is a God who is loving and gracious. Now He will judge sin. He will not permit sin to go without judgment. But when He sees a broken heart and a believing heart, then He comes with restoration and forgiveness and cleansing.

The interesting thing is this, God used Jonah even though Jonah's heart was not right with God. You see, in chapter one, Jonah ran away from God because he was afraid of God's will. In chapter two, he ran to God because he was in a bad spot. It was in an emergency. He wanted the will of God now, he was in trouble. In chapter three, he obeyed God simply because he had to. He was afraid not to. The important part of this book now is going to come in chapter four, where Jonah has one more lesson to learn. The lesson of God's pity. Now what are you doing today to help to reach the multitudes in this world who need to hear the message?

Now, according to modern standards, the story should have ended at Jonah 3:10. Jonah did his work, the city was rescued and they lived happily ever after. However, we have chapter four in Jonah. Why? Because God is more concerned about the worker than he is the work. You say, "Well, God got what he wanted. The city of Nineveh repented and the message was preached. What more could God want?" He wants the heart and the love of His servant. You see, if you stop in chapter three of Jonah, Jonah looks very successful. He preaches a great revival, he's had a marvelous experience sharing the word of God, and yet what happens? Well, God has to go deeper with Jonah and teach him one more lesson.

Let's review just a little bit. In chapter one, we have resignation. Jonah says, "I will not do the will of God." And he learns the lesson of God's providence, you can't run away from God. In chapter two, we've called it repentance. And there he learns the lesson of God's pardon. God does forgive when we come and we ask Him. In chapter three, he learned the lesson of God's power. We call chapter three revival. But now in chapter four, he has one final lesson to learn. Let's call chapter four rebellion. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry." Rebellion. Jonah has to learn the lesson of God's pity. Allow me to review these chapters again. You see, in chapter one, God got a hold of Jonah's mind. Jonah knew what God wanted him to do, but he wouldn't do it. In chapter two, God got a hold of Jonah's mind and his will. Jonah said, "I will, I will, I will." And then the fish regurgitated Jonah, and he went and preached as he's supposed to preach. In chapter three, God got a hold of Jonah's mind and his will and his body. Jonah picked up his body and said, "I'm going to go to Nineveh. I don't want this to happen again." But you know, there was one area in Jonah's life that God had not yet conquered. He had not yet conquered his heart. He had his mind, Jonah knew what he was supposed to do. God had his will, he did it. God had his body, Jonah went to Nineveh. But God did not have Jonah's heart. Ephesians 6:6 says, "Doing the will of God from the heart." What was wrong with Jonah's heart? His heart was angry at God and angry at the people who had repented.

You must remember that Jonah was a patriotic Jew. Nineveh was going to be the great enemy of Israel. And actually, Jonah wanted God to judge Nineveh for two reasons. One, Nineveh was their enemy. Two, he knew that his own people needed to be warned about their sins. It's very likely that Jonah was saying in his heart, "Oh Lord, how can you forgive these Ninevites? Why don't you judge them and make them an example, exhibit A, to our own people that they might turn away from their sins?" What it really boiled down to was that Jonah did not have love in his heart for the people he was preaching to. God looks at the heart. Man may look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And here in Jonah 4, you have a believer acting like an unbeliever. You have an adult acting like a child. You have a servant of God acting like a servant of Satan. He is not yielded to the Lord.

Now it's a dangerous thing for this attitude of rebellion and bitterness and anger to get a hold of our hearts. You know, the name Jonah means dove. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. We're told in Ephesians 4:30, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." And one of the sins that grieves the Holy Spirit is anger. Jonah had been as it were, raised from the dead. He'd gone down into the depths, he'd been swallowed by the great fish. He had experienced death, burial and resurrection, at least in a symbolic sense. Well, if you're risen with Christ, what should you do? "Seek those things which are above," says Colossians 3:1. "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Then he names the sins we should put away: covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice.

You see, Jonah was not living on resurrection ground. He's like some of us today. We have been identified with Jesus Christ in death, burial and resurrection. And yet we're not living as we should. We haven't set our affection on things above, our attention on things above. We don't love the lost sinners around us. We don't like the things that they do, and we don't like them. Sometimes we not only hate the sin, we hate the sinner. Now, there is a godly anger in the Bible. No one will deny that. Moses had a godly anger when he when he took the golden calf and he smashed it, broke it into bits. Jesus had a godly anger when he cleansed the temple. Ephesians 4:26 says, "Be angry and sin not."

But Jonah's anger in Jonah 4 is not a godly anger, it's a selfish, carnal, worldly, fleshly anger, and when this gets a hold of our lives, we are in trouble. Let's consider several aspects of this anger that Jonah displays in Jonah 4. First of all, the reason for his anger. Well, the reason for his anger is incomplete surrender to God. If there is one area in our lives that is not yielded to God, the devil will use it as a foothold. That's why it says in Ephesians 4:27, "Neither give place to the devil." Don't give the devil a beachhead. Any area in my life that is not yielded to God is open season for the devil. And you see, even though God had gotten a hold of Jonah's mind, and finally got a hold of his will, and finally got a hold of his body, He had not gotten a hold of Jonah's heart. In a very real sense, Jonah is the elder brother of the Old Testament.

You remember in Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son? The boy came home and the father rejoiced, and they were having a big feast, thankful to God that the boy who was dead was now alive again. The boy who was lost was now found. Everybody was happy except the elder brother. He came in from the field and said, "What's going on?" The servant boy said, "Why your brother's come home." Why didn't the elder brother even know that his younger brother had come home? He wasn't looking for him, didn't want him to come home. And the word of God says, "And he was angry and he would not go in." He wouldn't go into the party. He stayed outside, outside the fellowship, outside the place of joy. The father had to come out and beseech him to come in. The elder brother had anger in his heart. He was angry at the grace of his father, angry at the forgiveness of his father.

This is what Jonah said to God, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, "I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country?" In other words, even before he'd gone, he'd determined this in his heart. "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentest thee of the evil." He really knows his theology, doesn't he? He's quoting here from Exodus 34:6, Numbers 14:18, back in chapter two in his prayer, he quotes from Psalm 120 and Psalm 42 and Psalm 31. He quotes from Psalm 69. He quotes from Psalm 3. Here's a man who can really quote scripture, but it hasn't changed the attitude of his heart. You see, if God is gracious, we should be gracious because we're the children of God. If God is merciful, we should be merciful. If God is slow to anger, we should be slow to anger. If God has great kindness, so should we. "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." The reason for Jonah's anger, he was not completely surrendered to God.

You see, you can be in the place of service and still not have your heart yielded to God. You can be busy preaching the gospel on a mission field, as Jonah was, and still not be totally yielded to God. You can hate the people you're ministering to. Oh, the important thing is not just that Nineveh is saved. The important thing is that Jonah is saved from his own anger and self-will. It's a sad thing, isn't it, when a child of God, a servant of God is rebelling the way Jonah did. Well, I need to ask myself the question, and perhaps you need to ask yourself the question, "Have I learned the lesson of God's pity?" We'll finish our study in chapter four, the Lord willing, next time, but I want you to know that you and I need to examine our hearts and find out, "Have we learned the lesson of God's pity? Should I not pity this great city?" is what the Lord said to Jonah. May the Lord help each of us to have a heart for souls, a love for people, to share the compassion of Christ with a lost world.