And so in Jonah chapter 1, we saw that the Lord called Jonah, one of his prophets, to deliver a message, a message of judgment upon Israel's enemies that was meant to lead to their repentance. Jonah, of course, he fled away, but the Lord graciously pursued him. He had him thrown into the sea, swallowed by a fish, and brought back to dry land. And that's where we find Jonah today. We'll see how the Lord treats Jonah, how he deals with him after having forcefully brought him back. Jonah 3, and we'll read the last verse of Jonah 2 as well. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. 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. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 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. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but the man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. And he did not do it. So far, our reading of our text. And in connection with this passage, let's sing two more stanzas about turning back to God. You may have noticed the emphasis on turning throughout the passage. Turning back to God and finding mercy there. We'll sing Psalm 66, stanzas 7 and 8. Come with me to thy first attention, All you God in truth revere, Let me declare how Thee hast helped me, How in my troubles He drew near, I cried to him in my affliction, and he in mercy heard my voice. I sung his songs of praise, I sold him. In his compassion I rejoiced. If I had cherished an eagle, the Lord would not have evened me. I know that God indeed has heard me. He has attended to my plea. Forever blessed be God my Saviour, Who has not turned away my prayer, Nor has withheld from me His mercy. Jonah chapter 3 is our text for this afternoon worship service. Please keep it open if you have a Bible with you, but there's no need to read it again at this time. of brothers and sisters. The Book of Jonah, it's a pretty well-known book. And so if someone came and asked you what the Book of Jonah is all about, I wonder what you would tell them. I think some people with us, they might say that Jonah is all about a rebellious prophet. And fair enough, it is named after him after all. Other people, they might say that it's all about a big fish. I hope by now you see that's completely wrong. The big fish only has a walk-on part, as Sinclair Ferguson says. It's barely in the story at all. Some people say that the book of Jonah is all about evangelism. Now, that's a bit of a better answer, isn't it? It does seem to be, in a sense, connected with evangelism. But I hope as we work through this book, you come more and more to see that this book is all about God. God is the main character. Specifically, it's all about God's mercy, God's incredible grace towards sinful and rebellious people. And so in that way, Jonah 3 might sort of surprise us if we recognize this. Because in this book all about God's mercy, in this chapter all about God's mercy, the stated message that we just read to the people of Nineveh doesn't sound like a message of mercy at all, does it? It sounds like a message of wrath. Often we think mercy and wrath are opposites. And for us, they often are, aren't they? But God's perfect wrath and his perfect mercy actually go hand in hand. And in order to understand God's incredible mercy in saving us from sin and judgment, we need to understand the severity of the judgment we deserve and that was coming. The more we realize how far we've fallen, as we saw last week in Jonah chapter 2, the more we'll praise and glorify the great God who has given us a second chance to turn back to Him. And that's what Jonah chapter 3 is all about. In Jonah 3, we learn that our great and glorious and holy God is also a merciful God. He loves to give sinners a chance to turn back to Him and have a new, a second chance. He gives us a chance to repent, to turn back from our sin and into his loving arms, into his loving service. That's what we'll see today. First, we'll see Jonah turns back. Secondly, that Nineveh turns back. And then thirdly, that God himself turns back. First of all, Jonah turns back. And if someone, they expanded the question that we were talking about a second ago, they didn't just ask what Jonah was about, but what the Bible was about, what would you say? I think we would likely say the gospel, right? The good news. And that's absolutely true. The Bible is good news. But it's important to realize the good news of the Bible actually always starts with bad news. Incredibly bad news. And that's how we start to understand the message to Nineveh. But exactly Jonah said when he came to this great city of Nineveh, we don't know for sure. But we know that the whole message can be summarized in just a few words in our text. You can see Jonah's little sermon there. 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown, turned over, annihilated. Can you imagine that happening today? These were real people. This was a real city. Can you imagine a message, 40 more days and Chilliwack? 40 more days and Vancouver will be destroyed for its evil. That's a frightening message. It should make our hearts skip a beat. But this is Jonah's message from the Lord to the Ninevites. It's not a comforting one, it's a terrifying one. Jonah's message for Nineveh is you have been living wicked, evil lives. As we've heard a few weeks ago, you've been treating your neighbors brutally. You have been violent and dishonest and cruel. The message for these people is the living God has seen every second of it. He has seen everything you've done, publicly, secretly. And the living God has had enough. 40 days, and he is going to put an end to you and your evil ways. This is a terrifying message. And some have speculated that perhaps Nineveh responded to this message in the way that they did, because they heard it and they thought, honestly, honestly, this kind of makes sense. Apparently Assyria, the empire that Nineveh was an important city in, had experienced a series of famines and plagues and revolts and eclipses. And all of these things were seen as omens of far worse things to come, perhaps because of how they had been living. Surely the Ninevites saw the violence and the wickedness that they were famous for. But we see throughout the Bible this call to recognize sin and its effects and flee from them back to the Lord. This isn't just a message for Assyrians or for Ninevites, those we would consider great big sinners out there. This same message is a message for God's people too. We need to remember the context of Jonah in the whole Bible. While Jonah was sent out to go to Nineveh, many more prophets than just one were being sent out to the Israelites. Fundamentally, what was the message of those prophets going to the Israelites? Was it significantly different? No. The call to God's own people was repent of your evil ways. If not, you are going to be destroyed. If you go on reading, you'll hear the Assyrians are the ones who not too long after this would destroy the Israelites. God's people drag them into exile for their sin. The overwhelming message of the prophets, not just to Nineveh, but to God's own people, was a call to repent, to turn back to God. And we don't just need to think that this is an Old Testament thing, do we? Think of Jesus Christ, the great and true prophet. When he came, what was his first, what was his primary message? If you look at the Gospel of Mark, you'll see there Jesus bursts onto the scene. And the first words that we have from Jesus are, repent. Turn back. Turn from your evil ways to God. And Jesus primarily went to God's people, the Israelites. John the Baptist's message we see there was the same. We read a couple of weeks ago in Matthew chapter 12, when Jesus is speaking to the Israelites, God's people, he brings up this story that we just read. He says to God's own unrepentant people, who we would consider that they're better than the Ninevites, right? They're better than the Assyrians, right? Jesus Christ says the opposite. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 12, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. The Ninevites will condemn God's own people because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, Jesus says, something greater than Jonah is here. And we see this so powerfully here in this book of Jonah. There's a message about sin and God's wrath that was going out to the nations. But the first one who needed to repent wasn't Nineveh. It was Israel, and it was Jonah himself, God's prophet. Most of this book isn't about bringing Nineveh to repentance. Most of it is about God bringing Jonah to repentance. In the story of Nineveh's repentance, we should see an urgent warning for ourselves, for God's people, about our need for repentance, our own need to turn back to God. This leads to a question for you and me, especially if we've grown up in the church. Because it can be really easy to think that, yes, yes, obviously, people need to repent. Obviously, people need to turn from their sin and turn back to God. Just look in the world we live in. Of course, this is true. It's easy to think Chilliwack needs to repent. British Columbia, Canada needs to repent. The world, the nations, other churches, they need to repent. But as we look at the sin and suffering around us and even inside of us, we should see a fundamental message here too. We need to turn back first. We need to turn back from our sin to God. And by God's grace, finally here in Jonah chapter three, it seems that Jonah does. And this is absolutely incredible. Because this rebellious prophet has just been vomited back onto dry land. And so what would you expect this holy God calling out against Nineveh to do? The creator of heaven and earth. I can tell you what he doesn't do. Our God doesn't crush Jonah. He doesn't leave Jonah there. He doesn't even rebuke Jonah, if you look at our text, in an immense kindness and compassion. What does our God do even with Jonah, the one person who should have known better? He reclaims him. He recommissions him, we say. He receives him back and still allows him to be his representative to the nations. We should be reminded of Peter, who Sinclair Ferguson calls the New Testament Jonah. On the night of testing, when Peter was worried about who would turn their back on Christ, and even thought maybe someone else, but never him. On the night of testing, Peter himself turned from Christ, and he did it most spectacularly. He rejected him. He denied him three times, swearing on God's name that he didn't know the Messiah. And yet afterwards, after his death, after his resurrection, Christ calls out to him. And what does Christ do to Peter? Does he crush him? Does he even rebuke him? No, he asks him three times, Peter, do you love me? And three times, Peter says, yes, Lord, I love you. And so Jesus, in his mercy, recommissions him, sends him out to be his witness to the nations. But first, he needed to be crushed, and likewise here with Jonah. Jonah, having learned a lesson about grace, he turns back towards God, and God turns him back towards Nineveh. There's a biblical principle here. Before we can flourish, before we can serve God, we ourselves need to be humbled. Before we can be fruitful, we need to die. We see this in Jonah, and we see this in Christ, and we see this repentance, this humility in ourselves. I think one of the greatest stories of this, one of the greatest examples is found in John Newton. John Newton, you might know, he was raised as a Christian, but he personally never truly turned to Christ. He just attended church, he attended Bible studies, but he never truly turned from his sin to Christ. Eventually, as he grew older, he rebelled against Christ. He went out on his own. He says, by his own admission, he was an angry man, impatient and prideful. Eventually, he took a job on a ship, a ship transporting slaves, treating them brutally. John Newton himself says he committed high-handed sins against God. He intentionally rebelled against him. He said he began to hate God, and he tried to get others to turn on God too. And one night, there was a great storm, and the ship sprang a leak, and they were surely going to die. But by God's grace, as the ship rocked, some cargo shifted and blocked the hole just enough, they got to land unharmed. Others might have said that it was a coincidence. John Newton said it was pure grace. He was not ready to die. He was not ready to go before his maker. He needed a wake-up call, and that was it. John Newton ran back to God. He repented of his sin and ran to Christ. He knew he deserved nothing but wrath. But with God, he found incredible grace, amazing grace. And the more he did, the more he grew to detest himself and his former ways, to detest the slave trade he was a part of, to confess all the horrible things he had done. More and more, he came to love Jesus Christ, who had loved him so much first. Well, he was still an enemy. And John Newton came to the point where he wanted to use his life to tell everyone who would listen to turn back to this God, to turn back to Jesus Christ. He started leading Bible studies. Eventually, he became a great preacher, preaching to thousands of people each week. He wrote over 280 hymns, including what is almost certainly the most popular hymn of all time, the one we'll sing right after this service. John Newton wrote these words from the bottom of his heart. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. And shortly before he died, in his old age, Newton proclaimed, my memory is almost gone, but I still remember two things. I am a great sinner. Christ is a great savior. And God did incredible things through John Newton. At first, he needed to bring him to his knees in repentance, even though he had grown up all his life hearing about God's grace. He showed him his sin, and he showed him his mercy. In this way, God gave Nune a second chance, and used him to give many more sinners second chances as well. The same thing is true with Jonah. He was brought low to repentance in the first part of the book, but now he's turned back to God and given a second chance, and now he's told, go give Nineveh a second chance as well. He's told to warn them of coming judgment. Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. And the most incredible thing happens. Our second point. Nineveh turns back. So Nineveh, this great and wretched city, sees this unimpressive foreign prophet walk into town and start crying out a seemingly crazy message, you have to imagine, that the city would soon be overturned. And what does the text say? It says they believed him, right? Actually, no. It says something far more amazing than that. Look at the text. What does it say? It says Jonah preached this message and they believed God. They received Jonah's message, this feeble prophet, as God's own words, and they believed him by God's grace. And that's an awesome comfort for people like us, people like Jonah. Because throughout the book, Jonah isn't great, is he? That's a huge understatement. Jonah is weak and frail. Even Jonah's message doesn't sound impressive. It doesn't sound like a great sermon. But that's not the point. The point is that God is great, and he can do great things even with imperfect preachers like John Newton, and like Jonah, and with you, and with me. And St. Clair Ferguson shares the story of how he came to a living faith. He says he was a young boy, about 15 or 16, walking through the snow. And he ran into this gentleman, and in conversation, this elderly man simply stopped what they were talking about and asked him, son, are you saved? And Ferguson said, these words pierced his heart like a dagger. He always wanted to find back the man and to tell him, but he never saw him again. And likewise, Sinclair Ferguson says for each of us, for pastors, for elders, for deacons, for teachers, for parents, for regular church members, for every single one of us, do not worry exactly who you are or exactly what you're going to say. Don't worry and think, I'm not eloquent, I'm not a gifted speaker. Just pray that God will give you the opportunity to speak, and give you the words to speak, and that he might anoint your words and use them however he chooses, because that's the incredible thing we see in Jonah chapter 3. Look what happens with this weak preacher's weak message. We read the city was exceedingly great, three days journey in breadth. It would have taken a minimum of three days for Jonah to get throughout it. And yet only one day in we read, Jonah's message goes on ahead of him, spreading like wildfire. The news of Jonah's message spread so far, and the people began to repent. Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh himself. And we need to consider, what should a king do? What should this king do with this information, you think? He's this proud king of this great city. He's heard rumors now that a foreign prophet came into the city, that he's uttering threats against the city, that he's sending the town into a panic. What should this king do, and what does he do? We see this king gets up from his glorious throne. He takes off his royal robes. He puts on a burlap sack, and he sits down in the dust. By God's grace, even the proud king, these words from Jonah's lips, they pierce his heart. He is cut to the heart and believes they have been in sin. They need to turn back to God. From there, the king orders everyone in the city to fast, every person from the least to the greatest, even the animals. No one's to eat or drink anything. Instead, they were supposed to call urgently on God and truly repent, not just calling on God, but the king says, give up their evil ways and their violence. And what a transformation in this city. This great and evil city was huge and bustling with commerce in the morning, we have to imagine. But by night, everyone is in sackcloth, calling out to God, turning from their violent ways, begging for forgiveness. Even the animals bleeding out in hunger and thirst. And we need to wonder, why would the king do this? Why would the city do this? And we don't need to wonder long, because the king himself tells us in verse nine, why this dramatic response? Why repent? In verse 9, the king says, because, who knows, God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. Why repent, turn from their violent ways in sackcloth and ashes? Because, who knows, he says, who knows, perhaps this God who is so holy that he's been paying attention to our sins in Nineveh. Perhaps this God who is so holy that he cares about our public as well as our secret sins and hates them. And perhaps this God who is so powerful that he can threaten to overthrow one of the greatest cities in the world like it's nothing. Perhaps this unbelievably holy God and this unbelievably powerful God is also unbelievably merciful. Who knows? There's a chance. This is the condition of sinful human beings like us, brothers and sisters, and like Nineveh, and like the Israelites before God set his mercy on them. The almighty God doesn't owe us anything. We owe him everything. Our only hope for sinful people like us is that this holy and powerful God is as merciful as he is just. And the good news, the gospel, brothers and sisters, he is. We see that with Jonah. We see that with Nineveh. We see it throughout the Old Testament. And most of all, we see it in the fulfillment of the Old Testament, in the coming of Jesus Christ, God's own Son. We see there that God proves his words. He is a holy God. He is an almighty God. He is a consuming fire who cannot look upon evil. He's as holy and as mighty as he is. We see in Jesus Christ, he is just as merciful and compassionate, just as slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This God swears he doesn't want to destroy us. Isn't that amazing? He swears that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He would rather us turn to him and be saved. And he proved this through Jesus Christ, the true and better Jonah. As Jesus says in Matthew chapter 12, the Ninevites will rise up at the judgment and condemn those who do not repent in our days. Because while they only knew a little bit about God, they only had Jonah. Brothers and sisters, we know so much about this God. We have his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ saw our sin and misery from heaven, and he, like the king of Nineveh, got up off his throne, and he humbled himself. He took off his royal robes, and this great king came down to help us. He came down to save us. He's the one who loved us enough to make the long journey into enemy territory to redeem us. And so he came down preaching good news. Repent and believe the good news. The good news that he himself was and is God. He is the holy one, the one who is too pure to look on evil, the one who hates evil far more than we do. And the question is, is this holy, almighty God as kind and compassionate and merciful, as willing to forgive as he is just? And in Jesus Christ, we get the answer, absolutely, without a doubt, he is. And there are many examples from Jesus' life that we could focus on to see this. But I think there's one example that outshines maybe them all. Towards the end of his life, Jesus is going towards Jerusalem. You know what happens in Jerusalem, right? Jesus Christ will be betrayed. He'll be nailed to a cross. He'll be put to death. He'll be murdered. And as he is going into the city, he looks over Jerusalem, a city full of people who are about to kill him, and just as they have killed God's other prophets. And what does Jesus do? We read, he weeps. He weeps because he wants to save them. He weeps because they will not repent. He says he would rather gather them under his wings like a hen protecting her young, but they were not willing. He would rather die for them. They would rather die themselves. But by God's grace, Nineveh is different. Nineveh repents. And in verse 10, we see that when Nineveh turns back, God turns back too. That's our third and final point. As we read, Nineveh repents in slack cloth and ashes, crying out to God for mercy. And when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented. The word literally means he turned back and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. In this way, God deals with Nineveh's sin in a really wonderful and powerful way, doesn't he? God looked down and saw their wicked ways, and he hated them, and he said they had to stop. And so, he took action, and he put an end to them. In a sense, God did put the evil Ninevites to death, not with judgment, but with amazing grace. God preached to them a message of warning and of judgment, and gave them a chance at mercy, a new chance at life. And this is exactly what he does for us as well. Jesus came down and he became sin for us, and God crushed him. And so now we confess with Cole that we have died. We'll hear more about this later. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Jesus Christ, or through Jesus Christ, God has crushed our sin. And Jesus Christ came down and offered new life, immortal life, to anyone who will turn to him and receive it. And he promised that anyone, anyone, no matter how weak or how sinful or how broken, anyone who comes to him, he will never cast out. When Jesus tells us he hates sin, but that he loves us, often I think that we come with a lot of doubts, don't we? We come with a lot of objections. I can think of people from my past who I'm sure would say, me, there's no way. There's no way I can turn back to God. I am too far gone. And we make excuses, and the devil whispers lies in our ears. Maybe others, maybe God can forgive others. But there's no way this holy God, this all-knowing God, loves me that much. There's no way he knows my deepest, darkest thoughts and still wants to die for me and to live with me forever. There's no way this consuming fire isn't going to devour me. But as John Bunyan once said hundreds of years ago, these words of Jesus in John 6, verse 37, where Jesus says, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out, they slit the throat of every excuse, every fear that we could possibly think of that we can't turn back. What doubt, brothers and sisters, can you possibly have? What objection could you possibly think up when Jesus has promised once and for all, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out? John Bunyan gives it a try. Perhaps you've read this yourselves. John Bunyan gives it a try at excuses. He says, I can't turn back. I am a great sinner, you say. I'm an old sinner, you say. I'm a hard-hearted, black-siding sinner, you say. I will never cast out, says Christ. But I have sinned against light, against mercy, against heaven itself, you say. I will never cast out, says Christ. No, Jesus, you don't understand. I've really messed up in all kinds of ways, you say. I know the response. You know most of it, sure. But there's perversity down inside me, Jesus, that is hidden from everyone. I know it all, says Christ. But Jesus, I don't know if I can break free from this anytime soon. That's the kind of person I'm here to help, says Christ. This burden is heavy, Jesus, heavier all the time. Then let me carry it. It's too much to bear, not for me. You don't get it. My offenses aren't directed towards others, Jesus. They're against you. Then I'm the one most suited to forgive them, Christ says. But the more of the ugliness in me you discover, the sooner you'll get fed up with me and leave. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out, says Christ. Brothers and sisters, when we're struggling in our sin like the Ninevites were, like Jonah was, we need to know there's not one of us that Jesus cannot save. There's not one of us that Jesus is unwilling to save if we go to him in faith. If we turn back to him and believe in the promised Messiah, God will gladly turn back our punishment. Christ will gladly have the punishment turned back on himself rather than cast us out. Jesus Christ is the one who is cast out of the city, cast out of God's presence, so you would never have to be, and I would never have to be. Why? Because our God is a God of mercy and compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Our God is a God of second chances for sinners. He gave a second chance to Jonah. He gave a second chance to Nineveh. He gave one to John Newton. He gives one to me and to you. As Jesus says, what we need to do is repent, turn back, and believe the good news. Amen. Let's sing together the first three stanzas of amazing grace.