Good morning!  I have good news for you this morning. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. How many times have we ignored, resisted or rebelled against God’s way and found ourselves like Jonah at the bottom of the sea, tangled up in the sea weed wondering how things got so fouled up!  Yet, the Lord comes into the wreckage of our lives and gives us a 2^nd chance. Just as he did with Jonah and the Ninevites and countless others including me.

 

Let’s open our Bibles to Jonah 3. “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time” Jonah 3:1

The Word of the Lord is not only a thing, it’s a person!  “And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us?”  Who was the Gospel writer referring to?  Jesus, right?

 

Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Mt 7:24-27

 

A wise person builds his life on the words of Jesus!  But the foolish build their lives on the shifting sands of social opinion or the fickle desires of their own sinful nature. They see God’s way as repressive or old-fashioned.  They see their own way as enlightened, desirable.  The Bible describes those who reject God’s way in favor of their own as sheep led to slaughter.

 

Jesus clearly warns us that unless we build our house on his truth, his word, when the storms of life come, and they will, our house will collapse with a great crash. Guaranteed!  Anyone besides Michael Phelps, Jonah and me been there, done that?  Isn’t it sad that far too often we have to experience it before we will believe it!  How sad that the ones who pay for the price for our rebellion against God’s way isn’t ourselves but our children and those we love the most! 

 

I have good news for you this morning. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, people who built their house on the sand only to have it come crashing down. How incredible that God in his mercy has made a way for us to have a 2^nd chance! “And the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”  Jonah 3:1-2

 

The Lord gives Jonah a 2^nd chance.  Your failures don’t change the purpose for which God called you.  As long as the Lord gives you breath, its not too late to turn from running away from God to running toward him. From doing your own will, to seeking to do his will.

 

“Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh.”    Jonah may be headed in the right direction, but the Lord still has a lot of work to do in his reluctant prophet’s heart and the same is true for us.  Once the Lord has us headed in the right direction, he begins the work of renovating our hearts and changing our desires and attitudes.  It’s his work in us and he promises he’s going to bring it to completion.  PTL!

Jonah arrives to find an impossible task, impossible for Jonah, but not for God.  Archeologists tell us the ancient city of Nineveh with all its suburbs was some 20 miles in diameter. The outer ring was a confusing sprawl of slums and narrow streets filled with strange people with strange habits, speaking a strange language, and eating strange food. 

 

These Assyrians were the ancient enemies of Israel. Jonah grew up fearing and despising them. These are people with whom he feels nothing in common.  Yet in reality, this reluctant prophet and these Ninevites have much in common.  They are sinners.  They have rejected God’s way in favor of their own way.  They have suffered the consequences of their rebellion.

 

Imagine how foolish and powerless Jonah must feel as he stands on that first strange street corner shouting, probably in Hebrew, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!”  Imagine a crowd gathering around this stranger shouting in a foreign language until some bi-lingual person in the crowd translates for them.  “He’s saying 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”   

 

Despite the absurdity, the people didn’t laugh, they didn’t pick up rocks to stone him. They listened. Suddenly it’s not about Jonah. It’s a conversation between God Almighty and the Ninevites. The power of God’s word cuts them to the heart. They are convicted of their sin.

 

They believe God’s warning of judgment and they begin to fast and pray that God will relent from the destruction he has promised. This spirit of repentance spreads like wildfire across the city. It even reaches the palace where the king sheds his royal robes and covers himself in sackcloth and sits in the dust as a sign of repentance for his sin.

 

Business is suspended, schools are closed, bars are empty, the whole city from top to bottom is filled with a spirit of humility and repentance before the Lord!  Lord, bring it on America!

 

The king issues a royal decree, “Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast 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.”

 

The king doesn’t say “Call on whatever god that you please”.  He doesn’t name any of the 60 or more pagan deities of the Assyrian pantheon. He names Elohim, the one true and living God, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The God of Jonah.

 

What did the Ninevites know about the one true living God?  Did they know that the idols they worshipped in their local cult religion were just that, idols?  They may not have known the particulars but in their heart of hearts they knew there was something different about what was happening here and the religious activities of their cults.

 

There is an ancient story that can be traced through the mythologies of many ancient civilizations about the supreme good and all powerful God who created the universe and desired love and obedience from the people he had created. But his people rebelled against him and went their own way. As a result they found themselves in bondage to demons trying by their religious cults and idols worship to appease the evil spirits that surrounded them.

 

Deep within, the Ninivites knew something was wrong with the way they were living.  They understood Prov. 14:12 even though they had never read it.  “There is a way that seems right, but in the end it leads to death.”  Proverbs 14:12   Nineveh was rich, powerful, arrogant, yet they had a problem they didn’t know how to fix and from which they couldn’t escape.

 

Are you picking up a connection here between Jonah, Nineveh, and you and me!  We’ve been tossed out of the same boat.  We’ve all in one way or another, picked up on the lie that our way is better than God’s way and the very thing we thought would bring us life and become chains dragging us down into chaos and death. To quote Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for you?”

 

Isaiah wrote, “We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, but the LORD has laid on him the iniquity (sin) of us all.”  Isaiah 53:6 

 

The Good News is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He comes into the wreckage of our lives, sets us free and gives us a 2^nd chance at life God’s way.

 

There is something else we should notice here.  Jonah never makes it to the king.  You’d think if God wanted to change Nineveh, he’d start at the top and work down. But that’s not God’s way. Jonah message begins with the poorest in the slums on the far outskirts of the city.  The message travels like wildfire from the bottom to the top, from the least to the greatest.

 

Centuries ago when early missionaries were attempting to reach the people of India they first tried to reach the rulers, the top caste.  They though the gospel would then trickle down to the least.   Decades of diligent work produced no fruit, except among the lowest servant caste who served in the homes of the missionaries. It was there that the fire of revival began and spread from the bottom to the top of the culture.