God Renews
As we looked at the first half of this remarkable book we saw that it shows us many facets of salvation. As we come to chapter 3 this theme is still very much in evidence. The first verse of chapter 3 is a rather obvious echo of the first verse of chapter 1 with God renewing his call to Jonah. The phrase, 'the word of the Lord came to...' is the Bible's way of saying this man is a genuine prophet. It bestows God's stamp of authenticity upon the named person.
A Second Start
This is a new beginning. The slate has been scrubbed clean and God has given Jonah a second start. If we may borrow the phrase from 4:2, God is one who 'is abounding in love and a God who relents from sending calamity'. This is what he has done with Jonah. It is what God does with everyone he calls to faith. He gives them the new beginning of salvation. We should however, be clear that this second start certainly is not earned, neither by Jonah nor any Christian. Also we can see here the commitment that the Lord shows to those who are his. We may let him down on occasion but he always remains faithful to us.
The Efficacy of God's Word
In verse 3 Jonah responds to God’s command of the previous verse. How different his response is now that he has tasted something of the horror of separation from God. He takes God's message to the Ninevites with exemplary obedience and the Ninevites believe God's messenger and God's message.
Whilst there is much that is miraculous in this story, all the action stems out of peoples’ response to God’s word! Indeed, we can only know God and his nature through his word because unless God reveals himself we cannot know him.
A Difficult Message
If we combine the message from chapter 1 verse 2 with the one found here in verse 4 then God's warning to the great city of Nineveh is this: ‘Your wickedness has come up before me, so in forty days your city will be overturned.’ This is not a pleasant message to take. Negative 'hell fire' preaching always goes down badly. We can only wonder whether Jonah also preached some positive news by calling the Assyrians to repentance and telling them about God's compassionate nature. The text does not say. I could easily imagine the powerful Ninevites laughing at this single man calling out threats to them from an unseen God.
Like Jonah, our gospel message can appear weak when we are faced with a seemingly hostile world. Some Christians today risk death and imprisonment for proclaiming God's truth. And some of us worry about losing our jobs, our friends or just our reputations. Whatever the situation we must be prepared to trust God to convict our listeners, and to stand by us as we obey him. Look at the results Jonah gets when he does finally trust God! What an encouragement!
Repentance: Word and Spirit
The promptness, extent and sincerity of the Ninevite response looks staggering. Jonah had barely started out into the city. The repentance that Jonah witnesses is a result of two things; the power of God’s word as it is preached and the work of the Holy Spirit in peoples' hearts.
John Chapman, Dean of St. Andrews Cathedral, Sydney "The word of God as he speaks is the Spirit of God, or the breath of God, or the wind of God. Do not drive a wedge between the Spirit of God and the word of God......In your own mind, if you think the Bible and the Spirit are different, you're not thinking like the Bible."
The Word and the Spirit are inseparable. In Hebrews 1:1 we are told that, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets...” and if we look at what two of those prophets (Micah and Zechariah) said, then we can see that they did so by the agency of the Holy Spirit.
Zechariah 7:12 - "They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry."
Micah 3:8 - "But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin."
As we bring the gospel message it is so easy to think the success of proclamation relies totally on us, but we are not working alone. The Spirit opens peoples’ hearts to receive it. That’s what’s happening at Nineveh. And God's message doesn't just work on an individual level. The description of the king and his court's response shows that it will ultimately work through on a social basis, giving God total governance.
By the way, God's threat to 'overturn' the city is the same word as is used of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis but also it might also imply ‘turned about’. Spiritually the Ninevites were turned about, so in a way God’s message did come true!
The process of Conversion
We’ve seen that the Ninevites believed God's word in verse 5, and they responded. It is no good just hearing God's word, but it must bring about a response in the lives of its hearers. The Ninevites fasted and put on sackcloth which is a sign of true repentance (v7-8). They prayed (v8) and they hoped for a reprieve (v9). They acknowledged God’s sovereignty and freedom to do as he pleases.
And so the chapter ends where it starts - with mercy. The first time it was for Jonah, the individual and now it is for Nineveh, a whole city, as God reprieves them.
"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." Jeremiah 18:7-8