If everyone could turn to Jonah 3. We have been looking at this recently and it says in Jonah 3:1-10:
And the word of JEHOVAH came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of JEHOVAH. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, 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 him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 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 any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: 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? 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.
I will stop reading there.
We have been looking at this for a few weeks. One of the tremendous things that I cannot get over is how God sent Jonah into Nineveh and how little information God gave Him, how brief the whole declaration of the Gospel was to the Ninevites, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Eight English words; that was it. We do not find any kind of further validation. There is no more evidence.
What did they have to go on? They only knew that this man came. He was a Hebrew, so they could gather that he came from Israel. The world of that day that was located around Israel knew that there was Jehovah God. Through identification of his nationality, they would associate him with Jehovah.
So he would be from the right place. He would be identified with the right God, because many nations have their gods. Deep-down, I think, men know that a god of wood and stone, decked with silver and gold, is not a god at all and really cannot save.
So Jonah was identified with the right God and he came with the right message, because the Bible tells us that when a prophet comes and he speaks peaceable things to you, when he speaks, “God is love and God loves everybody and God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” you can basically dismiss the prophet because that is not how prophets come. Prophets come declaring judgment, declaring the wrath of God, declaring that man is a sinner and in trouble with God.
So he was declaring the right message. He did not go into Nineveh, “Oh you Ninevites! The Lord loves you all! Turn from your sins!” He did not say that. He said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” A time reference and a judgment reference; that was it. We do not have any further information.
He could have possibly said other things and God did not record them. This is the only thing that God recorded—one sentence. One sentence that contained two ingredients—time and judgment—and that was it.
But that is not the amazing thing. Yes, it is amazing that Jonah was thrown overboard from the ship and that a whale swallowed him and that he was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights and that the whale vomited him out exactly where he needed to be. That is amazing. These are mighty miracles and it is incredible that God brought all of these events to pass. But even more incredible is that the people of Nineveh believed God through this lone, strange prophet who came with the littlest of information. The whole city, from the king on down, repented and believed God.
That is a mighty miracle of God. That is enormous, really, once we understand that these Ninevites were men, just like us. They were people, just like the people in Philadelphia, in San Francisco, in all of the cities that we have today. They were no different. God tells us, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” every human being. All are sinners, hard-hearted sinners.
Do you think that you know somebody who is stubborn and proud and who would never consider the Gospel because he has such a hard heart? Do you think that he is any different than you or I were, or than anybody else?
We are all hard-hearted sinners: from the baby who is born, to the one who is 90 or 100 and dies of a heart attack. Apart from the grace of God, we are stubborn. We are stupid because we think that our way is the right way. We are fools.
All of these things are the character that we have because we are spiritually dead. And the Ninevites were not any different than us. That is what is so incredible! That is the miracle!
Through the Word of God, they believed God. It did not take the whole Bible. It did not take, “Okay, that sounds good,” as we tell someone about Genesis 7:4, “Yet seven days and God will destroy the world with a flood.” Then we take them to 2 Peter 3, where God says in the context of the flood, “One day is as a thousand years.” And, coincidentally, God has also opened up the calendar of history, so from the flood until 2011 is 7,000 years. And we also know how God wrote the Bible, that He spoke in parables. So it is very much in keeping with the nature of the Bible when He said, “Yet seven days, Noah, till the world be destroyed,” that, spiritually, it points to 7,000 years. The Bible ties all of this together. There are verses in the Bible, just like, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” and there is absolutely no difference because they all come from the mouth of God.
Now, Jonah, personally, carried divine revelation. But when we read a verse from the Bible or if someone shares a verse from revelation, that is also divine revelation. There is absolutely no difference, and yet, at least in our surroundings, when we share these verses with people, how many times do we see the reaction of the Ninevites? How little do we see that people believe God and say, “Wow! You mean 2011 is 7,000 years from the flood and then that is when God is going to destroy the world?”
So you tie together the length of time of the Great Tribulation, which is 23 years, 8400 days exactly, and you share with them—plus this was all done apart from the 7,000-year timeline of the flood—that May 21st in 2011 is the end of the 23-year Great Tribulation, and that, guess what, in the Hebrew calendar, that is the 17th day of the 2nd month. I understand why that does not make an impact, but let us go back to Genesis. After seven days, when God shut them in the ark and He brought a flood, it was the 17th day of the 2nd month.
Do you believe God? You need more? Well then, you are not following in the steps of the Ninevites. There is more. There is a great deal more. There are books more of evidence, but why do you need more? Why? The Ninevites did not have the luxury of more information that we have. They only had this to go on, and they repented.
So this is what I would like to look at today. I would like to look at the Ninevites’ repentance. We do not hear it too often, but remember that the Bible tells us that God commands all men everywhere to repent—no exceptions. This is in Acts 17:30. He commands all men everywhere to repent; and by “all men,” He means every human being.
So if you are eight years old, you are commanded to repent. Or if you are 50 years old, you are commanded to repent. If you are a male or a female, it does not matter; you and I are commanded to repent.
In Mark 1:15, it says:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
That is exactly what the Ninevites did. They repented and believed.
Or go to Matthew 3:2. This is John the Baptist whom God is moving to speak:
Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Also, in the next chapter, Matthew 4:17:
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is a command; and if there is any command that is abused, this is it. Most people put this off, even Christians, maybe especially Christians, or professing Christians, because they are the ones who are familiar with the Bible and the Word of God, that God commands everyone, whether Christian or not, to repent. Many of the people out there in the world are not familiar with many of God’s commands, but we have the Scripture and we know what God has said in His Word, which is what He wants us to do, to turn from the way that we are going and to turn to Him.
That is repentance; it is turning. In this case, it would be turning from a path that leads to destruction, to a path that is following God’s way; and so God wants everyone to turn.
Now, if we go back to Jonah, it says in Jonah 3:5:
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
And then we know that they all, from the king on down, were crying mightily to God and were fasting. But notice what God does in verse 10, 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.
God repented in the sense that He turned. That is what this word means. Now, the Bible says that God is not a man that He should repent, but that means of sin, because He is without sin; He is perfect. But we do read, on occasion, that God repented; and here, “of the evil.” He fully intended to destroy the Ninevites; but because they turned from their wicked way, God also turned from the destruction of the city and the destruction of all of the people. So that is what repentance means, to turn.
Now, we have to be careful, because it says:
…God saw their works…
And we see here that they were not destroyed, so we have to be careful and realize that repentance, number one, is a work. It is a work, just like anything that people do in obedience to God’s commands. God tells us to love the poor, to give of ourselves and our money. Anytime people do this, it is a work and it is a good work. Or if God says, “Believe; have faith in Christ; believe on the Lord Jesus,” that is a work, because it is a command and any response to a command is a work.
This is why the Bible tells us that no man is justified by works. Remember that? Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Now, some people have a wrong understanding of what the Law is. They think that it is the Ten Commandments, or they think, maybe, the first few books of the Bible, the Law of Moses, and yet the whole Bible is the Law Book. This is why when we read a command in any other part of the Bible, we are obligated to obey that as much as something spelled out in the Ten Commandments.
So when God tell us to do something, that is out of His Law, the Law Book, the Bible. If we do it, it would be a work, a good work; and yet that work, whatever it is, cannot justify us. It cannot make us right in His sight. We cannot become saved by works.
In Ephesians 2:8-9, it tells us that we are saved through faith:
…and that not of yourselves…
Because it is the faith of Christ and not our faith.
…it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
And that, of course, is what would happen if we could do something and bring ourselves salvation. Well, that would just foster pride. We would think that it was goodness, that it was our ability to bring ourself salvation, and that is contrary to the Gospel of the Bible.
God gets all of the glory. He did all the work. Jesus did all the work in saving His people and there never can be any instance where someone whom God has saved can say, “Well, I did a little something,” whether it be believing in Christ, accepting Christ, coming down the aisle, or whether it be repenting and turning from sin.
Now, the Bible commands, “Repent and turn from the way that you are going,” and it is to all of us, “Repent and turn.” But repenting and turning is not going to get us saved in itself. It is not going to save anybody, and, actually, repentance itself would have to be a gift from God.
So we do desire to be obedient to the Word of God, to the Bible, and we turn, and the Ninevites are a great example of what we should do, personally, in our lives. We should turn from what we know is sin, what we know is wrong, what we have a conscience about. We feel guilty, and why do we feel guilty? Because it is not right. It is wrong, what we are doing, whether it is thoughts that we have or whether it is things that we say or whether it is things that we do; these things are against some law of God. This is why we do not feel good; we feel badly about them. This is why it is this area that we need to turn from.
So let us say that we are going to get serious because God is very earnest and sincere and extremely serious about the events that are going on today since time is short. Let us say that we are hearing this, so we are going to decide to finally get serious, and that means today, if you are serious.
If you are thinking, “Tomorrow,” you are not serious. If you are thinking, “Monday” when it is Sunday, you are not serious; because when Monday comes, then it is “Tuesday,” and when Tuesday comes, then it is “Friday,” a more “convenient season,” a more convenient time to turn from the sin.
Why? Because, “I want a little bit more pleasure. I want to enjoy it a little longer. I cannot bear to lose it, but I know that I have to lose it. I should not want to get closer and closer to the time of the Rapture and the end of the hope of salvation, when God shuts the door on May 21 st, 2001, with these sins. I know that I have to get rid of them; however, there is still time.”
You know, time, right now, it is wonderful, it is a blessing, it is a mercy that we have over two years, but it can also be a real hindrance in our minds if we are thinking, “Well, we have some time. It is not much time, but we still have time.”
How do we deceive ourselves? And how does Satan deceive us? Always, “I will do it in the future. I am agreeing with the Bible, I am agreeing with the Word of God, and I have to repent. See, God, I am not against You. I want to be right with you; however, not at this moment, not today.”
Well, God says, “Today is the day of salvation.” Today, not tomorrow. And so today, that would mean, is the day of repentance. Today is the day to turn, knowing, as we were just reading, that it is a work to turn from sin. So in turning from that sin, it does not guarantee that I am going to be saved. But look at Jonah 3:8-9:
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: 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?
You see, there is a possibility. They did not think, “Well, alright, let us put on sackcloth.”
Do you know what sackcloth was? Well, first, you have to take off your clothes. You have to take off your garments. And at times in the Bible when someone was faced with problems and grief and mourning, they would rend their clothes and put on sackcloth. And sackcloth was exactly how it sounds. It was a sack that they would put food in. It is the same word that is found in Genesis with the historical story of Joseph and his brethren when they went to Egypt to get corn. Well, the corn was put in their sacks, and that is the word “sackcloth.” And that sack would probably be cut or ripped somehow and then you would put it over you and you would wear sackcloth. And this is what God is indicating that these individuals in the city of Nineveh were doing, from the king on down.
Now, the king was king, and he took off his royal robe; he put it aside. So if any of us think that we are too good for sackcloth, well, we should take a little history lesson from the King of Nineveh. He was not so proud that he could not put aside his royal robe, and he covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes, just like everybody else.
In itself, historically, this did not mean anything, but God is teaching us by this that this is a sign or an indicator that these people meant business and that they were broken. They were broken by the Word of God and they were truly believing God and turning from their sins.
By the way, we also know that the only people who will hear the Word of God and respond to the Word of God are the true believers. God commands all men everywhere to repent, but only the elect are going to repent, only God’s chosen people will be given ears to hear and understand the day that we are living in. They will turn from the way they are going because God is going to make sure of this.
For instance, if we go to 2 Peter 3, right after the verse about one day is as a thousand years, we read in verse 9, 2 Peter 3:9:
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
We just cannot leave this verse as it is—that is, without commenting on it—because many people abuse this verse and try to go here to say, “Well, this means that God is going to save everyone, because He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” But, no, that cannot be, because the Bible in many places elsewhere teaches us that the vast majority of men will perish. Most people of the human race will die and experience an eternal destruction and will come to their end. Only those whom God has chosen, those whom Christ has saved and died for, they will not perish. Every one of them, all of them, should come to repentance; every single one of God’s people will come to repentance.
So we know that today, as God is saving a great multitude from around the world outside of the churches, this means that a great multitude are going to experience repentance, turning from their sins. We do not know who they are. We do not know even exactly where they are. But they are out there in the world and they are hearing the Gospel and God is going to give them the gift of repentance. He is going to turn them so that they may, in turn, turn from their sins, or as a result, turn from the sins, and begin crying out to God. God will hear and He will save, because this is the day that we are living in when this great multitude, tens of millions of people, are becoming saved. Therefore, they are repenting and they are turning from their sins.
Okay, let us go back to Jonah and look at the character of the Ninevites’ repentance in Jonah 3:5:
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
At first, they proclaimed a fast. If we go to 2 Chronicles 20:2-4, it says:
Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazontamar, which is Engedi. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek JEHOVAH, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of JEHOVAH: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek JEHOVAH.
To proclaim a fast, we know, in itself, is worthless. It has no benefit, spiritually. You can stop eating for any length of time and that is not going to help you. We also know, spiritually, that God uses fasting as a type and picture of sending the Gospel out, because we read this in Isaiah 58. So that would be one of the spiritual dimensions or ideas behind fasting.
But here in 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast in order to seek Jehovah and to seek His help, because there was a great army coming whom they feared. They were afraid that they would be destroyed by this great army, and so they proclaimed a fast in order to go to God, seeking the Lord for His help, exactly like the Ninevites heard that they were going to be destroyed so they proclaimed a fast to seek God and His help.
There is another verse. If we go to Daniel 9:3, it says:
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
And then it goes on to describe his prayer. But, you see, he is seeking, by prayer and fasting, the face of the Lord. He is seeking God, and we are looking for the true teaching of what God is saying in Jonah, because we know that God does not want us to say, “Oh, we only have so much time left, so let me rip off my clothes and find a sackcloth and put it on and walk around with ashes.” God does not want us to do this. He does not want us to do this today, but He does want us to do what this spiritually represents.
Holding a fast, yes, is getting the Gospel out, but what if you are not a believer? What if you are not a believer? These Ninevites were not believers. So were they to, spiritually, send the Gospel out?
Well, as soon as someone becomes saved, yes, but a part of fasting, also, is seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord, and that was definitely what they were doing. They were crying mightily to God so that He might have mercy on them. They were seeking His help.
I think God gives us another picture of the deeper, spiritual meaning in the book of Joel, in Joel 2:12-14, where He says:
Therefore also now, saith JEHOVAH, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto JEHOVAH your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him…
You see, it is very similar to the Ninevites, except do not bother with your clothes. Please, keep your wardrobe in tact. Do not bother with ripping your clothes. The problem is not outward anyway. The problem is inward; it is the heart. It is the heart, and that is where repentance has to come from.
Yes, you can put away cigarettes and drinking and cursing and lying and stealing and adulterous thoughts, and on and on and on and on. However, all sin flows out of the heart and if you cut off the outward sin—you throw away the pack of cigarettes or you throw away whatever it is that is outward—that is good, that is good, that is a good thing to do and we need to do that, but that is not salvation and that is not true repentance because the problem is deep-down in the spiritual nature of man, in the heart. We must turn from our own heart, as it says here, “Rend your heart.” Break your heart and give yourself a new heart, as God says elsewhere, “Circumcise your heart; cut off your own heart.”
Can you do it? Can you do it? Can I do it? Can anybody do it? Has anybody ever done it? No, not of themselves; that is another reason why repentance, in itself, cannot save us. We can cut off all these outward things and it would be a very wise thing for us to do. Get rid of them. Turn off the TV. Turn off all of these things that are wasting your time and go to God and say, “Lord, I know that You command me to repent and I am trying. I am putting forth effort. I am striving to enter into the strait gate. I am really troubled by the information that I am learning from the Bible that the end is coming; however, I can only go so far and I know that. Nothing I do can ever save me anyway, so I ask that You might give me true repentance and that You might give me a new heart and a new spirit that desires to do the will of God, that cannot sin.” It cannot sin, so that is repentance. It is turned from all evil. It is turned from all wickedness. It is a pure and perfect heart that, now, is perfectly in line with God’s will and His Word, and that is what God is going to give every one of His elect. They will all come to repentance. Each and every one will receive that heart.
Okay, let us also look at sackcloth. I think I am running out of time here, but sackcloth has a lot to do with mourning, sadness. For instance, when Jacob heard that his son, Joseph, was killed by beasts, he put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. He even said that he would go down to the grave mourning for his son. So it was an expression of grief and of terrible sadness and of mourning.
Or in the book of Esther, they heard that they were going to be destroyed, just like we have heard it. We have heard that we are going to be destroyed, and so did the Jews in the days of Mordecai and Esther, and it says in Esther 4:1-3:
When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry; And came even before the king’s gate: for none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
You can see how all of these ingredients are what the Ninevites were also doing, and this is very similar to our case. They knew the date. They knew the date because the lot was cast. The destruction was decreed and announced and made known to everybody. All the Jews knew, “I am gong to perish at the end of the year. On a particular date, I am going to die.” And look at their reaction. Look at how they responded, because Mordecai and these Jews represent Christ and the true believers.
Everyone whom God saves will come to repentance. So, in other words, to put on sackcloth has to do with mourning for our sins, mourning for our sins. As David said, “I am sorry for my sins.” Or as we read in the New Testament, in 2 Corinthians 7, where the Apostle Paul was moved to write a letter; and by that letter, people were made sorry. Let us read that. In 2 Corinthians 7:8-10, it says:
For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
So as we read the Bible, we hear the commands of God, and by the writings of Christ, we are made sorry. We are troubled, we mourn, we are sad.
Now, nobody likes that, and the Apostle Paul even said, “I am sorry, but I rejoice because you sorrowed to repentance,” and this is the ultimate thing. This is the thing that we need to keep in our eyesight at all times, which is that there is an eternal blessing straight ahead. It is near to come, and, yes, there is great sadness and sorrow, as far as bringing this message of the Gospel to the world, but there is also great joy, because God is going to save many and God’s people can be comforted, they can be encouraged.
God says, “If you are hearing the Gospel and if you know that you are not saved or if you think that you are not saved or if there is evidence in your life that shows that you may not be saved, it is far better to mourn.” Read the Bible and pray to God, “Have mercy on me, O Lord.” Cry out like the Ninevites. Cry mightily to God that He might save you and give you a new heart; because if it does happen, if God does save you, in Psalm 30:10-11, He addresses this:
Hear, O JEHOVAH, and have mercy upon me: JEHOVAH, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
You see, we stay in sackcloth. We stay in that situation. We are never told how long the Ninevites remained in that condition. Did they do it one day? Did they do it all forty days? Did they continue after that? God does not want us to know. He just gives us this historical picture and He says, “Look, they are crying unto Me and I do hear them and I did save them. Spiritually, they did take off their sackcloth; and, spiritually, as it says here, their mourning was changed into dancing or into rejoicing, into joy, because I did save them.” And that is how it should be with each one of us. We should wait for God to remove the sackcloth, wait for Him to give us the comfort for our heaviness.
Alright, let us stop here.