"Take A Chance On God" Jonah 3

We’ve been looking at the story of Jonah the last few weeks, and we saw in Jonah chapter 1 that the word of the LORD came to our hero and said, Go to Nineveh. Jonah ran the other way and boarded a ship for Tarshish…which is in modern Italy. God sent a storm at sea and after the ships captain begs Jonah to pray, Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. So after throwing him overboard the storm is stilled and the sailors are amazed and we leave them converted to God and worshipping him on the deck of their ship.

So the first chapter of Jonah might be summed up this memorable way: God says, "Go." Jonah says, "No." God says, "Blow." Jonah says, "So." Captain says, "Bro." Jonah says, "Throw." Sailors say, "Whoa." We were reminded that the safest place to be is in the will of God. And to run from the Lord’s calling on our lives is to drag our storm into the lives of everyone our lives touch. The sinking Jonah was swallowed by a great fish.

The Second chapter is Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish. In that prayer he actually becomes hopeful that he will make it. I guess where there’s life there’s hope. And he gives thanks that God hears him even from the bottom of the sea. We were encouraged to Pray from any and every situation. Pray, pray, pray.

Chapter two closes with a loud amen as Jonah is deposited like a salmonella salad on the beach.

Following Jonah’s three day’s in the warm cozy (no doubt) spa-like restful atmosphere of the fish’s insides, Jonah has landed on shore looking and feeling his best and once again he hears “the word of the Lord.” “Jonah” “What?! What do you want?” I want you to go to Nineveh.…the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

vs 3 says Jonah obeyed (what?) the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city-- a visit required three days. (yeah, for Jonah it required three days in a fish to even get him there. ) 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."
Now here’s where things get interesting.
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
Remember what we’d said about the Ninevites? These were hardened soldiers of fortune, they were terminators…they would capture whole cities and put their captives on death marches, and they piled the dead along the roadway as a warning to others of their strength. The Ninevites were a group of WWF wrestlers, Hells Angels back in the day before they got job and stuffs, they were like modern gang members, or tough old hillbillies and their even meaner women folk. Ninevites were not the kind of folks you’d expect to respond to a God message at all, let alone from an outsider. Yet they spontaneously declared a fast and put on burlap.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 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.
We’ll come back to this, because it’s just too silly not to, but think about it! The people’s repentance spread to the halls of the king, and the king extended their repentance even to their animals…man and beast herd and flock, they all fasted from food and from water, and they all put on sackcloth.
9 (The king’s edict includes this: Who knows? (this is the second “who knows” kind of God statement in the book of Jonah, do any of you remember the first one? The captain of the boat when he was asking Jonah to pray said, Maybe your God will take notice of us, and we will not perish." Here the King suggests, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

What an interesting history. Jonah lands on shore and has barely checked out the babes on the beach before the word of the Lord come to him saying “Go to Nineveh and preach the message I give you.” Haven’t we heard this before from the Lord? Does it sound to you like the Lord has moved on from his original plan for Jonah? Jonah ran from God (perhaps) with the hope that God might choose someone else for this Nineveh assignment. When I run from God, I certainly always hope he’ll choose someone else for the task while I’m away. But it appears God has not moved an inch…The Lord is like a broken record…for those of you old enough to remember what that sounds like. God still tells him to go, except now the message he’s to deliver has changed some. Now it’s not, ‘go and preach against the city’ NOW it’s go and proclaim to the great city of Nineveh the message I give you.

What happened to “go preach against that city because their sin has come up before me? Some dynamic has changed and I think this story might help us understand.

I read about a Jonah I know who was a lawyer. He was trying to get away from God on the ship of Tarshish. He had a lot of cash, and he was living for a lot more. His particular sea was a sea of alcohol. He could not stay away from alcohol. He just kept going down and down and down. The managing partner of his law firm told him at one point, "Your next bender will be the last one you have when you work for this firm."
For a couple of months, he stayed sober. Then he was sent to a convention, he blew off the meetings. When they found him in his hotel room, he had been on a three day binge. Just out of control.
He lost his job. He got put into a rehab clinic for a month, got assigned a sponsor who told him that he would have to get up every morning at six o'clock for an AA meeting. His response was, "No way am I getting up at six o'clock in the morning to meet with a bunch of drunks." His sponsor said, "You're not just going to meet with them; you're going to get up earlier and fix coffee for those drunks." Kind of a tough sponsor.

I think God is being a tough sponsor with Jonah. He’s now sending Jonah to serve the people. And I think the difference now is that God isn’t sending a holy prophet to a disobedient people. He’s sending a disobedient prophet to people who have not heard…He’s not sending holy Jonah to preach against the Ninivite’s sin. He’s sending a broken Jonah, who identifies with their sin…or if he doesn’t, he ought to.
In fact you might say Jonah’s sins is worse than theirs, because he knew God and still ran away…the Ninevites as we’ll see didn’t know what they were doing religiously. So now Jonah is being sent, not to preach against them, but now to proclaim to them God’s message. I think that’s sort of like having to make coffee for the drunks. He’s going to have to humble himself, and identify with the Ninivites…not just deliver a message.
Well, we know something’s changed because Jonah obeys. He goes. And you know what, suddenly everything works. Jonah is faced with a daunting task, one little guy in a fishy smelling robe walks into a city of a hundred thousand. How do you get a message out to so many? But look what happens. He proclaims in the suburbs, “40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” And the Ninevites listen. It says they believed God. The Ninevites call a fast and they put on sackcloth.

Do you all know what a burlap sack is? Sackcloth. Itchy, uncomfortable, cloth made for utilitarian purposes, like hauling grain around. It was not the finer woven cloth made for comfortable clothes. You know when you buy sheets, they give a thread count rating…and the more threads per inch the softer the sheets will feel. Comfortable bed sheets are like 300, 400, 600, 700 threads per inch. Sackcloth would probably count out in the 15 to 20 threads per inch. So when sackcloth was worn, it was an announcement to the world around you that you were grieving, that you were denying yourself comfort because of a great loss. The Ninevites put it on to show God they were sorry for their sins. They were showing God they were not going to give themselves ease until they would know what God was going to do with them. The people responded in an amazing way to the proclamation of Jonah.

Their repentance and Jonah’s message soon reached the ears of the king, and amazingly the king joins the people in putting on sackcloth but the king takes it even further…he sits in the dust. He issues a proclamation that extends the fast to letting no one eat or drink…which if you’ve every tried fasting, is not recommended…you have to have fluids. And the King extends the fast beyond people to their livestock as well. In fact even the livestock are supposed to put on sackcloth, both flocks and herds. Which I’m sure the sheep, goats and cows didn’t appreciate much. In fact I imagine those who managed flocks and herds didn’t enjoy rounding them up to put sackcloth on them. If they had dogs and cats, my guess is they put sackcloth on the dogs, because dogs are sorry when they sin. Cats on the other hand, as we all know, are evil.

Sack cloth on cattle…was this silly? Yes. Did the cows know why they were wearing sackcloth? No! Did the people seem to know what they were doing in trying to please God? No! But did it get results? Yes!

Have the results they received here prompted other herdsmen in the scripture to include their flocks and herds in their repentance by dressing them in sackcloth. No. Why? Because it’s goofy. Cows don’t repent. The Ninevites didn’t know what they were doing but they hoped to turn away the wrath of God.

But though man looks at the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. And any repentant heart that would put their cows on a fast and put them in sackcloth is going to get God’s attention. But just because it worked in this story, does not mean it should be repeated. God saw in their prayers, and in their actions the sincerity of their repentance.

And here’s the deal. The King has heard the message (40 days). And he makes his edict. And listen to his comment… he says, “who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his anger so that we will not perish.” The word is we’re done, well….Let’s change our ways…who knows?…

In the story of Jonah, those who have taken a chance on God, are finding victory in their lives…even if they go about it in goofy ways. They repented not with any assurance that God would change his mind about them. They repented saying, “who knows?” God might forgive.

God looked down from heaven, heard the mooing of the hungry cows, saw them with their sackcloth on. He heard the prayers of the people and their king wearing sackcloth. He saw that they turned from their evil ways and from their violence. And God had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

God comes through for the people who take a chance on Him (and who call upon him for mercy) in the book of Jonah. The ships captain asks Jonah to pray because maybe his God might save them. Jonah’s God does save them. The sailors prayed for forgiveness even as they threw Jonah overboard…and God stopped the great storm. Jonah prayed for deliverance from inside the fish, and soon found himself on dry ground. And the Ninevites and their King took a chance on God, “who knows?”, and God had compassion on them.

Folks I don’t know where you see yourself in this story, or if you see yourself in this story, but let me suggest some ways you might see yourself or some of your loved ones in it.

You may see yourself in a storm, or far from God, or feel trapped working with people who are far from God. God hears the prayers of people, he sees every act of apology whether it’s goofy, (like putting sackcloth on livestock) or whether it’s heartfelt, as when the king put on the burlap and sat in the dust. He was humbling himself before God. If you humble yourself before God, he will raise you up. That’s what scripture says, Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.”

Everyone who took an honest chance on God (meaning they prayed, and they turned from their evil ways)… everyone who took a chance on God in the book of Jonah, was rewarded with God’s favor.

I would not ask you to gather burlap for your selves or you’re your critters…but I do want you to know what works with God, when you find yourself outside his will. What works is true repentance. It’s turning from the wrong and settling yourself firmly with what is right. It’s apology to God for our sin, and it’s letting him work in you for change.
God will take you as you are, but he won’t bless you as you are, or leave you as you are. He will shape you, remake you, rebuild your life and it will be glorious! Take a chance on God

PRAYER
· Lord, are there places in my life that I’ve give up on? Like Jonah gave up on Nineveh? Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance on you.
· Lord, is there brokenness in my life where I’ve given up on the idea of healing? Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance on you.
· Lord, I see people finding help, salvation, restoration, peace as they give themselves to you. Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance with you. --Amen