God's People Must Repent & Turn to the Lord
Jonah 3:5-11
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 let 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.
Jonah 3:5-10
Jonah 3:5-10
It’s interesting that we’ve had all this build up to Nineveh and Jonah’s ministry to the Ninevites, but it only encapsulates 6 verses. Our of the 4 chapters, the city of Nineveh only receives 6 verses of attention. There’s a sense in which the Ninevites are nothing more than a blip on the screen when it comes to the book of Jonah.
The lack of information on the Ninevites may remind us of the real purpose of this book. This book is not about the Ninevites. Neither is it for the Ninevites. The lack of space dedicated to Nineveh reminds us of what we have said before: This book is for Israel. It is written not for the foreigners, but for the people of God.
One way you can look at this passage is like this: It is as if God is saying to Israel, “Look at how these Ninevites. Look at how quickly and decisively they respond. Look at how react to my word. Do you see how easily they repent?”
It really stands in great contrast to the people of Israel. By the time of Jonah, God had sent Prophets to Israel for around 150 years. Yet these prophets have been ignored. The people of Israel had stubbornly resisted God’s call to turn to him for all that time.
So it is quite jarring to see how quickly and radically these Ninevites respond to God’s prophet. And it really shows us how Israel ought to have acted. There’s a sense in which Nineveh became a model for Israel. As Jonah writes his book, he’s kind of saying, “Hey Israel, this is how it,s supposed to be done. This is what you are supposed to do.”
In all, the message of Jonah is of God’s grace. The message of Jonah is of a merciful God; one who is willing to spare us. And he will spare us, if we only follow the example of Nineveh and repent.
Now, this is a message that we all need to hear in our day too. For in our day there is often a strong repulsion to (what I often call) the “r” word. I think my friend Nathan put it best.
Nathan was a fellow that I visited in the Richland County jail. Nathan had been arrested and was faced with some serious charges. He spent about 8 months in the jail awaiting his trial. During that time he started reading the Bible. He would spend 7-8 hours a day reading the Bible and listening to sermons and podcasts on the Scriptures.
I got to meet with him several times and talk about some of the things that he was learning. One of the things that Nathan said was quite interesting. He said to me, “Why is it that no one talks about repentance? From what I see, it’s talked about on almost every page of the Bible. But I hardly have ever heard anyone preach on repentance.”
It’s true. Repentance is one of the most important concepts found in the Scriptures. The Bible talks about repentance all the time. In the Bible the people of God are called to repentance over and over. Yet there seems to be an incredible allergy to the concept. It is rarely talked about. And, as a result, it is rarely ever practiced.
Even as you come to the New Testament, you find that this is true. Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” Jesus is very clear: Repentance is a necessity. As a matter of fact, it is so necessary that, if you do not repent and turn to God, you will go to hell. The only way you can escape the wrath and curse of God due to you for your sin is by repenting and turning to God.
And so, as we come to this passage, which talks about the repentance of Nineveh, we understand it can be a great model for us. Just like Israel, we should look at the repentance of Nineveh and think about what it means for our own repentance.
There are actually four things that we can learn about repentance from this passage. The first thing I’d like to call to your attention is its cause.
I. The cause of Nineveh’s repentance
You should recognize that repentance doesn’t just pop out of nowhere. People don’t just wake up and say, “Hey, I’m going to repent today.” No. It is usually triggered by something.
We certainly see that with these Ninevites. You may ask, “What was it that brought about this widespread revival? What caused them to repent?” If you have been with me for the last several messages, you know exactly what it was. It was the Word of God. It was the preaching of God’s word in particular.
But we might also say that it was caused by a particular message that Jonah preached. It was the word of God’s judgment. Verse 4 says that God was going to judge them. The theme of Jonah’s preaching was “40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
So their repentance came in the wake of this threat. The Ninevites sobered up when they found out that God was going to hold them accountable for their actions.
This is why a lot of people do not repent. It’s because they have a wrong view of God. They think God would never judge them. God is too loving to condemn someone. Most believe that God will indulge them.
Once you come to understand the real nature of God, that will have a real affect on how you relate to God. When you hear that God is holy, that God is just, and that God cannot tolerate sin in the least, that puts things into a different perspective. That becomes a real motivator and you can be more likely to repent.
I live on a one way street. Often there will be someone who drives down the street in the wrong direction. We always yell at them and tell them that they are going the wrong way. You know what almost always happens? They have two or three reactions. First, the driver will get this surprised look on his face. He will realize that he is doing something wrong--he is doing something dangerous. He realizes he could be arrested or given a ticket because he is breaking the law. Then he begins to look around. This guilt that he feels leads him to quickly peer around to see if there’s a cop sitting there ready to pull him over. Then, once they realize that they could be in trouble, they turn their car around.
That’s a form of repentance. They start going in a new direction. But why did they turn it around? It was because they realized the wrongness of their action. They realized there could be some serious consequences.
Repenting and turning to God isn’t that much different from driving down a one way street.
This was certainly true for me. I grew up thinking I was basically good. I wasn’t living a flagrant life of sin. So I never thought about my need to repent. It was not until one day I heard a man say that “the wages of sin is death.” I immediately thought, “I am pretty sure that I am going to die.” That got me thinking about what came after that. And I realized it was more death…eternal death. And I recognized then that I was not as good as I thought I was. I realized that the sins I had committed had consequences. I needed to repent and turn to God.
That’s when the lights typically come on. It’s when you realize the danger you are in. So it is important that we understand the cause. Repentance comes through the word of God; specifically the word of God’s impending judgment. When you hear that God will hold you accountable for your actions, that’s when you will likely be moved to repent.
The second thing we learn from our passage is the character of repentance.
You might understand your need to repent. Maybe you are convinced that you deserve death and that you are in danger. So you may want to repent. But how exactly you do it? What does repentance actually involve? What steps does one take when he is attempting to repent?
This is where we can look to those Ninevites again. This passage gives you a basic outline of what goes into repenting. As you look at verses 6-8 you should notice that there are three things that characterize the Ninevites’ repentance
II. Its character
First, we are told that they mourned their sin. We sometimes call this “contrition.”
Look at verse 5. It says that the Ninevite people called for a fast and put on sackcloth. Down in verse 6 it talks about the king of Nineveh. And it says that he not only put on sackcloth, he sat in ashes too.
Now, why did they do that? What was all this fasting and sackcloth all about? It was to show the extent of their sadness. They were grieved by what they had done and they wanted to express it outwardly.
You know, when you go to a funeral, you don’t go wearing your brightest clothes. You typically wear something dark. Black is usually the color that people wear to a funeral. Why is that? It’s because it is the color of sadness. You are mourning. So you put on something that expresses the grief that is in your heart.
That’s what these Ninevites were doing. But it wasn’t enough just to wear black. They were so grieved by what they had done that they gave up eating and put on rough clothing. They essentially said, “We don’t deserve food and other kinds of luxuries.”
And that is first thing that defines true repentance. It’s sorrow for sin. Repentance involves a genuine regret. And you know that you have true repentance when you mourn the fact that you have offended God and broken his law.
But you’ll note that repentance isn’t just characterized by one’s contrition, it is also characterized by confession
Look at verse 8. It says that the people “cried out mightily to God.” They were not only mourning their sin, but they began confessing their sin and confessing their need for God’s mercy. You might say that the Ninevite repentance was a giant prayer meeting.
Now, we don’t know exactly what they prayed, but we do know a little. The word cry out is the work “qara,” which was the same word that described Jonah’s preaching. Jonah proclaimed the truth with all kind of emotion. And now the Ninevites are basically doing the same. They are proclaiming the truth of their sin. They are crying out to God with just as much emotional.
They had done wrong and they weren’t going to hide it or deny it. They would no doubt be confessing how God was right to make his judgment. And they needed His forgiveness. “God, will you take pity upon us.”
That’s what we are supposed to do when we repent. We are supposed to proclaim the truth to God about our condition and our need for his mercy.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the “sinners’ prayer.” We sometimes knock it, but its not altogether a bad thing. In the sinners prayer you make a confession to God of basic truths. You say, “Lord, I am a sinner. I have broken your commands. I deserve your wrath and curse. Please forgive me, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
That’s a very important thing. Repentance needs to be verbalized. As you mourn your sin, you must then speak the truth of it and confess it to God.
There is a third thing that characterizes the repentance of these Ninevite people. There was not just an inward contrition and a verbal confession, and there was also a radical correction.
Look at verse 8 again. Notice what the king says next. He says, “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.”
The king knew that they couldn’t keep doing what they had been doing. They needed to change. If they were going to be spared, they had to start going in a new direction of obedience.
Earlier I gave the illustration of the cars going down my road the wrong direction. They knew that they needed to turn around and start going the right direction. That’s what repentance entails. You need to being going in the opposite direction. There was disobedience, but you start going in a new way of obedience.
So the repentant person says, I once was living for myself, but now I am going to start living for God. I once despised God’s worship, I now devote myself to his worship.
There could be much more we could say about repentance and what it involves. I would like to expand upon them and illustrate them more fully. But it is enough for now to simply recognize its essential characteristics. A repentant person will mourn their sin, confess it, and turn from it.
I rush through that because I want to speak also about what happened next. Our passage not only tells us of cause and character of Nineveh’s repentance, it also speaks to its consequences.
III. The consequence of Nineveh’s repentance
In verse 10 we are told how God responded. It says that when God saw how “they turned from their evil way, he relented from the disaster that he said he would do and he did not do it.”
If you have the old King James version, it says that God repented from the disaster that he said he would do. And its kind of interesting how it is presented. The Ninevites repented of the evil that they had done. Subsequently, God repented of the evil he said he would do. The Ninevites turned from their way of living, and God turned from his judgment.
In other words, God was gracious to them. He demonstrated his favor by withholding his anger. And that’s the good news. God gives grace to those who turn to him. He welcomes them and does not treat them in the way they deserve.
Now, it should be mentioned that there are some who make a big ado about what is said in verse 10. This whole idea of God’s relenting or repenting has confused some people. That is because it makes it sound like God changed his mind. You see the dilemma that this creates. God who is supposed to be immutable. That is to say, he’s not supposed to change. But it sounds like God changed his mind or changed his course of action. He had said he would do one thing, but he ends up doing something else.
And the question then becomes, “Does God change?”
Well, we first have to remember that the Bible also says that God does not change. In particular we can think of Numbers 23:19. It says, “God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should change his mind.”
Now you have one passage that says God repents (or changes his mind) and another passage that says God does not repent. That, of course, is not a contradiction. It just means that you have to interpret the passages correctly.
But some people do believe that God changes his mind. They do believe in a god that changes. For instance, there are people who are called “Open theists.” They believe that God doesn’t know the future. They believe that if many is to have complete free will, God cannot know the future or plan it out. Man has to be able to choose and that means God cannot know for certain what is going to happen in the future. So God has to be acting in time and reacting to man’s free choices.
So what happens is that God is essentially in a chess match with man. Man makes a move, and God has to counter that move. So God may intend one thing, but he has to change and adapt to each move man makes.
This is why you have to be careful about how you understand man and his free will. The more freedom you grant to man, the more God has to change. God cannot be immutable.
But how should we understand this passage? Well, it’s actually kind of simple. When it says that God relents, you should understand that it is using what we call an “anthropomorphism.” It’s attributing a human characteristic to God so that we can understand something about God.
In the Bible it talks about trees clapping their hands. We know that trees don’t have hands and they don’t clap. But it uses that imagery to remind us that the trees praise God.
A similar thing is being said here. God doesn’t really change his mind. But he does respond when sinners repent. God knew that he wasn’t going to overthrow Nineveh; he knew he would be gracious to them. He gave his threat so that they could understand the gravity of their sin and turn to him.
Before we end, I’d like us to take note of its consternation.
IV. Its consternation
Matt, wouldn’t it be best to end there? We’ve just had this good report of God’s grace and favor. Should we not conclude on that high note of good news.
I am afraid that we cannot stop there. And it is because Jesus gave a little commentary on this passage. Jesus spoke to the people of his day. He said that “the men of Nineveh will rise up on the last day and condemn the people of his generation because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.”
Jesus looked around and he saw many good people. He saw people who were so good that they were not in the habit of repenting. In other words, they did not feel the gravity of their sin. They did not see that they had provoke God’s anger. They did not see themselves as people who were on their way to hell.
They felt that they were just fine. They were, for the most part, a very moral people. Why would they need to repent? Didn’t God love them because of how good they were?
But Jesus sought to wake them out of that stupor. He says, “Imagine: On that last great day when all people are called up from their graves and must stand before the judgment seat and give account of their actions. These wicked, heathen Ninevites are going to be there. And they will look with disdain upon you. They will join with God in saying that you deserve eternal damnation.”
What are you talking about? Those Ninevites were so wicked; so vile! How could they possibly pass judgment on me! I am much more righteous than they could have ever been! If anyone is going to be accepted by God it is certainly going to be me and not them.”
That’s the point. That’s the cause for consternation that I’m talking about. It’s going to be wild because there are going to be so many who have those kinds of objections. There are going to be so many people who thought that they were so good. They thought that they were in God’s favor because they were so good. They thought they might be able to condemn others, but it ends up being exactly the opposite.
And it just goes to show how important it is to repent. You must recognize your sin. You cannot earn God’s favor. You may not be a flagrant sinner; you may not consider yourself to be all that bad of a person. But you have not lived a perfect life. And the wages of sin is death.
And I do not want you to meet with the kind of consternation that those so called “good people” will experience on the last day. I’m here to remind you that God will judge those who have sinned. And if you have not turned to him and repented of your sin, you must. If you want to escape the coming wrath, you must confess your sin and proclaim your need for his mercy.
The lack of information on the Ninevites may remind us of the real purpose of this book. This book is not about the Ninevites. Neither is it for the Ninevites. The lack of space dedicated to Nineveh reminds us of what we have said before: This book is for Israel. It is written not for the foreigners, but for the people of God.
One way you can look at this passage is like this: It is as if God is saying to Israel, “Look at how these Ninevites. Look at how quickly and decisively they respond. Look at how react to my word. Do you see how easily they repent?”
It really stands in great contrast to the people of Israel. By the time of Jonah, God had sent Prophets to Israel for around 150 years. Yet these prophets have been ignored. The people of Israel had stubbornly resisted God’s call to turn to him for all that time.
So it is quite jarring to see how quickly and radically these Ninevites respond to God’s prophet. And it really shows us how Israel ought to have acted. There’s a sense in which Nineveh became a model for Israel. As Jonah writes his book, he’s kind of saying, “Hey Israel, this is how it,s supposed to be done. This is what you are supposed to do.”
In all, the message of Jonah is of God’s grace. The message of Jonah is of a merciful God; one who is willing to spare us. And he will spare us, if we only follow the example of Nineveh and repent.
Now, this is a message that we all need to hear in our day too. For in our day there is often a strong repulsion to (what I often call) the “r” word. I think my friend Nathan put it best.
Nathan was a fellow that I visited in the Richland County jail. Nathan had been arrested and was faced with some serious charges. He spent about 8 months in the jail awaiting his trial. During that time he started reading the Bible. He would spend 7-8 hours a day reading the Bible and listening to sermons and podcasts on the Scriptures.
I got to meet with him several times and talk about some of the things that he was learning. One of the things that Nathan said was quite interesting. He said to me, “Why is it that no one talks about repentance? From what I see, it’s talked about on almost every page of the Bible. But I hardly have ever heard anyone preach on repentance.”
It’s true. Repentance is one of the most important concepts found in the Scriptures. The Bible talks about repentance all the time. In the Bible the people of God are called to repentance over and over. Yet there seems to be an incredible allergy to the concept. It is rarely talked about. And, as a result, it is rarely ever practiced.
Even as you come to the New Testament, you find that this is true. Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” Jesus is very clear: Repentance is a necessity. As a matter of fact, it is so necessary that, if you do not repent and turn to God, you will go to hell. The only way you can escape the wrath and curse of God due to you for your sin is by repenting and turning to God.
And so, as we come to this passage, which talks about the repentance of Nineveh, we understand it can be a great model for us. Just like Israel, we should look at the repentance of Nineveh and think about what it means for our own repentance.
There are actually four things that we can learn about repentance from this passage. The first thing I’d like to call to your attention is its cause.
I. The cause of Nineveh’s repentance
You should recognize that repentance doesn’t just pop out of nowhere. People don’t just wake up and say, “Hey, I’m going to repent today.” No. It is usually triggered by something.
We certainly see that with these Ninevites. You may ask, “What was it that brought about this widespread revival? What caused them to repent?” If you have been with me for the last several messages, you know exactly what it was. It was the Word of God. It was the preaching of God’s word in particular.
But we might also say that it was caused by a particular message that Jonah preached. It was the word of God’s judgment. Verse 4 says that God was going to judge them. The theme of Jonah’s preaching was “40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
So their repentance came in the wake of this threat. The Ninevites sobered up when they found out that God was going to hold them accountable for their actions.
This is why a lot of people do not repent. It’s because they have a wrong view of God. They think God would never judge them. God is too loving to condemn someone. Most believe that God will indulge them.
Once you come to understand the real nature of God, that will have a real affect on how you relate to God. When you hear that God is holy, that God is just, and that God cannot tolerate sin in the least, that puts things into a different perspective. That becomes a real motivator and you can be more likely to repent.
I live on a one way street. Often there will be someone who drives down the street in the wrong direction. We always yell at them and tell them that they are going the wrong way. You know what almost always happens? They have two or three reactions. First, the driver will get this surprised look on his face. He will realize that he is doing something wrong--he is doing something dangerous. He realizes he could be arrested or given a ticket because he is breaking the law. Then he begins to look around. This guilt that he feels leads him to quickly peer around to see if there’s a cop sitting there ready to pull him over. Then, once they realize that they could be in trouble, they turn their car around.
That’s a form of repentance. They start going in a new direction. But why did they turn it around? It was because they realized the wrongness of their action. They realized there could be some serious consequences.
Repenting and turning to God isn’t that much different from driving down a one way street.
This was certainly true for me. I grew up thinking I was basically good. I wasn’t living a flagrant life of sin. So I never thought about my need to repent. It was not until one day I heard a man say that “the wages of sin is death.” I immediately thought, “I am pretty sure that I am going to die.” That got me thinking about what came after that. And I realized it was more death…eternal death. And I recognized then that I was not as good as I thought I was. I realized that the sins I had committed had consequences. I needed to repent and turn to God.
That’s when the lights typically come on. It’s when you realize the danger you are in. So it is important that we understand the cause. Repentance comes through the word of God; specifically the word of God’s impending judgment. When you hear that God will hold you accountable for your actions, that’s when you will likely be moved to repent.
The second thing we learn from our passage is the character of repentance.
You might understand your need to repent. Maybe you are convinced that you deserve death and that you are in danger. So you may want to repent. But how exactly you do it? What does repentance actually involve? What steps does one take when he is attempting to repent?
This is where we can look to those Ninevites again. This passage gives you a basic outline of what goes into repenting. As you look at verses 6-8 you should notice that there are three things that characterize the Ninevites’ repentance
II. Its character
First, we are told that they mourned their sin. We sometimes call this “contrition.”
Look at verse 5. It says that the Ninevite people called for a fast and put on sackcloth. Down in verse 6 it talks about the king of Nineveh. And it says that he not only put on sackcloth, he sat in ashes too.
Now, why did they do that? What was all this fasting and sackcloth all about? It was to show the extent of their sadness. They were grieved by what they had done and they wanted to express it outwardly.
You know, when you go to a funeral, you don’t go wearing your brightest clothes. You typically wear something dark. Black is usually the color that people wear to a funeral. Why is that? It’s because it is the color of sadness. You are mourning. So you put on something that expresses the grief that is in your heart.
That’s what these Ninevites were doing. But it wasn’t enough just to wear black. They were so grieved by what they had done that they gave up eating and put on rough clothing. They essentially said, “We don’t deserve food and other kinds of luxuries.”
And that is first thing that defines true repentance. It’s sorrow for sin. Repentance involves a genuine regret. And you know that you have true repentance when you mourn the fact that you have offended God and broken his law.
But you’ll note that repentance isn’t just characterized by one’s contrition, it is also characterized by confession
Look at verse 8. It says that the people “cried out mightily to God.” They were not only mourning their sin, but they began confessing their sin and confessing their need for God’s mercy. You might say that the Ninevite repentance was a giant prayer meeting.
Now, we don’t know exactly what they prayed, but we do know a little. The word cry out is the work “qara,” which was the same word that described Jonah’s preaching. Jonah proclaimed the truth with all kind of emotion. And now the Ninevites are basically doing the same. They are proclaiming the truth of their sin. They are crying out to God with just as much emotional.
They had done wrong and they weren’t going to hide it or deny it. They would no doubt be confessing how God was right to make his judgment. And they needed His forgiveness. “God, will you take pity upon us.”
That’s what we are supposed to do when we repent. We are supposed to proclaim the truth to God about our condition and our need for his mercy.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the “sinners’ prayer.” We sometimes knock it, but its not altogether a bad thing. In the sinners prayer you make a confession to God of basic truths. You say, “Lord, I am a sinner. I have broken your commands. I deserve your wrath and curse. Please forgive me, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
That’s a very important thing. Repentance needs to be verbalized. As you mourn your sin, you must then speak the truth of it and confess it to God.
There is a third thing that characterizes the repentance of these Ninevite people. There was not just an inward contrition and a verbal confession, and there was also a radical correction.
Look at verse 8 again. Notice what the king says next. He says, “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.”
The king knew that they couldn’t keep doing what they had been doing. They needed to change. If they were going to be spared, they had to start going in a new direction of obedience.
Earlier I gave the illustration of the cars going down my road the wrong direction. They knew that they needed to turn around and start going the right direction. That’s what repentance entails. You need to being going in the opposite direction. There was disobedience, but you start going in a new way of obedience.
So the repentant person says, I once was living for myself, but now I am going to start living for God. I once despised God’s worship, I now devote myself to his worship.
There could be much more we could say about repentance and what it involves. I would like to expand upon them and illustrate them more fully. But it is enough for now to simply recognize its essential characteristics. A repentant person will mourn their sin, confess it, and turn from it.
I rush through that because I want to speak also about what happened next. Our passage not only tells us of cause and character of Nineveh’s repentance, it also speaks to its consequences.
III. The consequence of Nineveh’s repentance
In verse 10 we are told how God responded. It says that when God saw how “they turned from their evil way, he relented from the disaster that he said he would do and he did not do it.”
If you have the old King James version, it says that God repented from the disaster that he said he would do. And its kind of interesting how it is presented. The Ninevites repented of the evil that they had done. Subsequently, God repented of the evil he said he would do. The Ninevites turned from their way of living, and God turned from his judgment.
In other words, God was gracious to them. He demonstrated his favor by withholding his anger. And that’s the good news. God gives grace to those who turn to him. He welcomes them and does not treat them in the way they deserve.
Now, it should be mentioned that there are some who make a big ado about what is said in verse 10. This whole idea of God’s relenting or repenting has confused some people. That is because it makes it sound like God changed his mind. You see the dilemma that this creates. God who is supposed to be immutable. That is to say, he’s not supposed to change. But it sounds like God changed his mind or changed his course of action. He had said he would do one thing, but he ends up doing something else.
And the question then becomes, “Does God change?”
Well, we first have to remember that the Bible also says that God does not change. In particular we can think of Numbers 23:19. It says, “God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should change his mind.”
Now you have one passage that says God repents (or changes his mind) and another passage that says God does not repent. That, of course, is not a contradiction. It just means that you have to interpret the passages correctly.
But some people do believe that God changes his mind. They do believe in a god that changes. For instance, there are people who are called “Open theists.” They believe that God doesn’t know the future. They believe that if many is to have complete free will, God cannot know the future or plan it out. Man has to be able to choose and that means God cannot know for certain what is going to happen in the future. So God has to be acting in time and reacting to man’s free choices.
So what happens is that God is essentially in a chess match with man. Man makes a move, and God has to counter that move. So God may intend one thing, but he has to change and adapt to each move man makes.
This is why you have to be careful about how you understand man and his free will. The more freedom you grant to man, the more God has to change. God cannot be immutable.
But how should we understand this passage? Well, it’s actually kind of simple. When it says that God relents, you should understand that it is using what we call an “anthropomorphism.” It’s attributing a human characteristic to God so that we can understand something about God.
In the Bible it talks about trees clapping their hands. We know that trees don’t have hands and they don’t clap. But it uses that imagery to remind us that the trees praise God.
A similar thing is being said here. God doesn’t really change his mind. But he does respond when sinners repent. God knew that he wasn’t going to overthrow Nineveh; he knew he would be gracious to them. He gave his threat so that they could understand the gravity of their sin and turn to him.
Before we end, I’d like us to take note of its consternation.
IV. Its consternation
Matt, wouldn’t it be best to end there? We’ve just had this good report of God’s grace and favor. Should we not conclude on that high note of good news.
I am afraid that we cannot stop there. And it is because Jesus gave a little commentary on this passage. Jesus spoke to the people of his day. He said that “the men of Nineveh will rise up on the last day and condemn the people of his generation because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.”
Jesus looked around and he saw many good people. He saw people who were so good that they were not in the habit of repenting. In other words, they did not feel the gravity of their sin. They did not see that they had provoke God’s anger. They did not see themselves as people who were on their way to hell.
They felt that they were just fine. They were, for the most part, a very moral people. Why would they need to repent? Didn’t God love them because of how good they were?
But Jesus sought to wake them out of that stupor. He says, “Imagine: On that last great day when all people are called up from their graves and must stand before the judgment seat and give account of their actions. These wicked, heathen Ninevites are going to be there. And they will look with disdain upon you. They will join with God in saying that you deserve eternal damnation.”
What are you talking about? Those Ninevites were so wicked; so vile! How could they possibly pass judgment on me! I am much more righteous than they could have ever been! If anyone is going to be accepted by God it is certainly going to be me and not them.”
That’s the point. That’s the cause for consternation that I’m talking about. It’s going to be wild because there are going to be so many who have those kinds of objections. There are going to be so many people who thought that they were so good. They thought that they were in God’s favor because they were so good. They thought they might be able to condemn others, but it ends up being exactly the opposite.
And it just goes to show how important it is to repent. You must recognize your sin. You cannot earn God’s favor. You may not be a flagrant sinner; you may not consider yourself to be all that bad of a person. But you have not lived a perfect life. And the wages of sin is death.
And I do not want you to meet with the kind of consternation that those so called “good people” will experience on the last day. I’m here to remind you that God will judge those who have sinned. And if you have not turned to him and repented of your sin, you must. If you want to escape the coming wrath, you must confess your sin and proclaim your need for his mercy.