Title: GOD’S ALARM—OUR RESPONSE?
Focus: As God sounds the alarm through his Word preached by Jonah, we had better take it seriously.
Function: To encourage and warn the people that God’s Word is a two-edged sword, offering salvation in Christ Jesus and sounding a warning of judgment to come.
Text: Jonah 3:1-10
Since we live near a busy road and close to a fire station, we hear the sirens of fire trucks and emergency vehicles on a regular basis. These vehicles run stop lights simply to get to their emergencies as quickly as possible. They sound their alarms and cars and trucks move over to let them pass. Clearly, by sounding their alarms, firemen and emergency personnel save many lives in the process.
Most small towns and suburbs test their alarm signals at least once a month if not once a week. Should someone spot a tornado, town officials will sound the alarm to alert all citizens to seek cover. Those who ignore such alarms do so at their own peril and risk. So, thank God for alarm systems that have saved the lives of many!
As we enter the story of Jonah, preaching to the people of Nineveh, we hear God sounding an alarm. And as God sounds the alarm through his Word preached by Jonah, we do well to listen and take the alarm seriously. For God’s Word is a two-edged sword, offering salvation in Jesus Christ and sounding a warning of judgment to come. What will be our response to God’s alarm?
The story of Jonah unfolds in chapter three with God taking the center stage. The spotlight of attention falls on God’s initiatives and on Nineveh’s response to Jonah’s preaching. I observe three divine initiatives. The first one is
· God’ Restoration of Jonah:
has work for Jonah to do. Whereas Jonah had fled to Joppa on his way to Tarshish, whereas the Hound of heaven caught up with Jonah on that ship of frantic sailors, and whereas God had sent a fish to bring Jonah to his knees of repentance, now God restores Jonah to his office of prophet. Listen: “Then 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.’”
Imagine Jonah’s joy! When inside the fish, Jonah’s anguished spirit cried out for deliverance. He confessed his sin of rebellion and disobedience, and God saved him from a certain death in the pit of the ocean, in the belly of that great fish. Now, however, God not only rescued Jonah, he also restored Jonah to his work of prophet. God has not given up on Jonah!
Do you know that sense of joy, having been rescued and restored by God? I sometimes wonder if we fully experience the awe and personal joy that comes from knowing that God loves us, that God saves us in Christ Jesus. Sometimes I wonder if our knowledge stays up here, in the head, and does not sink deep down into our heart and into our affections. When was the last time that we humbled ourselves, with cries and tears before God, acknowledging particular sins, and then repenting from those sins, and then finding joy in knowing that God forgives and restores and accepts us as a new creation?
God restores Jonah to his prophetic office. And the text says that “Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.” I’m convinced that Jonah went to Nineveh encouraged, with boldness, and with fortitude to carry out his mission. The second divine action or initiative is
· God’s Pointed Message
Delivered to the Ninevites: I say, “God’s message” because that’s what the Ninevites hear. There goes Jonah, walking through the great city of Nineveh, preaching a pointed message. The Ninevites see Jonah; they hear his voice; they recognize by Jonah’s accent that they are dealing with a foreigner. But the most important thing to note is that the Ninevites see and hear God as they respond to Jonah’s preaching.
It is the Word of the Lord that Jonah speaks; it is God sounding off. It is God who sounds the alarm in Nineveh. The text says (vs. 5) that “The Ninevites believed God.” And the king of Nineveh underscores this truth when he issued a decree saying: “Let everyone urgently call on (not ‘our gods’ but 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.”
In other words, the Ninevites recognize Jonah’s prophetic alarm as God’s message to them. Jonah is the messenger; Jonah echoes God’s Word. Thus the Ninevites take seriously—not simply this prophet called Jonah—but the One who has sent Jonah.
I read a story about John Wesley. John Wesley conducted many revivals, where he preached pointedly the Word of God. One Sunday, a lady went to one of John Wesley’s revival services, and she was struck and blessed by the message she heard that day. She decided to go back the next week to hear John Wesley preach. But on that Sunday, she did not get much out of the preaching. Disappointed, she went to John Wesley and told him about her experience. She could not figure out why this service was so much different from the previous Sunday’s service.
“Well, Madam,” said John Wesley, “tell me, for what purpose did you come today to this service?” “To hear you preach, “ said the woman. “Well, Madam,” said John Wesley, “then you got exactly what you desired. Today you heard me, while last week you went to hear God’s Word, and that’s when you were blessed.”
What about us? Do we come to worship God and hear him speak to us? Or do we come for other reasons? Do we see and hear Christ, the Son of God, speak to us when we pray, and sing, and listen to the Word preached, or are we after something else? Learn from the Ninevites! They see and hear God’s pointed message, delivered by this messenger called “Jonah.” The third divine initiative that catches our eyes is
· God’s Bluntness Toward
the Ninevites: In my line of work as a preacher, I often hear remarks by Christians and church members to make sure that my preaching is “relevant.” Relevant preaching, for many, means palatable and practical for today’s generation. Usually that means that pastors are supposed to preach self-help and how-to sermons. For example, how to grow your business and income with Christian principles; how to improve your popularity in the workplace as a Christian. How to survive or beat the competition in your work place. Or, how to raise three teenagers without going insane. Relevant preaching, for many, means non-offensive, and culturally acceptable messages.
Now listen to God’s bluntness in Jonah’s preaching: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” What’s so hard to understand about this message? “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” God’s word is like a fire truck racing through Nineveh, sounding its alarm. God’s word is like an earthquake, shaking the foundations of Nineveh and striking the nerves of the Ninevites. Instead of preaching on “how to obtain God’s daily blessings in Nineveh,” the Lord through Jonah, delivers a bomb shell: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” I can’t think of anything more relevant than the two-edge sword of the Lord cutting us at the core of our being.
God’s bluntness is God’s way of sounding the alarm. The Ninevites heard the alarm. And they responded. But what about us? God’s Word comes to us with blessings and curses, with affirmations and warnings, with bad news and good news. God’s Word is a double-edge sword. It soothes and it cuts; it contains sounds of joy and cries of warnings.
Let me ask you, what do you hear in such a text as John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”? Do you sense the double edge in this Word? Do you hear the alarm in this text? Anyone who refuses to respond to Christ with faith will perish. Sometimes, I hear people say that we should not scare people into heaven by preaching a message on hell. Brimstones and hell fire sermons are unpopular today. But I am having more and more second thoughts on that. God’s bluntness in Jonah’s preaching scares the “willies” out of the Ninevites. They take God’s alarm seriously. Should not we today?
Let’s turn the spotlight of attention on Nineveh’s response. Repentance is their response to God’s message. The text says that the Ninevites “believed God; they declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sack cloth.” In other words, the people get it. They recognize that they have sinned before God with their evil ways and violence.
They refuse to pay lip service to God; they demonstrate by action that they are culpable and guilty as charged. That’s why they fast; their fasting leads them away from the physical or material things or pleasure, to spiritual matters, to matters of the soul. The Ninevites recognize that God’s divine wrath is to be feared. God’s divine favor is worth far more than the pleasure of earthly power, of food, and of wealth in Nineveh. The Ninevites respond with repentance. And repentance calls for humility.
The spotlight of attention falls on the king of Nineveh. They say that when the leaders of an organization go “south,” so goes the organization. When the kings of Israel, for example, disobeyed the law of God, so did the people of Israel. And the result was always the same: God’s people went down the drain of judgment.
Now learn from this king of Nineveh. He is a picture of humility before God. He is a model leader. Listen: “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.” Talk about humility: no royal throne now; only a dusty floor to sit on; no royal clothes, only burlap. This powerful king acknowledges that the God of Jonah who is threatening judgment is far greater than he. This king strikes the right posture. He is a true leader of his people.
So complete is this king’s humility and repentance that he decrees to the people that “man and beast must be covered with sackcloth.” Even the animals depend on the mercy of Jonah’s God. Learn from Nineveh and its king: as God sounds the alarm through his Word preached by Jonah, we had better take it seriously.
The story of Jonah is instructive for us today. So it was also in the days of Jesus. In fact, Jesus built his story of salvation on the story of Jonah and the Ninevites. In response to the lack of repentance and refusal by many Israelites to take Jesus’ message seriously, the Lord Jesus warned his people saying: (Mt. 12:41ff.) “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”
Do you and I take Jesus seriously? Do we respond with faith and repentance and wholehearted service to his claims? Or do we half-heartedly follow him? Or dismiss him as irrelevant, perhaps, or not vitally important in my relationship with God?
Jesus is coming again. Today, he offers salvation and a life that is fueled and channeled by his Word and Spirit. Today, he calls us to follow him, to believe on him, to serve him. “Tomorrow,” however, he will come again, and make all things new; he will overthrow evil and death, and he will judge all of us. Those who ignore him, deny him, or fight him, Jesus will judge with eternal perdition or damnation; those who respond in faith will go through the judgment (and like the Ark of Noah) end on dry land—the promised land, the renewed, restored creation.
That’s the double edged sword called the “gospel.” We must take this Word of God seriously.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.