In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the significance of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He highlights Jesus' mission to seek and save the lost and his sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. The preacher also mentions Jesus' commission to his disciples to spread the message of salvation to all nations. The sermon then focuses on the story of Jonah and how God renews his call to Jonah after his rebellion. The preacher emphasizes the importance of repentance and obedience in responding to God's call.

Would you kindly turn again in the word of scripture to the book of the prophet Jonah and to the third chapter that awaits our meditation this morning, God's second call. Now those of you who have been with us over the last few Sunday mornings will remember that we've seen a number of things already from this passage from this book of Jonah. In particular, of course, we have noticed how Jonah positively despised and rejected God's original call to him to be the divine mouthpiece to declare a word of judgment to the distant city of Nineveh. In consequence, Jonah found a very convenient way to move in the opposite direction. There was a ship in the harbor at Joppa going toward Tarshish and he got on board, got his ticket and moved in the opposite direction of the will of the Lord. Now that act of disobedience, that act of sheer rebellion resulted in God's chastisement of his runaway servant. That is described in the rest of chapter one and it is reflected, do notice this, it's reflected also very much in the prayer of Jonah which occupies the bulk of chapter two. What we have in the latter two-thirds of chapter one and right on into chapter two is a reflection of the way in which God took his rebellious servant in hand. In order to deal with him in such a way that he could bring him back again into his will, into the center of his purposes, that Jonah the runaway should become Jonah the repentant. Jonah who would listen and hear the voice of God again and in due course fulfill the original purpose of God for him. This is part of the wonder of God's grace. He doesn't easily let his people go. He chastises his servants, his people, but it is always in order that we should occupy that place in his will and purpose which he had in mind from all eternity. He will thrash us to within an inch of death to get us there. But the very thrashings of God are means of grace. They're not meant simply to hurt, they're not meant simply, certainly not to drive us to despair, but they are meant specifically to bring us into the large purpose in his will and in his plan that he originally intended for us. Now chapter two concludes with a statement that God commanded the fish which had snatched the runaway prophet from floundering in the deep. God commanded the great fish to eject its human passenger onto dry land. The fish has done its job well and the fish hears God's last command and Jonah is ejected and Jonah's feet are on terra firma once again. Now the question is what next? Where do we go from here? When the chastisements of God are over and Jonah has made his renewed vow with God in the belly of the fish, what next? That brings us to chapter three. Now the first thing I want you to notice is the renewal of God's call to Jonah and its acceptance by him. This is a most thrilling chapter and I hope there will not be a solitary soul in our service this morning who will miss something of the glory on it. God called Jonah again and I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind but that the same gracious God will be calling some runaway saint, some runaway servant here in our morning worship today. Know that the Lord will give that person the kind of grace that was given to Jonah not only to hear but this time to obey. Now look at verses one to four. I'll read them again. 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. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to go all through it. Jonah started into the city going a day's journey and he proclaimed and here he's preaching the very word that God has given him. Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed. That Jonah should have been saved from the threatening waters and brought back safely to land again was in itself a token of supernatural power as well as of divine grace. Who else deals with rebels and disobedient people as our God does? Even so one vital question must have haunted Jonah now that he's back on dry land. It must have really harassed him as he thought of his future. Has God disowned me from his service? I've made my vow to him. I will pay my sacrifice with thanksgiving. I will obey. I will do what I have promised to do. I will do it but where am I now in the purpose of God? Forgiven me he has. Had mercy on me he has. He's brought me right back from the depths. Even there is one word here the word Sheol and there are some people who believe that Jonah was virtually dead. I don't think that may be literally true but he was very near drowning in the bottom of the Mediterranean when the fish came and rescued him and was at one and the same time a means of judgment and of mercy. God brought him back but where does he stand as far as his place in the will of God is concerned? Can you trust a man like this again? Can the almighty God give his message to Jonah to go to Nineveh and declare it again? Can God trust a man like this now? Will he ever be trusted as the spokesman of heaven again? Oh let these words with blessed music in them be heard by every year here this morning. 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 have given you. I can hear the bells ringing in his soul. God will have him again. God has not cast away his servant. God has not turned his back upon him after forgiving him but God is here coming to the man the rebel penitent. If we may daringly bring those two words together. The man who was rebellious now has become penitent. God comes to him again. Jonah we're right back where we started. I want you to go to Nineveh and I want you to tell the people of Nineveh exactly what I have to tell them. Now there are two things I want us to notice here and they are the main part of the message on my heart this morning. We shall look at the response of Nineveh but I want to dwell particularly on on these first four verses because they're so crucial and I believe so very relevant and applicable to maybe very many of us here today. Two things here. First I want us to notice the revelation of God as that is reflected in his second call to his previously rebellious prophet. I want you to see the picture of God which comes through here. We can sometimes get so wrapped up with the words and with individual statements that we don't see the picture of God behind the words. Now this is what I want us to see. May the spirit of God help us. Let's see the God that we are dealing with here. The God of Jonah and I think you'll have to conclude that he is exactly the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore in Christ your God and mine if we trust the Savior. The first indication that we have here concerning God is the obvious. He is a God of great grace. Our God is a God of grace. Let me remind you grace means this that he the lofty and eternal God deals with rebels and sinners who repent of their sins in a manner which is wholly out of alignment with what they really deserve. He deals mercifully with those who simply do not deserve one indication of mercy. He stoops to come down and make use of a man like this again who has already disqualified himself from the service of God. Now reference was clearly made to this when in considering God's rescue of his servant from the threatening waters of the Mediterranean we saw that it was also utterly undeserved and so it was that deliverance however great as it was fell far short of the total grace now envisaged in God's calling him back again into his work into his service to be an ambassador for the almighty God into a land and to a city that knows him not. Our God is a God of grace. You see what that means is this that God's forgiveness is so total that he doesn't bear a grudge afterwards. When God forgives God forgets. Now that's not my word God says so. Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more. I heard of two people who had quarreled and the one said to the other well okay he said I'm prepared to bury the hatchet but I'll remember where I buried it and so many of our acts of forgiveness are just like that. We say we bury the hatchet and we don't go on fighting but we remember where we buried it. And listen my friend the Lord of the universe forgives and he forgives so completely he comes to the man who had rebelled against him and gone in the opposite direction of his will and he says all right Jonah I'll have you again as if there were no one else in the world that he could choose when the world was full of men and women too if God deigned in his wisdom and in his mercy to call them to do this work. But he chose Jonah that's grace. Nor is this an example that has no rival. I think one ought to hasten to say that this is not just something that we come across in the book of Jonah and we don't find anywhere else. This is true of the whole biblical representation of God. Let me illustrate very hurriedly. Think of King David. I never like talking about the sins of the saints especially when their virtues were far beyond their sins. Carnally we remember their sins when we forget their virtues. Nevertheless for the purpose of my illustration this morning I must remind you of David's multiple transgressions. David sinned grievously morally and then he murdered someone or caused someone to be murdered and then he lied. And you can see how the sins of David accumulate one after another. One breeds the other. Sin is like that. It breeds children far far too often. And what began as one sin leads to a whole multiple series of sins. Was that the end of it? Well you read Psalms 32 and 51. David will tell you how under the burden of the guilt of it all he became like a dry parched land. He says my soul was like a barren parched land. My tongue was dry. My mouth was dry. I was panting for my life. I didn't know what to do. But then I confessed my sin and I acknowledged my transgressions and the Lord forgave the iniquity of my sins. Is that the end? Not at all. Some of the most precious Psalms of David were born after that. Some of the most mighty feats in the life of David were performed after God had forgiven him. That's the point I want to get at. See God's forgiveness is a real forgiveness. Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more. And when you've been reconciled to me by the blood of my Son, I will treat you not as an enemy that used to be, but as a child, an obedient child in Christ. Of course Peter is the classical New Testament illustration of this. Following his most tragic of all lapses, when having denied knowledge of his Lord, you remember in the closing hours of our Lord's earthly life, he sealed his hideous lies with foul oaths of a separation. What a remarkable thing to happen. Simon Peter, one of the three most privileged of the twelve, with foul oaths and cursing said, I do not know him. That's the end of it. Don't argue with me. Jesus goes to his cross and he lays down his life and he rises again from the dead and you know one of the first things he did, hallelujah. The women were the first at the tomb and he had sent an angel to tell them, quickly he says, go tell my disciples and Peter. But I'm on my way to Galilee to keep my rendezvous with them just as I promised. And Peter, I haven't forgotten Peter, and John 21 shows us how the Lord dealt with Peter in order to convince Peter himself that he had a place in the divine purpose once forgiveness is complete. Oh my good brother or sister, you've wondered. You run away and heaven only knows where you are this morning. I don't. I don't pretend to know. I hope you don't think that I know. I don't. I don't want to know. But when you turn back to God as Jonah did in the fish's belly, I mean in soul and in heart and in mind and in repentance, God forgives the sin of the penitent and he will commission you again. Now that's grace in all glory. There is no God who deals like this with his rebellious followers. There is no man, there is no government. They don't deal with people like this in Iran or in Egypt or anywhere else or in Canada for all that. But God deals like this with his rebellious subjects who repent and come back. The passage bespeaks then, and I have dwelt for some time on this, because it's so important. It bespeaks of the grace, the infinite grace of God. The passage also reveals the wisdom of God. It was necessary to mention this. It is necessary to mention this because it might well be wrongly concluded that when Jonah proved such a disappointment in running away from God's original call, God must have made a bad choice. Did you ever think like that? And if God made a bad choice the first time, surely it's the height of madness to be calling Jonah again and sending Jonah to Nineveh. Yeah, but wait a moment. I can't come to it now, but you wait till we come to chapter 4. Indeed, we have the indications of it at the end of chapter 3. Wait till we come to the end of this chapter and you will see that Jonah, corrected by the chastisements of God, had something new and was better qualified than he ever was before he sinned. So that when Jonah went to Nineveh, God's will for Nineveh was accomplished. And probably Jonah was the one man who could accomplish that particular mission at that particular time. God's wisdom. God never makes a mistake. But we must add to that God's sovereignty is reflected here. God's sovereignty is very clearly expressed here and in many ways. In particular, do we see it reflected in his capacity to take all the circumstances in the rebellion of a man, Jonah going in the opposite direction. Then the boat, God takes charge of the boat and the sailors and the sea and the fish and he takes charge of everything. And he uses this man's experience in the belly of the fish. He uses every aspect of the total experience to make Jonah a better minister of his word to Nineveh than he could ever have been before. Now to me, there's something to smile about here. There's something humorous. See, Jonah didn't want to go to preach to Nineveh because Nineveh was pagan. Nineveh was Gentile. He was a good Jew and a very, very Orthodox Jew and a very, very nationalistic Jew. And Jonah's concept of grace didn't extend beyond the bounds of his own people. And one of the reasons why he didn't want to go to Nineveh was this, he was afraid that God would forgive them and not carry out the judgment that Jonah was given to declare. Now had Jonah gone in the first place, well, we don't know what would have happened. But when Jonah was raised from the dead as it were, as he came back from the belly of the fish from the depths of the sea, Jonah, with this experience, Jonah went into Nineveh and the Ninevites recognized him not as an oddity, a religious oddity, a queer who wanted to thunder judgment upon anybody that crosses him. But they knew that this man was in the hand of the living God. And so distant Nineveh, proud and arrogant and sophisticated as it was, recognized in this man with this experience, a servant of the living God. You see what's happening? God has sovereignly taken all the circumstances to make Jonah, what the New Testament calls, a sign to Nineveh. What Jesus said, a sign to Nineveh. That presupposes that they knew what had happened to Jonah in the water, that he was beyond all hope, that he was a rebel against God. Yet God saved him in mercy and brought him back to life again. And a God who can do that is not an idol that you bow down to. This put God, you see, on an entirely different, in an entirely different category. And that means this. Had Jonah gone the first, in the first place, at his first command to Nineveh, he'd probably not have been as successful as he was when he went the second time. The nationalist was confounded by his rebellion because God has used his rebellion to make him a better missionary. And his experience of salvation from the fish and from the water is such as will make the Ninevites amazed at the glory of God and turn to him in penitence and in faith. The God who is revealed here is a God of grace, he's a God of wisdom, and he's a God who is sovereign over everything. And I must say a word about the other side of the story. The transformation of Jonah from the man he was when God first called him, in order to become the person he now appears to be. The obvious thing to do if you, you can do this at your leisure, but let me just point to it. I'd like you to contrast Jonah 1, chapter 1, verses 1 to 3, with Jonah 3, verses 1 to 3. I'll just read them quickly. In chapter 1, verses 1 to 3, we read these words. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa. There he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Now that's chapter 1, verses 1 to 3. Now listen to chapter 3. 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. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. The contrast is too glaring to need any comment. The one who was quick to disobey in chapter 1 is now equally quick to obey. And that means this, you see. In the meantime, there's been a miracle of grace wrought in Jonah's heart. He's died to his own self-will, his own self-will. Have you? See, it's strange. We come into this world and we grow up in our civilization and we grow up with whatever knowledge and understanding and qualifications we have. We grow up in such a manner that each one of us has an idea and an ideal for ourselves of what we would like to be. And it's not always in alignment with the will and purpose of God. And the New Testament tells us that sooner or later the man or the woman who's going to fit into the purpose of God, he or she has got to die to his own self-will or her self-will. And Jonah had to die. And he died in that sense in the in the fish's belly. Or when he was down in the bottom of the sea with the seaweed around his head, as he tells us. But somewhere in the depths, Jonah died. And when he got up again, he was a new man. He was resurrected. And you see, this is the purpose of some of the troubles that we get in life. They are opportunities for us to repent and to change our mind that God may change us and we may die to ourselves. There may well be a city of Nineveh that awaits some of us this morning. But before we'll ever get there, before our eyes will turn in that direction, something in us has got to die. Self-will has got to die. Jonah is a new man. Not only that, not only was Jonah quick to accept God's second call, but he was careless as to the cost which obedience would now involve. A man whom God had so signally delivered from the elements and from the fish at last, was now a fearless man, knowing that he could trust his God anywhere. Now, why do I say that? For this reason. Nineveh had a reputation. Some of you historians know this much better than I do. But Nineveh had a reputation of being the cruelest city in the ancient world and to represent the cruelest political regime in that entire era of history. It has been claimed rightly or wrongly that the atrocities of Assyria and of Nineveh itself ranked alongside and in some cases went even beyond the kind of things that you and I associate with Nazi Germany during the last war. The prophet Nahum called Nineveh that bloody city. Now prophets don't often speak like that. That bloody city. And he did so partly at any rate on account of its long history of warfare and partly because of the proverbial bestiality with which the city dealt with those whom it vanquished. And I couldn't from this pulpit rehearse the details of this situation. It would make some of you sick. Kings of Nineveh took great delight when prisoners of war were brought home. First of all to saw their hands off and then their feet and then to gouge their eyes out. And I will go as far as to remind you of this if you don't know it. That in certain places in the city of Nineveh there were special sites for visitors. Mounds of human skeletons and of human eyes. Tokens of the might and of the brutality of this regime. And Jonah was sent to Nineveh. And he went. And he went. And listen my friend. He went alone. He went alone. There was no one with him. He didn't have a wife. He didn't have a partner. He didn't have a missionary society that was going to send him some letters occasionally and keep in touch with him. Not at all. He went alone. And listen. I want to say to you that Nineveh was the kind of place from which you couldn't escape if you wanted to. That is if the Ninevites turned against you. But Jonah's been in a situation like that before you see. In the fish's belly. I have no doubt that he tried to elbow his way out. Don't let me use my imagination. It may be far too fertile here. But I'm quite sure that Jonah tried to get out of there. But he couldn't. Until God's time. Nineveh was such a massive place. It was like greater London to be distinguished from the city of London itself. And you took three whole days to walk across it. And this man was to declare to the whole city of Nineveh. Forty days more and the judgment of Jehovah will be upon you. And we're told that man single-handed without anybody with him went one day into Nineveh. It's like walking into another large fish to swallow him. But he goes and he goes alone and he goes with the word of God. Why? Oh it's the mighty change in Jonah. He's got to know his God. The God that can save him from the depths of the sea and the belly of a whale can look after him in the hinterland of Nineveh if needs be. Thus did Jonah act in accordance with his vow. As he says as he said in two nine. I he says with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. And I believe that every step that Jonah took towards Nineveh and into the interior of the city every step was a step of sacrifice. He was saying in effect, Lord if I'm caught here I'm at your mercy. My life is yours. Do with me what you will. Here I am but I'm willing to die. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Can you see what it tells us about God? Can you see what it tells us about Jonah's transformation? Now he's ready. Now God can use him. Now he can bring glory to his God as alone he goes with a word of the Lord into the heart of that pagan and cruel city. Now just a couple of words and I'm through. The response of Nineveh to God's word through Jonah. It couldn't be the end of it could it? We couldn't end just where we are. A man thus prepared by a God who is a God of wisdom and a God of grace and a sovereign God. A man going at his behest has to accomplish something. Sooner or later something must happen. Verses five to nine. The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth. The king Markyu covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in dust. The king in dust. And in the dust 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. No food, no drink, nothing. Do not let them eat or drink 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. Who knows, he says, who knows, says the king. God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. Now can I mention two things. One, the response of Nineveh was deep rather than superficial. I want you to notice three key statements there. I have no time to really expound them. The Ninevites believed God, that's the first. The Ninevites believed God, verse 5. Now what does that mean? Well obviously they believed the message that was brought by Jonah. So really they believed Jonah. No, they recognized Jonah as the mouthpiece of God. So that when they believed the word of Jonah, they believed God. That's the point. Paul tells the Thessalonians that they received his word not as the words of man but as it veritably is the word of God. Brothers and sisters this will be a new day in the history of the church when the word of the gospel and the word of the Bible is received not as the word of a preacher, not as the word of a church or of a denomination, but as the word of God. And because it is the word of God and the Ninevites believed God. That's a text for some preacher here this morning. The second phrase I want to refer to is this. It's coming from the lips of the king at the beginning of verse 8. Let everyone call urgently on God. I'm quoting of course from the NIV. It's very accurate. Here is a pagan king. He hasn't known anything about God until Jonah came there and told his story. And here is the pagan king calling upon everybody to call urgently upon God. When last did you hear urgency in a prayer offered to God? And the third reference I want to bring out is at the end of the same verse, verse 8. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Is this Jonah preaching? No it isn't. This is the king of Nineveh. What's happening here? Oh well I'll tell you. It's the sovereign God. It's the God of grace. It's the God of the fish. It's the God of the sea. It's the God of life. It's the God of death. It's the God of salvation. The only miracle in the book of Jonah is not the formation of a fish large enough to swallow this man and carry him for three days and three nights. That's a miracle but that's not the only one. Here's another one. That a pagan king has come to know the voice of God and declares to his people give up your evil ways and your violence. This was deep. This was not superficial. I tell you there is much evangelism taking place in North America today that doesn't go as deep as this. And there are people who make a response in our enlightened community that rarely goes deep But the response was as extensive as it was deep. It was general. The Ninevites believed God. That's the comment of scripture. They declared a fast and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sackcloth. And it was official. We've referred to this before but let's underline it. It's a remarkable thing to see the king and his nobles sitting in ashes wearing sackcloth indicating repentance. Royalty in repentance. Royalty in sackcloth. You see there must be something deep here. And the response of Nineveh was both humble and hopeful. Humble because of the sackcloth they wore and because they sat in ashes and because they prayed with urgency. But it was hopeful. I like the way in which this king tells his people. You remember how he puts it? Who knows he says. God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. Now he hasn't got much to build on because there was no word about grace in the text of Jonah as far as I know. It was fundamentally a message of judgment. And therefore we are probably right in concluding that this was a surmise. This was a kind of conclusion he came to himself. If God is sending us due notice that 40 days hence we are going to be judged on account of our sins. Surely there's no point in giving us a warning unless he's going to do something different if we turn from our sins and acknowledge our wrongs and repent. Do you know the man was right? Because this is exactly what God had in mind. And he surmised dare I say of course I must say by the spirit of God. He surmised rightly that God had no delight in the death of the wicked but God was seeking the salvation of Nineveh. And their response was hopeful who knows he says but that God will do this who knows. Now see this is where this touches us and perhaps is a little bit prickly in some of our consciences. There are may well be people here this morning who've heard the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ over and over again and yet you've not trusted the Savior. And yet you've not repented of your sin. You've not turned from your idols. You've not given up your evil way. This man this king of Nineveh commanded his people to turn from their sins and it was all on a surmise that God would be grace gracious. But look what we've got. We have the revelation of God in Jesus Christ his son who was a friend of publicans and sinners. Who said that he had come to seek and to save that which was lost. Who went to the cross bearing the sins of wicked men and who said at the end of it when he instituted the Lord's Supper this is the new covenant in my blood. I covenant to forgive the sins of those who trust in me and who commissioned his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We have a string of pearls of promises and a covenant of grace and of redemption and yet there are men and women here this morning who will not come. I tell you my friend Nineveh will stand in judgment and testify against your hearts of wickedness and of stone. If you and I cannot trust the Savior on the basis of his promises and of his pleadings and of his grace and of his covenant do you think we can escape? My last word must be this. I return where I started and apply it to the servants of the Lord. Is there someone here running away? I want the word to get through to you this morning. I have a sense in my bones that this may be the beginning of a new day for some people here. You've left your Sunday school class because you couldn't undertake the discipline. You've abandoned the choir because you couldn't give the time. You had something more important. Was it more important? You've left the station where God had put you and it may well be that you've turned back from a distant Nineveh far more distant than the choir box or the choir stall or whatever. But the fact of the matter is this. You've abandoned your station. You've turned back. You've rebelled. Will you return that you may hear the voice of God again recommissioning you that you may start living according to his purpose and see the fruit of his ministry through you in the most difficult place even though it be a Sunday school class or whatever. Let us pray. Our God and our Father we thank you for this day. This is the Lord's day. True there have been clouds in the sky. True it's been raining and it hasn't been a very bright morning on the outside. But we thank you our Father that the sunshine of your grace blazes in upon us here this morning bringing us the knowledge that you're a God of grace and you will restore to men the years that the locusts have eaten and you can enable us to start again when we return like the prodigal of old in penitence. Almighty God hear us as in our hearts we seek to do just that. Oh receive the returning wanderers to your arms and assure us you reinstated Jonah. Reinstate them into the very heart and center of your purpose that they too may see something of the miracle of a life lived in fellowship with you even though it be in the hinterland of a Babylon or a Nineveh or whatever. Hear us our God and follow us with your word of mercy in Jesus name. Amen.