Jonah 3:5-9 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.9Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?
Jonah preached his 8-word sermon and the Ninevites were struck with the fear of the Lord and moved to complete repentance.
The king stood up (a sign of his serious intent), removed his royal robes (a sign of humility), covered himself with sackcloth (a sign of mourning), and sat in the dust (a sign of repentance). Then, according to the King’s edict, every soul in Nineveh responded with desperate fasting. It’s hard to imagine that level of conviction coming upon an entire metropolis of over 120,000 people. But what followed was the greatest revival in history. Everyone in the city got saved! This seems so impossible at every level. The whole story of Jonah is utterly fantastic from beginning to end…almost like a fairytale.
But we know it isn’t a fairytale. The Lord Himself clearly refers to Jonah’s ministry as a historical fact; [Luke 11:29-30].
Through it, God is inspiring us for the days we live in. Look around, isn’t the whole world going the way of ancient Nineveh? Isn’t the wickedness and moral erosion around us just as horrifying as the evil deeds of the Assyrians? Can God’s judgment be far away?
And what were the chances of Nineveh’s revival taking place? If Jonah, who knew God’s mercy and grace as a prophet, was against it, who would give the Ninevites a ghost of a chance for salvation? Many of us undoubtedly feel the same way about most of our modern cities. We’ve stopped believing that God can reach the unreachable or do the impossible. Instead, we say, “It’s Nineveh. It’s hopeless?” What can we honestly expect in these “Days of Noah and Lot”?
The prophet Daniel, I believe, has an answer for us in these End Times: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever; [Daniel 12:3]. It took Jonah a while to get there, but he finally did shine the righteousness of God into a wicked city; and he led many to righteousness.
Our God still has some plans with “fairytale” dimensions. If we can get over our cynicism, apathy, judgmental attitude, and unbelief, there are still a few Nineveh’s in our future, I believe. I have no illusions about the strength of those negative qualities in us, or the desperate evil in our modern cities. But there are some whose identification with the Lord in His death, just like Jonah, who will lead many to righteousness, just as he did.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Some of the wealthiest individuals in the United States are real estate developers. They make their money by buying a piece of property that is terribly run down, seemingly useless, without any value to the naked eye and reforming it completely, making it look brand new! These businessmen are not as much interested in what is on the property as they are interested in the land it’s on!
A sailor who was shipwrecked on a desert island was captured by some of the natives of that island. They carried him off on their shoulders to their village, where he was sure he would end up being the main course. But instead, they put a crown on his head and made him king. He was enjoying all the attention he was receiving but was growing a little suspicious. He started making inquiries and discovered that their custom was to crown a stranger king for a year and at the end of that year the crowned king would be sent to a deserted island where he was allowed to starve to death.
With war drums beating even more intensely in Iran and Syria, we’ve received numerous phone calls and emails expressing their concerns — and understandably so! Nevertheless, even in this climate of anxiety, we are preparing to enter into Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath) this afternoon. And as we do, we are remembering again, the deep lesson of God’s entering into His rest following the six creation days.
This is one of my favorite promises in the Bible — that God turns mourning into dancing! He takes away the anguish of being clothed in sadness and replaces it with gladness. However, notice what God doesn’t do — simply stop your mourning and make it disappear. No, He transforms it…into joy!
As we discussed last week, the word for “sign” in ancient Hebrew is “oht”. It was used in Genesis to designate God’s covenant sign with Noah, (the rainbow). And we see now the same word again, in Exodus, identified with the deliverance of the Jewish people from the tenth plague, when the angel of death passed through all Egypt to strike the firstborn. Anyone under the “sign” of the blood was spared.
Yesterday we wrote about one of the greatest moves of God … the Moravian Revival. When the community was in complete disarray, Count Zinzendorf focused on how they could live together in love despite their differences. He called all the men together for an intense study of the Scriptures to focus on how Christian life in community was portrayed. These studies combined with intense prayer convinced many of the believers that they were called to live together in love and that their disunity and conflict were contrary to the clear calling of Scripture.
In the late 1800s, an awakening in South Africa led by Andrew Murray was a powerful move of God. Studying that revival yields essential insights concerning the events occurring now throughout the United States. As the spirit of God began to move in Cape Town, Murray compared the SA revival with past experiences of revivals in Europe. He decided that the intense “emotionalism” was a false experience of God and charged in to break up the meeting. Stepping out of the church, he encountered his father standing and weeping. His father rebuked Andrew, “How dare you stop something that I have prayed to happen for 30 years!”