St. Simons Community Church

Is there anyone that you think is beyond God’s reach?  Perhaps you think their heart is too hard, or they are too far away from God.  And yet the Bible is full of stories about God changing the heart of men and women who were opposed to him.  The Ninevites were certainly that type of people.  They were cruel, wicked and rebellious.  And yet, there response to Jonah’s message is clear: “The Ninevites believed God.”  (Jonah 3:5)  One of the most wicked people in history turned to the Lord in faith.  They didn’t just believe Jonah.  They believed God.  They believed that Jonah’s words were from the Lord.

You think that Jonah being swallowed by a great fish and spit back on dry land is the miracle of the Bible.  The real miracle is that Nineveh turned to the living God.  In our day, this would be like hearing that Howard Stern is now a Christian talk show host talking about sexual purity. This would be like the hardest person you know turning their life to Jesus.

The Ninevites put on sackcloth and they fasted.  These were postures of repentance and humility.  It was a physical way of saying, “God we are sorry.  We have been going in the wrong direction and we need you.”  Sackcloth was a really itchy, uncomfortable material made out of goat’s hair. It must have been made of goat’s hair as a symbol to represent how “baaaaad” they had been.  Okay, that was a bad joke.  The horrible material was a picture though of how uncomfortable they were in their sin.  They couldn’t bear it any longer.

The king of Nineveh lead the way:  “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes and covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.”  He stepped off his place of royalty and removed his royal robes because he understood his absolute spiritual poverty.  He realized his royal robes could not cover up his true spiritual poverty. So he rose from his throne.  The throne represents the seat of the one who is in charge.  This was a highly symbolic move.  It was a way of saying, “I am no longer in charge.  I surrender to you.”  The King was surrendering his right to rule and acknowledging God’s right to rule instead.

The King called a complete fast – no eating or drinking.  Not only did the people fast, but the animals fasted as well.  Do you know how loud a heard of cattle would get if they had not been fed or given drink all day?  The King wanted his people to feel the hunger and pain of their condition before God.  He knew they were spiritually depraved, and he was starved for God’s grace and intervention.  He knew they needed to get in touch with their true spiritual poverty before God.

I get this king.  He was taking responsibility as a leader and aching for his own personal condition and that of his people.  There are times I feel it in my own heart.  I look at my own life and the lives of other Christians at times and see how far we can really be from God.  We go to church, sing the songs, and listen to the sermons, but do our lives really bear the fruit of  Christ.  I see that many Christians party like the world, compromise their views on sex and morality, live materialistic lives, and indulge in all kinds of inappropriate entertainment.  At times I become pained in my heart.  Are we really becoming true followers of Jesus?  Do we care about others?  Do we love Jesus more than ourselves?  Or are we way too comfortable in our sin?  Maybe it is time to get up off the throne and let God have his way.  And that’s the Word.

Imagine you had to walk into a very violent and rebellious group of people and call them to repentance.  What if God told you to go into an Al Queda terrorist cell group and call them to turn from their violence and evil and seek the mercy of the Living God?  I am all up for a great adventure, but I am not exactly sure I would sign up for that mission trip.  Would you?

Well, that is pretty much what God was asking Jonah to do by calling him to go to Nineveh. They were a violent people who were greatly feared.  I am sure if I were Jonah, I would have been thinking, “What can I preach to these guys and not lose my life in the process?”  How about “3 Keys to a better life?”  Or “Don’t be naughty, be nice” or something like that.  You know the old sermon routine – start off with a joke, give ‘em three points, and end with a poem and a prayer.  Wow!  Don’t you just love a good sermon?

Jonah didn’t preach a message like that.  He may have been nervous and fearful, but God gave him a message and he delivered it.  Jonah proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned” (Jonah 3:4).  Jonah’s words were few, but they were very direct.  His message was even offensive.  He confronted the people of Nineveh and their disobedience head on: “Forty more days and you will be overturned.  The word overturned is a unique word in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament.  It can mean “overturned” as in destroyed, or “overturned” as in changed.  It has a double meaning.

The Ninevites would have understood his meaning.  Jonah was telling them that God would judge them and destroy them if they did not turn from their sin.  They were headed for judgment.  And yet, God in his grace offered a chance for them to turn.  There was an opportunity to change

Jonah was basically saying, “God is giving you people 40 more days. If you keep running from God and resisting his voice, you will be overturned and judged.  But if you decide to repent and turn, God will forgive you and overturn your lives with change.”

Forty more days!  Did you notice that God gave them a limited time offer? They were not promised forever.  God was giving them a limited time offer.  They had to make a decision to respond to God’s grace.

We don’t have forever either.  You don’t have the promise of tomorrow.  There is no promise you will make it to next week.  You are not guaranteed another year.  We often assume that we have plenty of more time.  So we put God off, and we put God off.  And all the while our time is ticking away.  We could run out of time before we ever turn our lives over to God.

It is not a very wise thing to keep putting God off.  Don’t assume that you have plenty of time.  God is a God of great mercy and grace.  He is a God of second chances, but one day your time will run out.  When your time is out, the only question that will matter at that point is “have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ?”

Most of us are nowhere near as wicked as the Ninevites, and yet our sin is real nonetheless.  We need forgiveness, and God has provided it through his son Jesus.  We have a window of time to respond.  While we are living, God has given us a limited time offer to say yes to Him, and to His Son Jesus.  So what is it going to be?  And that’s the Word.

When Jonah needed a second chance, God gave it to him.  Jonah ran away from God’s call to go to Nineveh.  Eventually, after a detour in the belly of a great fish, the word of the Lord came to Jonah “a second time.”  God gave Jonah another chance to obey and get it right commanding him, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you” (Jonah 3:2).

The word “Go” literally means “arise and go” or “get up and go.”  It implies an imperative need to quickly obey.  God is telling Jonah, “Don’t delay.  Get up and do it now.  Don’t wait another minute.”

Have you ever heard a command from God that you intended to obey, but you waited?  Perhaps you delayed a little bit and reasoned you would get around to it later.  So you waited and waited and waited.  In the end you never obeyed God.  If Jonah had waited too long, he might have eventually backed out again.  He might have let the urgency to obey slowly fade away.

How many times have you let this happen in your life?  God spoke to you clearly about an issue and you didn’t follow through.  You were going to obey, but you waited.  Perhaps God spoke to you in church on Sunday morning, or listening to Christian radio, talking to a friend, or reading your Bible.  Wherever it was, God convicted you and laid something on your heart.  You were committed to following through and obeying God.  You told yourself that you were going to end an unhealthy, ungodly relationship.  You told yourself and God that you were going to share your faith with a friend.  Maybe you promised God that you going to begin to tithe, or give some money to meet a need.  Maybe you told yourself you were finally going to forgive someone who had hurt you, or find some help to overcome your addiction.

There are numerous things that God might have laid on our heart.  You knew it was him.  Your heart was beating.  Your mind was clear.  You knew what you need to do.  You just just needed to “get up and go,” but instead you waited.  You stared making excuses, and putting it off.  Maybe you rationalized that it wasn’t that big of a deal.  And so you never followed through.  You know what God calls that -  disobedience.

Perhaps, God is calling you to “Get up and go” today.  Go and obey. Do it.  Walk in obedience to God.  Don’t put it off anymore.  If it is within your power and ability, don’t the let the sun go down another day without obeying the Lord.

I remember several years ago when I was in seminary, I felt I had been dishonest on an assignment I had turned in for one of my classes.  It wasn’t a real big thing, but it was a compromise in my integrity.  I made a bunch of excuses in my head, but I knew when I turned it in that I had not fully been honest.  I went home for Christmas break, but guess what I couldn’t quit thinking about it?  It was really hard for me to fully enjoy my self. I kept trying to blow it off, but I couldn’t.  I knew what I had to do.  When I got back to campus, I had to “get up and go” to my professor and make it right. He was very gracious and understanding.  Even though in his mind, my indiscretion was fairly minute, he was glad I came to clear my conscience.  I left his office that day feeling as though a load of bricks was off of my shoulder.  I was free.  I was right with God.

Is it time for you to get up and go?  God gives second chances, but we must respond in obedience.  So just do it.  Now.  Don’t wait any more.  Get up and go obey.  And that’s the word.