A few years ago, an angry man rushed through the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam until he reached Rembrandt’s famous painting 'Nightwatch.' There he took out a knife and slashed it repeatedly before he could be stopped. A short time later, a distraught, hostile man slipped into St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome with a hammer and began to smash Michelangelo’s beautiful sculpture The Pieta.

Two cherished works of art were severely damaged. What did officials do? Using top experts, skilfully working with the utmost care and precision, they restored the treasures.

Jonah 3 gives us a glimpse of God restoring Jonah, but also restoring the people of Nineveh.

God refits ruins by grace
We live in a world of evaluations and performance management, of targets and reviews. It can be a harsh environment where failure can be fatal to careers. Sometimes we can bring that attitude into church and our thinking - if someone fails we are appalled and hurt because we never expected it. Sometimes we don’t know how to react to such situations

Can you imagine how Jonah’s end of year evaluation as a prophet would read? 'Has problems with authority and following clear divine instructions, should be considered for immediate replacement and redundancy.'

That’s probably how we would think of Jonah if he was the churches evangelist. But God is a God of grace and having taught Jonah that "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit God’s love for them" and that "Salvation comes from the Lord." God has restored his ruined prophet refitting him for a purpose. God doesn’t save for the scrapheap but for service. "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time." We see grace again at the start of chapter 3 does Jonah deserve a second chance? No, but God gives him a second chance because failure isn’t final and grace refits him for service.

There was once a Church meeting held after the failure of one of the churches leaders. As people gathered together there was a raw hurt, anger and resentment, in whispered conversations people were discussing appropriate punishments and the atmosphere was charged with tension and anticipation.

Against such a backdrop the pastor stood up, silence fell as people realised he was fighting to hold back tears. 'Friends', he said his voice almost a whisper '...Friends, one of our soldiers has fallen in battle.' The meeting took on a very different atmosphere as they examined how he could be restored to the fight rather than gaining their pound of flesh.

Failure doesn’t mortgage our relationship with God, it does not relegate Jonah to a desk job, or to being a reservist, no longer fit to fight on the front line. God by grace saves Jonah and now he is refitted for service and God calls him again to go to Nineveh and take his message.

We may fail God but it doesn’t mean we forfeit future service. God’s grace restores and we are saved to serve. It is one of the things we see time and again through the Bible, Abraham called given great promises but who fears and fails in Egypt and again with Hagar, yet God graciously saved him and renews his promised, or king David who spectacularly fails but is restored to the throne, or Peter who denies Christ but is restored over a morning stroll along the beach called not just to be part of the God’s new community but to lead and feed Jesus people.

The grace of God saves, restores and refits for service. If we fail that does not mean that we have mortgaged our opportunity to serve God. If someone else fails we must not do less than God and forgive them and see them restored to serve God.

God will overturn unless people turn
So Jonah is sent with God’s message(1) and travels about 500 miles to Nineveh in(3), and begins preaching. What is God’s message? "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

In London there is a clock that counts down the number of days, hours, and minutes until the weekend, well in Nineveh it’s a countdown to destruction. The word overthrown or overturned is the same one used in Genesis 19 to describe God’s act of judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness. God is going to act in judgement and wipe out the city and its sin.

God is a judge. Jonah is told to proclaim the message God gives, to use the words God gives him. But notice that as God gives Jonah the message it is slightly different to the message in ch1. In ch1 Jonah is told to "preach against" Nineveh, but here what is he told to do? "proclaim to it!" There is a hint in that change of the character of God, who judges wickedness but from whom salvation comes.

Jonah the messenger takes God’s message to Nineveh and the response is amazing. (5)"The Ninevites believed God." They accept the word of God through Jonah as it is the word of God and they act on it. They provide a model of what repentance looks like, something which Jonah 3 emphasises by repeating their actions. True repentance, true turning is sorrowful over sin, active and it is humble in turning to God. The king comes off his throne, takes off his fine robes, and joins the people putting on sackcloth and ashes and fasting as a sign of their mourning for their sin. Nineveh takes the word of God as it is the word of God, they recognise their sin and the consequences of it and they "call urgently on God."

But (8)they go one step further what is it? "Let everyone give up their evil ways and their violence." They aren’t just sorry about the consequences of getting found out, they recognise sin, mourn over it, cry out to God and change. There is no presumption that forgiveness will be theirs but a hope that God will turn.

The irony as Israel read the prophecy of Jonah was that whilst a Ninevite King calls his people to repent Israel’s king Jeroboam II "did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit." A pagan king turns whilst an Israel king will not turn, a pagan nation hear the word of God and repent whilst God’s people ignore God’s word and cling to idols forfeiting God’s love for them. And just as the Ninevite’s countdown was running so is the countdown to God’s judgement on Israel for their sin using the Assyrians.

The word of God delivered by Jonah warns of judgement and calls for repentance. Jesus picks up this passage and warns Israel "The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now one greater than Jonah is here." Israel have the same problem in Jesus day as in Jonah’s they will not hear the word of God and repent.

Will we? Will we take that message, warning those around us? Jonah doesn’t soften the warning he delivers the word of God as it is given to him. We need to be teaching people about the grace of God and about the holiness of God and his right judgement of sin. Do we trust God’s word to work?

God’s gracious second chances
How does God respond? "he relented and did not bring on them the disaster he had threatened."

It poses a question - does God change his mind? Notice carefully how it is translated in the Tniv "God relented", it’s a great translation of the original. God does not repent because repentance is to do with turning from sin to God. God is not acting sinfully in judging Nineveh, but he relents of, or turns from, his judgement. As he does so God is being faithful to his character.

Jer 18:7-10 "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."

God’s warnings of judgement are designed to lead people to repentance. God in his dealings with Nineveh is being faithful to his character.

In chapter 3 we see the Ninevites learn the same lesson that pagan sailors learn in ch1 and Jonah in ch2 failure to serve God brings judgement but "Salvation comes from the Lord".

God is a saving God, who acts through his word, who warns of the consequences of sin and the awfulness of impending judgement but who waits for people to turn to him in true repentance.

We are to take that message of forgiveness to others, but we need also to remember that message of forgiveness is to dominate our relationships thereafter. Just like Jonah we are to live and minister in the light of the grace revealed to and experienced by us.

Lighthouse