The Obedient Prophet

What the true repentance's look like I was it different from a simple apology today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg answers these questions with a beautiful story of repentance and redemption from the book of Jonah were in Jonah chapter 3, after the prophet has been freed from the belly of the great fish.

The place is in innovate. It was if you like a major metropolitan area and it was pagan. In the extreme.

Indeed, if you allow your either down to the third verse, you will realize that it was such an important city that a visit required three days. The best that I can do with it is this that in reading a little, I discovered that Eastern etiquette in cities of significance was as follows.

Not only did ambassadors or diplomats have to observe a protocol upon entry to the city but prophets who would have been regarded with esteem and with a measure of superstition.

When asked to do the same and so there would be for someone arriving in the city of Nineveh, a, a first day which would be the day of settlement and arrival there would be a second day, which was the day of formal presentation to the authorities of the city with the indication given to them as to the reason for their coming to the city and then there would be 1/3 day, which may be the conducting of business and may in fact be the day of departure, so the person is Joan of the places in innovate and the proclamation is this divine message of warning concerning its wickedness and concerning the judgment that is to come. Jonah's proclamation in verse four was 40 more days and then if they will be overturned. In other words, the prophet had to convey the divine message and nothing else.

Jonah was not at liberty to go into the city of innovate and simply say what he wanted to say. Nor was he at liberty to go into the city of in innovate and tell them what they wanted to hear but rather he was to go into the city and to declare what God desired for them to know that this is of course important in every generation, and there is at least a passing lesson concerning the nature of the prophetic role in the preaching of the Bible in every generation, and sadly, this is so misrepresented in on so many fronts so disguised on the part of so many that we may be forgiven for them for being inept at noticing the extent to which pulpits have become places in which men and in some cases women have determined that they have been given the prerogative to tell people what they want to tell them, or perhaps even more significantly and more sinister lay to tell the people what they think the people want to hear from them instead of recognizing that they are thereby divine commission and they have nothing to say except the word which God has given to them. And of course in every generation there are those who have missed their way, as Spurgeon lecturing to his students pointing out the solemn nature of being a preacher of the Bible said this that hundreds have missed their way and stumbled against the pool. It is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and decaying churches which surround us in this sense is so surprising to me. So if you are prepared to look here as to the potential source for the absence of any striking impact in a community, why do they think for any moment that people are going to come in their hundreds to listen to someone simply pontificating to listen to somebody simply tickling their ears and telling them what they want to hear that. They say it's amazing to me. You know, it seems such a dreadful cause and there seem to be so few who are doing anything worthwhile. I think loved ones.

It is because Spurgeon is right that many of Mr. way and banged up against appropriate is sorrowfully evident in our day.

The contrast between the third verse of chapter 1 in the third verse of chapter 3 is quite striking. Jonah ran away from the Lord.

Verse three of chapter 1 and in verse three of chapter 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord, and he went in innovate and invest for there is no dragging his feet, especially if what I've said is all accurate. Concerning the protocol of going into a city if there was this protocol of the first day for settling the second day for degrading your purpose and then getting on with the business.

In the second part of the second day notice what happens to them.

Here in Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord, and he went in and of innovate was an important city in a visit required three days notice and on the first day Jonah started into the city and the brick proclaimed 40 more days in innovate will be overturned. You always get the impression it was a book I mentioned Joshua within the last venture that is soon as I gather the first opportunity I get to the first cluster of people that I see the first street corner.

I come to undergoing a block to write out 40 more days and then obey will be overturned.

You just need to know that for you. I'm Jonah okay will. Thanks for sharing that and off down the road. He goes and once again, no. I wonder, are we supposed to conclude that this is all he said in innovate. I mean, I suppose we could conclude that all that he ever did was say 40 more days in innovate will be overturned and allergies went through the city saying that all the time I got a good owner that that maybe what he did but I don't think so. And the reason I don't think so is because there are indications that he had expanded upon it I think is more probable for us to conceive of him telling these people just why the judgment was coming and also the same time. I think giving them a word of Testament having a really difficult for them not to say listen folks, I have to tell you about the judgment of God, and I know firsthand about the divine consequences of disobedience and I also want you to know that God is a wonderful garden. He has power and he can save from even the most extreme circumstances, so he brought a warning and with it a personal testimony of the fact that God is both willing and able to see the mercy that had been shown to Jonah must surely pervade his message. He had no right to complain about the mercy shown to others as he does in the first verse of chapter 4's were going to see in the reason he had no right to complain about mercy shown to others was, in light of the mercy that God had shown to listen when I is a preacher sound brittle and cold and heartless and legalistic and metallic. Then you can be sure that my heart has not been softened by the mercy and the grace and the love of God. But when you hear from the lips of the preacher not only words but with them a sense of the winning and wooing an wonder of the mercy of God, then you are safe to assume one he has needed to know that mercy, and to that that mercy has been so unfolded to him that he cannot wait for the opportunity not to tell people simply where they're all wrong. But to tell them how it is that God can take those of us who are all wrong and by his neck. Mercy is all right.

That is not to stand back from the word of judgment anymore than he did. He said you know 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this comes judgment, but the sense of wonder at God's dealing with God's will permeate the way in which we tell the story to others. You know I am the prodigal luncheon. Let me have it. If linked to this my own way may have some fun for a while, and what was it that brought the prodigal back up the road to his father. I don't think the prodigal went back to his father primarily because he was tormented by a guilty conscience, but because he was driven by the hope of mercy see because a guilty conscience could've left him simply in the pigsty. What was it got them out and up the road the prospect that when he looked into his father's eyes, he would discover mercy and grace.

That's of course what Paul is saying when he writes concerning the predicament of humanity in Romans as he begins to under fold things in his great theological treatise and he says to the people. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth, so when you a mere man passing judgment on them, and yet do the same things. Do you think you will escape God's judgment and then here's the verse or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance. How do we know that to be true. When first the word of God comes and shows is the extent of our wickedness shows is that the rightful nature of the impending judgment as in the city of Nineveh makes it clear to us that were busted and that we have nothing to claim in our defense and then the love of God shown to is in the Lord Jesus Christ comes and buffets overdose and envelops us in the wonder of it all. It is then you see the tears smart to RI's are the remarkable thing in verse four, is that Jonah gets to the business as directly as he does in the equally remarkable thing is in verse five that the Ninevites respond as quickly as we do.

I don't want to labor this I want simply to point out to you that the Ninevites is verse five says believe God they listen to the warning. The response was pointed up by their wearing of the garments of penitence here. We understand just why it is that Jesus said to the people of his day as we saw in Luke chapter 11, that the men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment and condemn you because they listen to the preaching of another prophet called Jonah and responded and you have listened to the preaching of one greater than Jonah and you choose not to respond, and it was a widespread reaction.

They declared a fast and all of them from the greatest of the lease put on sackcloth. This was not some kind of proletariat response. This went right through the structure of this civilization. They were all going around and sackcloth.

The news reaches the king and the public response is more than matched by the Royal response, he changes his clothes puts on sackcloth instead of royal robes he changes his place. He sits down in the darkest and he changes his June. He issues a proclamation in and of a and he says what all going to do this now even beasts. We will all be covered with sackcloth letters all call urgently on God but is give up our evil ways. Can you imagine this in our generation is a all the talk of revival and revival is here in revival is there. You know, Mr. so-and-so said this and I think he's leaning in that direction, and so on.

Let me tell you when we will have reason to believe that revival has come is when the people back from the youngest to the oldest and the least to the greatest, are joined with the very structures of government and we declare ourselves to be urgently in need of God's mercy and truly deserving of his judge someone stands up and makes a national broadcast and says let us then have genuinely a day of repentance and C without God will not, in his mercy, and free us as we give up our violent deeds as we turn away from the evil that we have embraced the amazing thing is that this king has got a real insight. He says let everyone call urgently on God and do this and then he says, who knows?

Who knows God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.

In other words, he recognizes that because they repent, it is not automatic that God will be forbearing in his reaction.

There is no definite indication that they are turning in repentance will be accompanied by a divine turning, he says, but you never know God may actually respond in this way. It's a reminder to us of this that the repentant of no case to argue for acceptance in the future well-being of the repentant remains solely dependent on the grace of that's why I get so tired of people in America and in Britain trotting out.

Two Chronicles 714 if my people are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways and do this and do this and do the and then I will hear from heaven and heal their sin and do their lack and in the way that it comes out. Is this if we press but nay he is duty-bound to press button be. We have a completely upside down. Why is it then that God has not responded in this way is he make a liar of himself that he declared his word to be untrue know because the genuinely repentant heart says file that I've sinned against heaven and in your sight and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. So make me as one of your hired servants. I deserve nothing, my repentance doesn't guarantee me anything it doesn't guarantee me a place in the house. It doesn't guarantee me level your love and your affection if you choose to do that because what you may choose to do so. Our practice that is then humble ourselves and pray, recognizing that we do not manipulate the hand of God.

We deserve nothing for repentance is what we should does not commend us what our repentance give us prizes at work there there very good.

Excellent response. Go to the top of the class you see how man sends her down thinking is in this pagan king is better off.

He says we need to do this and who knows Bruno then look at verse 10 and with this we start when God saw what they did and how they turn from their evil ways. He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. How are we to understand this if you have a King James version says that God repented, is a really unfortunate translation because we think of repentance in terms of turning away from something that we know to be wrong, and God never has to turn away from something that is wrong. The Old Testament affirms that God is unchanging, and yet at the same time. It affirms that he can and does alter his attitude towards people and his way of dealing with them. First Samuel chapter 15 in verse 11 says God speaks and he says I am grieved that I have made Saul king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. Verse 29 he who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind. 40 is not a man that he should change his mind is not sound to you like in verse 11, he just changed his mind and then in verse 29 were told that he doesn't change his mind. I'm grieved that I made Saul king. I wish I made him king now than you to understand the fact his love ones that there is no ultimate inconsistency between these two modes of expression because actually when God is said to change his mind.

It is really an accommodation to artists when God is said to change his mind matters are being viewed from our human perspective because it appears to us that there is been a change in God. But what in fact has actually changed is our human conduct, not God. So in other words, Saul was no longer the man he had once been. He had now become persistently disobedient. The Ninevites in reverse had also change their conduct, but in the opposite direction they had turned away from evil and so God would have been inconsistent in his attitude towards them. Had he responded in the same way. Despite the change in their behavior.

Right.

That would've been the inconsistency because God is consistently against. There is no variation in his loathing of it all in his determination to punish it.

That is a constant feature of his character, but when God announces that his judgment is about to fall upon the sinful. It is a statement of what will inevitably happen if they continue on their present course, but it is a conditional statement.

It is intended to alert the wayward to bring them to repentance. And if that occurs, then God responds accordingly to the changed circumstances. Let me just give you one verse of all and worry about overnight. Jeremiah chapter 18 and verse seven. If it anytime I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed. And if that nation. I warned repentance of its evil then I will relent and not inflict on it. The disaster I had planned, and if 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 so though it may not be explicitly state the announcement of impending disaster is conditioned on continuing disobedience. Just as the enjoyment of the blessings of God's covenant is conditioned on abrasions, so the just judgment of God takes into account the altitude and the situation of those to whom his demands are addressed and it is only because God does respond in this way that the sinner who believes in Jesus can come to know divine acceptance.

Otherwise, how can anybody be saved. Why is it that one thief was banished from the presence of Christ and the other thief was today important ice guard was absolutely settled in his response to sin.

He never equivocated for a moment he never changed his mind and relationship. He said if you remain in your unbelief if you remain impenitent human rebellious. Then, inevitably, the judgment will fall on you. That's what will happen to the thieves of Lord we remember me when you come in jerking the subject. Today you will be with me in paradise.

What changed the heart of the individual.

Well, that such a response should result from one man's preaching in a pagan metropolis should surely provide a great encouragement to us whenever and wherever we are called upon to proclaim the gospel.

Take your place and declare the word of the Lord and be aware lest you go home with Jonah in verse one of chapter 4. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry and he prayed to the Lord. Oh Lord, that's not what I said when I was still at home. That's why I wanted to run away, I knew you were gracious and compassionate, slow to anger in a blinding and left a God who relents from sending: God, why did you have to go ahead and save those people. How strange from the lips of a prophet.

Strange, fascinating contrast, the repentance of an entire city. The stubbornness of one prophet your listing to truthfully were in the middle of the series called man overboard.

Alastair Begg will continue the study tomorrow, so be sure to join us again as we think about the story of Jonah and his stubborn rebellion against God's gracious will. It's easy for us to develop an attitude of superiority.

The fact is, all of us fall short of God's standards in so many ways.

He commands complete obedience absolute holiness, and we simply can't do it no matter how hard we try words that leave us the book impossible commands takes a unique look at this dilemma.

It helps us navigate our desire to live faithfully while being trapped inside the sinful condition. This wonderfully insightful book explains how we can respond to this very difficult predicament. If you're all too familiar with this pattern of recommitting to God's instruction, only to be met with the disappointment of falling short.

You'll find great comfort in a whole new pattern to follow in the book.

Impossible commands would love to send a copy of the book.

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Hoping you can join us again tomorrow as Alastair continues our study the book of Jonah. The Bible teaching of Alastair Beck is furnished by truth for where the Learning is for Living