JONAH: The Power of Repentance
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
Examples of Repentance
We talked about repentance, and I’ve just been thinking about different seasons in my life where I have messed up, where I’ve had to repent. I’ve shared with you—Venessa and I just got married, and I thought it was a good idea—this store, it’s kind of connected with Walmart, more in their international branch. It’s called The Game, and they had this special on this big TV. Right? And I thought, “Well, that would be good for us as a couple to have this big TV.” I thought, really, Venessa wanted that. And so when I bought this TV, I didn’t talk to her about it, and I did not even make it. I kind of had to call her to come and help me carry this thing. It was like those old box TVs, like 72 inches or whatever it was. And I called Venessa all proudly, it’s like, “Come, honey, come and help me. Let’s get this thing. Look what I got for you.” It didn’t go well. Right? And so the TV didn’t even make it into the house. I had to take it back to Game. And so there was a lot of repentance that day with Venessa.
Now, repentance towards your spouse is one thing. It’s another when it comes to our relationship with God and the things that we do, and sometimes the sin and things that is in our life and areas where we deal with rebellion. And it is important for us to look at this topic on repentance. And God is so faithful. It is just—I’m so amazed because this is a beautiful story. And again, God’s forgiveness—when we do repent, when we turn away from from evil, when we turn to God, the good that can happen.
My first year in college—I think I’ve shared this with you too—it’s like I really never got involved with hard liquor, alcohol, and stuff. But my first year in college (it was either first or second year), in the campus there were some other college students, all seminary students, and they were one night in a room, and I ended up to go and visit with them. And they were playing an alcohol game with tequila, right? And so I thought—I don’t know, I was probably bored. I don’t know why I got involved in that. And I played the game. I wasn’t very good at the game and obviously got drunk that night and ended up probably getting alcohol poisoning. But I remember—or maybe it was like Thursday night because the next day I had college. And so I just remember I got so sick that night, and I felt so ashamed because, again, Scripture tells us not to get drunk on wine, right? And here I’m getting drunk. It’s like, I’m a seminary student. It’s like, “Steven, you should know better. How did you get into this mess?” But again, there was no joy. You know, you look at some people when they’re drunk, and just—there’s some joy. There’s maybe getting something out of the deal. This wasn’t true for me. I was as sick as a dog, and I was praying for—just like, “Lord, if I make it through this night…” And in that moment, I was kind of—death looked pretty good, the way I was feeling. That didn’t happen, but I repented that. I said, “Lord, I never want to be drunk again. It’s like, this is just it’s a horrible experience. And again, as a child of God, I don’t want to put myself in this situation. I repent. Forgive me.”
And again, but there was consequences. I remember that I had to take the bus. There was a—probably took about an hour, hour and a half, to get from where I was staying with my bus to get to the seminary, and it was a long ride. And it was a long day in that college. And just sitting with this headache and the consequences of that. It’s like, “Steven, you are so stupid. What did you do?” Right?
God of Second Chances
And so today we’re gonna look a little bit on a bigger scale when it comes to repentance. So if you have your Bible with you, I want you to look at just that last verse in chapter 2. So we’ll start there.
And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Okay, so then we’re gonna go into chapter 3. But just kind of see that picture. Imagine you’re on the beach, right, just having a good time. Next thing, there’s a whale that ends up there on the beach, and it vomits a person out. Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s kind of like, that’s a “wow” factor, right? That’s a that’s a YouTube moment right there. And if I was Jonah, I would have milked that situation. Now let’s look, and let’s continue, chapter 3.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…
I don’t have time this morning to go into a lot of details, but I just want you to take notice in the way that the book of Jonah was written. You’ll see that there’s kind of—chapter 1 and chapter 3 goes together. They’re very similar, and chapter 2 in verse 4. So just look at Jonah chapter 1:
The word of the Lord came to Jonah…
Okay, and then look at verse 1 in chapter 3:
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah…
And you will see some of those parallels throughout the different chapters, and just fascinating when you see how it is written.
But it says it “came to Jonah a second time.” When we look back at Jonah chapter 1, when God was speaking to Jonah—and remember, he is a prophet. He is supposed to speak the word of God. And so God is calling him and saying, “Hey, I have a word. You need to call Nineveh to repentance.” Right? And he runs in exactly the opposite direction. He’s like, “No way, I’m out of here. Those guys are evil. They deserve the wrath of God. I want to see destruction over them. I don’t want to go and preach God’s word, because these guys then are gonna repent,” and then they’re not gonna be able to experience the destruction that he wanted to see in their lives. And so he’s running. He’s not faithful to the word of God in that moment.
But here we see now God speaks to him a second time. Now, when you read commentaries, here is—really, this is the heart of the point that most scholars will agree on—that God is communicating that God is a God of second chances. That’s good news, amen? Because who of you have messed up in your life before? Who’s messed up? Right? Most all of us. A couple of angels sitting here that hasn’t messed up. And it’d be so easy for God to just say, “Oh, you’ve messed up. You’re canceled. No second chance for you. There is a hundred other people that I can use instead.” This would’ve been so easy. Jonah is running in the opposite direction and to the things that God has called him, and here God is still using him, and he gives him a second chance. I am grateful. I need a third chance and a fifth chance and a tenth chance, because we mess up. None of us are perfect, and our lives are still in—it’s, it’s a process, right? We haven’t arrived. We aren’t perfect. It is because of the blood of Jesus Christ that we are made righteous. But in my own, my heart is evil. I am selfish. There’s all kinds of stuff that I mess up with, and I need the grace of God.
And here we see that we do serve a God of second chances, and he’s the God of second chances in your life, but so many times in our own lives, we go, “Well I have messed up. There’s no way that God will give me grace or will allow me forgiveness. He’s done with me,” and we put ourselves in that place. And I have done that many, many times, and I’m so grateful for the Lord where he has shown up and said, “Steven, I am the God of second chances,” and I’m grateful. And guess what? That’s why I can be here on a Sunday morning and worship God. Why worship is so important for me because I realize again, man, who God is, his sovereignty and how beautiful it is, how beautiful his love and his grace and his mercy is in my life, because I don’t deserve it. I know myself. I know the stuff that is going on in my heart, and I need this God of second chances, and you need this God of second chances.
But guess what? Sometimes we don’t always get that opportunity. It doesn’t mean that God has to give us a second chance. So we don’t have a license here to sin. We don’t have a license here to be rebellious and not to be obedient. When God calls us, let’s be obedient. When the Spirit of God is leading us and guiding us, and when we’re reading God’s Word, for us to do our very best to be obedient to the Word of God, because there is not a promise that God will always show up, right? I’m not God. I don’t know how all of that works.
And at the end of the day, we know that there’s consequences. When we mess up, when we turn our backs on God, and when we get involved in the wrong things, guess what? There’s always consequences for sin. Sometimes it’s small; sometimes it’s big. And Jonah could have saved himself a whole lot of trouble if he was just obedient the very first time.
Preach the Message
Verse 2:
“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
So God is saying, “I want you to go. I want you to go to this capital of Assyria, and I’m gonna give you the message.” Now, I got to believe that there’s, again, still—because we’re gonna see that in chapter 4—Jonah is still dealing with some stuff in his own heart and in his own life. And God is saying, “Okay, go.” He had some time with God in the belly of the whale. Who knows? You’re probably gonna learn how to pray when you’re in the belly of the whale. You’re probably gonna seek the face of God when you’re in that situation. And so there was a bit of a turnaround and some working of God in his life in the belly of the whale. And so now he is actually going. But God says, “You need to preach. I’m giving you a message.”
Now, church, when we look at this, this is still true in our lives. God still commands the church to go out and share the message. We have the message of God. We have the message of hope, and it can bring transformation in people’s lives. But we got to share it. For people to believe, they got to hear the message, they got to hear the Word of God in their lives. So we can sit, and we can look at—to see how the world is falling apart and all of the evil stuff that is happening, but if the church is not standing up and speaking the Word of God, then how will we ever experience a transformation and revival and repentance? If people don’t know what repentance is, if they don’t know who a holy and sovereign God is in their lives, how will they know if we don’t preach? And we have the gospel message in our lives, right? We have the Word of God, and God still calls us. When you look at Matthew, when you look at the Great Commission, he says, “Go and make disciples.”
You’re quiet. Is it the heat?
When last have you shared the gospel? When last have you helped somebody understand the Word of God and to come to repentance? When last have you shared the gospel message with somebody? We have a message, and we need to go.
Spiritual Warfare
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord…
What a turnaround here.
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming…
So here’s the message. Look at his message. Verse 4:
“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
That’s it. That’s at least what we have here in his sermon. So he is facing—he’s going into this large city, an evil city. And by the way, evil is not something new. Evil has always been around from the get-go. From Adam and Eve, right, we see evil coming into this world. And it has never stopped. There’s always been evil. Evil is around us. God’s Word reminds us that we are in this spiritual battle, right? I don’t know if you believe in the demonic and different things, but Satan has a plan for this world, but God has a bigger plan. But there is a spiritual battle going on.
I had a fun conversation this morning with Kathy on some of the things that she shared with a missionary in South Africa, and things that he shared with her, and she’s like, “I’ve never heard that stuff. I didn’t realize that that’s the stuff that is sometimes going on.”
Just because things are hidden and just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean that there’s not a spiritual battle that’s going on. There’s a spiritual battle going on every day, fighting for your life and for the future of our kids and for this world. And I got to wonder, if you pay attention to everything that is going on—not just on a national level, but when we look at it on an international level—it’ll be fascinating to be able to stand in the spiritual realm and try and peel some of these things away. And I think we will be amazed, first of all, to see what the enemy is doing. But that shouldn’t freak us out. What should be more exciting is to see God’s hand in all of those things as well, because his hand is way bigger. But all I can say, if you pay attention—I don’t know if you can feel it, if you can sense it when you look at the world—it’s like there is a spiritual movement going on. Things are happening. I don’t know what it all means. I don’t know how it all is gonna fall into place. The only guidance I have is when I read Revelation. Then I get a picture of some of the things that might be happening. But I think we have to be honest. We have to use a spirit of discernment, and we look at this stuff and say, “Man, there’s a lot of stuff that’s going on.”
The Power of God’s Word
And so Jonah’s got a word. Here is the message, right? It says, “Man, you guys have forty days, and then it’s gonna go down. Repent.” Now, this ain’t a Billy Graham message. It’s like, I can do this. But God uses these incredible words.
Now, again, think about this. Why is he giving them such a short message? He doesn’t want this to work! He still wants them to experience the wrath of God, so he’s just giving them a small piece. It’s like, “Okay, don’t let this work. Don’t let this work. I’m gonna be obedient. Okay, God says repent, forty days, you guys are gonna be destroyed if you don’t turn your back on all of your evil ways. But don’t let it work.” I can imagine him saying this, like, “Don’t listen to this. Don’t listen to this. Don’t listen to this.”
But somehow, by the grace of God and by the power of his Word—because God’s Word still works—it impacts their hearts. And you see a whole transformation that happens in a nation. This is one of the most incredible revival stories that you and I will read about. It is powerful.
So remember, again, what we shared with you in chapter one. This is an evil, evil kingdom. An evil nation. Horrendous deeds. And you would think, at least in our minds, we’re like, “There’s no way that they can experience the wrath of God.” But Jonah goes in, and he preaches the word of God.
The Action of Repentance
Let’s continue. Verse 5:
The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
Now, we got to talk about this. This is not something that we are used to in our culture. What is the sackcloth and ashes? What does it mean?
In ancient times, sackcloth and ashes were used as a public demonstration of repentance and mourning. Sackcloth was a coarse material, often made from goat’s hair, that was uncomfortable to wear. It symbolized the discomfort and pain of sin. Ashes represent desolation and ruin, a visual reminder of the consequences of sin. When people wore sackcloth and covered themselves in ashes, they were expressing their deep sorrow and humility before God, acknowledging their sins and seeking his forgiveness.
Now imagine, again, this evil king, an evil city, an evil nation—they hear the word of God, they respond, and they repent. They go so far—I mean, you see them wearing the sackcloth, right? And you kind of identify a little bit of just their deep, deep sorrow. When last have you and I experienced a deep, deep sorrow and brokenness when it comes to our own heart? And areas where we feel ashamed about our sin, and where we get so convicted in our lives and say, “Lord, I want more. I want to live holy. I don’t want to deal with this evil stuff that is—anything that doesn’t bring glory to you.” And that is what he wants for his church.
But there’s a deep repentance in this whole nation. And the king is this godly example.
Venessa was cutting all of these... Oh, my piece fell off. Okay. Thank you. Venessa was cutting all these little pieces for you last night, and some of it was on her leg as she was cutting it, and she was all itchy afterwards. And I can tell you this—even now, this is not comfortable. Right? Very uncomfortable. Imagine wearing this today in this heat, right, and just representing—it’s like, hey, this is representing my sin. That sin should be uncomfortable. We shouldn’t be comfortable with sin and the stuff that is happening in our world. We shouldn’t be comfortable with the stuff that is happening in our hearts that is not pleasing to God. We should repent. We should bring it to him. And we should turn around. Amen?
You guys are very quiet. Waiting for the ashes? I’m skipping the ashes today.
This wasn’t anything new. You see actually throughout scripture, Esther 4:1, again, kind of just this idea about sackcloth. It says:
When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.
There’s a conviction in people’s lives, in godly people’s lives, when they look at the evil and the stuff that is happening in the world, and they’re repenting. There’s a brokenness that happens in godly people’s lives.
And I wonder even in our own lives—sometimes I get so frustrated with myself when sin doesn’t impact my heart, when I don’t feel brokenness, when I see stuff that is happening in our world, when I see stuff happening in churches, and it is not breaking my heart.
As I was going back to Fairmont—it was such a joy to be back with the church and to see some of the faithful saints. And they’re still serving. It’s like, you know, 13+ years, and they’re just being faithful to God’s Word. It was great. It was such a celebration to see what God is doing. But then I also heard about all of these marriages, some marriages, and people divorcing, right? And I got so emotional and sad. And it’s like, how did this happen with God’s people, with godly marriages? I was like, “This, I’m sure, is breaking God’s heart. This is not what he wants for his church. It is not what he wants for his people.”
Reflections
Just two reflections here, just kind of we look at this passage. And I’ll continue to read it here.
But Reflection 1 – When we look at the impact of a single voice. The impact of a single voice. So many times we might ask ourselves, like, “Well what is my voice? How is my voice gonna make a difference?” Well God used one voice, the voice of Jonah, to bring revival. Obviously the Holy Spirit was behind it, right? There’s some supernatural stuff that is going on here. But God uses one voice to bring revival to a nation. God can use your voice. God wants to use your voice to bring change in your family, to bring change in this nation.
Number 2 – The role of leadership in repentance. Let’s read here. So (verse 6):
When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth.”
Imagine just walking there around, and you see here’s a donkey and a horse and a cow with a jacket on. But that was the image.
“Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
The role of leadership is important. The role of leadership in church, the role of leadership in our nation—it makes a difference.
We have such a profound year again ahead of us, and we see all of the political stuff that is going on, and soon we will have to vote, right? And when we look at our options to somehow, through all of this, to try and discern and read God’s Word and see how this all lines up. And God, where are you in our elections? Guide us because we need people that will be godly. We need people that is gonna guide the nation well, because either you’re gonna have godly leadership, or you’re gonna have evil leadership, right? But leadership will lead us somewhere. And somehow we have to try, and we have to vote, and we have to discern, and we got to be on top of some of these things that is going on, right? But leadership matters. In all areas.
What is Repentance?
But it is so beautiful to see how this king’s heart is being impacted, and he’s repenting, and he’s leading the whole nation to repentance. He’s a godly example.
So what is repentance? Repentance is more than just feeling sorry for our sins. It involves a complete turning away from sin and turning towards God. It’s a heartfelt recognition of our wrongdoing and a commitment to change our ways.
And we see the evidence of repentance in their lives. We see that they fast; we see that they cover themselves in sackcloth; they call on God in prayer; and they turn from their wicked ways.
Repentance costs something. If you repent, then there’s got to be a transformation that happens in our lives. Bruce Wilkinson, in this quote, he says, “Repentance means you change your mind so deeply that it changes you.
Olympic Controversy
Now let’s talk about the Olympics. You got your seatbelt on? All right.
So, some of you might know what’s going on, some of you might not. We did not watch it on Friday night; we had some other family plans. And so I was hoping to watch the opening ceremony. I always enjoy that, or most of the time enjoy that. And I was gonna watch that on YouTube, see if I could find any of some of that, and obviously I couldn’t find the whole thing. So I did not see the whole ceremony. But then I could see some of the comments and the different bits and pieces, and there’s obviously several things that is going on.
Now how do we respond? What do we do with all of this information? A couple of things. Take it, leave it; I’m gonna tell you how I am processing it. Right? And you might feel differently. You might not agree with me, and that’s okay; I still love you. And hopefully you will still love me, right?
Some things here that we have to realize.
That Satan is busy. These things should not surprise us. There is evil in this world, and Christians throughout the ages have experienced persecution. Jesus experienced persecution. If you’re gonna say that you are a follower of Christ, if you follow the Word of God, you will experience persecution, because you will be swimming against the stream of what our culture is telling us. And somehow in all of this confusion and stuff that is happening in our world, we have to study the Word of God, and we have to come up with a biblical conclusion—not on man’s opinion, but we have to really study it, and we have to allow the Word of God to speak to us and bring conviction to our hearts and to the things that matters to God. And yes, I was offended with some of the stuff that I saw, and I hope as a believer that most of you, that your heart was impacted. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how I feel. Right?
What happened on some of these things—if I understand it correctly, and again, I didn’t see all of it. All I can say is this: This was a mockery against God and what we believe, because it doesn’t make sense to me when we think about the Olympics, right? When you go and read the definition and the purpose of the Olympics, it is to unite nations and to bring athletes together, and the way I grew up watching the Olympics, the hosting nation gets to use that to share and celebrate their culture. Right? And to create an aweness about, “Man this is the opening, and here’s all of these athletes that have worked so hard to be there, and we want to celebrate them. We want to celebrate their accomplishment. And it is a gift and a joy to host all of this. And let’s share with you a little bit of our culture.”
So it doesn’t make sense to me, the stuff that happened here, it doesn’t speak to the culture of France. It was, I believe, an attack on Christianity, a lot of the stuff that was happening. Now again, you might not agree with me, but that is my take. And when I’m reading all this stuff, and even seeing—grateful for the Catholic Church on some of their take and stance on some of these things, at least being a voice. It is good. But at the end of the day, this was a slap in God’s face. And that’s the thing that matters, right? And so it doesn’t help for me to go and overreact.
And so now we have a couple of things as we think, how do we deal with that? You know, I’ve seen online people say, “Well, I’m just not gonna watch the Olympics.” Now I don’t know if I can watch any of the Olympics; we don’t have cable TV. If there’s some stuff that we can watch, I would like to watch some swimming and stuff with Hailey. But I’m just, I’m frustrated that here you have athletes that have worked so hard preparing for this moment—a dream for them to be on that world stage sometimes with their gifts and their talents—and now this is the focus.
And so I just don’t think—so this is just me. This is just me. You don’t have to follow me. You don’t have to agree with me. I totally understand. I don’t see it in the Bible. I don’t have the 10 steps here how God wants me to deal with this specific situation. I know that there’s people that say, “Let’s boycott the Olympics.” It just feels to me like we’re playing into this whole “cancel culture.” Where will it stop? Are we then really gonna stop shopping online with Amazon? Because we can’t just pick and choose. But what I will say is this: Let’s celebrate the athletes. Let’s celebrate their hard work. There’s a handful of people that made some of these evil decisions. We don’t have to punish the athletes for some of these evil decisions that they have made. It’s how I feel. You don’t have to agree with me. But me not watching and celebrating the gifts and the talents of these athletes is not really gonna do anything to people that have made that decision.
But don’t be surprised. Satan is at work. Your faith will be under persecution until Jesus returns. And it might ramp up. It might ramp up. But here’s the answer to all of this: We got to continue to speak the Word of God. We got to preach the Word of God. We got to look for those opportunities to share God and to share the gospel message and allow people to repent and for the Holy Spirit to do a work in their lives. Because here is a whole nation—France can turn. They can repent. And I’m hoping that there’s missionaries. Usually with these big events, there is missionaries and the Gideons and different things that are super active in those areas. And so pray for them. Pray that the right messages will come across.
So this morning you received a sackcloth piece as well. And I want to encourage you this week, this month—maybe you put it in your Bible, maybe you put it on your shirt. One is to just think about repentance in your own life. Right? God calls us to repentance. But even maybe instead of canceling the Olympics and not boycotting all of that, what if we actually, when we’re watching it, every day say, “I’m gonna pray for the people of France. I’m gonna pray that the Holy Spirit will bring a conviction to their hearts and that God will deal with the evil.” And by the way, not just France. A lot of this stuff—France was just gutsy enough to bring a lot of this stuff, what’s in their hearts, bring it out into the public, because we’re in the same place, by the way. And so America needs to repent in some of these areas too.
A Moment to Repent and a Moment for Joy
Here’s the good news, and I’ll close with this. Psalm 30:11. This is David.
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy
There is a moment to repent—that’s great, we need that—and to come to the Lord, but boy, there’s a moment of joy when we have repented and when we have experienced the forgiveness of God in our lives. We don’t have to sit in that misery. We don’t have to sit in that guilt, right? When we have given it to God, then we’ve given it to God, and he forgave us. He doesn’t think about it again. His blood comes in, and it washes us clean, right? You don’t have to dwell on it, and you don’t have to feel guilty about it day after day after day after day. So we repent and we experience the forgiveness of God. We don’t have to experience that destruction. And guess what church? We get to experience the joy of the Lord because we are saved, and we serve a merciful and a loving God. Amen?
