Jonah 2:10
• Like the Israelites marching into Canaan, Jonah may
have been preceded by his sign.
• At some point, God “resets” the story and begins a
second time in ch. 3:1 as in ch. 1:1.
• This time we get to see a second story. What would
have happened if Jonah never ran?
Jonah 3:3
• Ellul: “Nineveh is nothing other than the nest of a
brood of rapacious birds.”
• A city built by Nimrod the plunderer, Gen. 10:10-11
• Nahum 3:1 Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and
plunder – no end to the prey!
• Nahum 3:19 … All who hear the news about you clap
their hands over you. For upon whom has not come
your unceasing evil?
Jonah 3:4
• Worst preacher ever.
• Worst program ever.
• Worst sermon ever.
• Worst news ever.
Jonah 3:5
1. Maybe the sign of Jonah worked.
2. Maybe God knows hearts and circumstances that
we don’t know.
3. Maybe sometimes you just fling the truth out
there and works because it is from God.
Ultimately, they believed because he preached!
Karl Barth on Romans 1:16: “Anxiety concerning the
victory of the Gospel … is meaningless, because the
Gospel is the victory by which the world is overcome.
By the Gospel the whole concrete world is dissolved
and established. It does not require representatives
with a sense of responsibility, for it is as responsible for
those who proclaim it as it is for those to whom it is
proclaimed. It is the advocate of both.”
Jonah 3:5-9
• They are afraid (v. 5).
• They are united (v. 6-7).
• They are ashamed (v. 8).
• They are unsure (v. 9).
Ultimately, they repented because they believed!
Jonah 3:10
• God knows the hearts of men.
• God knows the actions of men.
• God is merciful.
Ultimately, they are forgiven because they repented.
Matthew 12:39-41 But he answered them, “An evil and
adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will
be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For
just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The
men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it, for they repented at the
preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater
than Jonah is here.”