The Savage Mercy of God Text: Jonah 3:5-9
Introduction: The Scandal of a Merciful God
The book of Jonah is a masterclass in irony. It is a story where the prophet is the villain and the pagans are the heroes. Everything and everyone in this story obeys God with alacrity except for the man of God. The wind obeys, the sea obeys, the great fish obeys, the pagan sailors obey, the worm obeys, and as we see in our text today, the entire pagan metropolis of Nineveh obeys. The only one throwing a tantrum is the prophet himself. And why? Because he knew something about God that made him furious. He knew that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and one who relents from disaster. And Jonah hated it. He would rather die than see his enemies forgiven.
This is the backdrop for one of the most astonishing revivals in human history. Jonah, having been vomited onto dry land after his three-day object lesson in death and resurrection, finally goes to Nineveh. He preaches what is likely the worst sermon ever recorded, a five-word grunt in Hebrew: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." There is no call to repentance. There is no mention of God's mercy. There is no outline of the plan of salvation. It is pure, unadulterated doom. Jonah wanted them to burn, and he preached a sermon that he hoped would light the match.
And then the unthinkable happened. They repented. The whole city, from top to bottom, turned to God in sackcloth and ashes. This event is so significant that Jesus Himself holds it up as a sign of judgment against the hard-heartedness of Israel. "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" (Matthew 12:41). The Ninevites repented at a five-word sermon from a bitter prophet, while Israel rejected the very Son of God who performed miracles in their streets.
What we are about to read is not just an interesting historical event. It is a profound demonstration of the raw power of God's Word, the nature of true repentance, and the scandalous, untamable mercy of God that confounds all our neat and tidy categories. It shows us that God's grace is not a tame lion. It is a wild, sovereign, and often offensive thing that leaps over the walls of our prejudices and saves our worst enemies.
The Text
And the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes. And he cried out and said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, animal, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat, and do not let them drink water. But both man and animal must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God with their strength that each may turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn away from His burning anger so that we will not perish."
(Jonah 3:5-9 LSB)
The Spontaneous Combustion of Faith (v. 5)
We begin with the immediate and shocking result of Jonah's minimalist sermon.
"And the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them." (Jonah 3:5)
The first thing to notice is what comes first. "The people of Nineveh believed in God." Before any action, before any fasting, before any sackcloth, there was belief. This is the biblical pattern. True repentance is not something we do to get God to like us. True repentance is the fruit of a faith that God Himself has planted. This was not the result of Jonah's persuasive rhetoric. It was a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. God's Word, even when delivered by a reluctant messenger, has the power to create what it commands. It is performative. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God's prophet says, "Nineveh will be overthrown," and the result is faith.
They "believed in God." The Hebrew is more direct: they believed God. They took God at His word. They heard the threat, and they did not rationalize it, debate it, or form a committee to study it. They believed it. This is the essence of saving faith. It is not simply intellectual assent to a set of propositions; it is taking God at His word and acting accordingly. And notice the scope of this belief. It was "from the greatest to the least of them." This was not a niche movement among the spiritually sensitive. It was a corporate, city-wide conviction. The Spirit of God fell on the entire city.
And what is the first fruit of this belief? They "called a fast and put on sackcloth." This was not a polite, private affair. This was a public, visible, and deeply humbling act. Sackcloth was a coarse, rough garment made of goat's hair, intensely uncomfortable to wear. It was the ancient equivalent of wearing your shame on the outside. Ashes were a symbol of grief and mortality, a recognition that we are but dust. This external humiliation was an outward sign of an inward reality. They were not just sorry for the consequences of their sin; they were grieved by the sin itself. This is the difference between worldly sorrow, which leads to death, and godly sorrow, which leads to repentance and life (2 Cor. 7:10).
Leadership From the Top Down (v. 6-8)
The revival that began with the people now reaches the highest office in the land.
"Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes." (Jonah 3:6)
This is what true leadership looks like in a time of national crisis. The king does not issue a statement from his press secretary. He does not blame his political opponents. He leads by example. He gets off his throne, the symbol of his power and authority. He takes off his royal robe, the symbol of his glory. He trades them for the sackcloth of a mourner and the ashes of a penitent. He humbles himself under the mighty hand of God.
This is a direct rebuke to every modern politician who thinks that repentance is for the little people. When a nation is under the judgment of God, the leaders must be the first to repent. The king of Nineveh understood something that our own leaders are blind to: his authority was derived. He sat on a throne under the ultimate throne of God. By stepping down from his throne, he was acknowledging the true King.
The king then turns his personal repentance into public policy. He issues a decree, and it is a radical one.
"Do not let man, animal, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat, and do not let them drink water. But both man and animal must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God with their strength that each may turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:7-8)
This is a total, absolute fast. Not even water. And it includes the animals. Now, why the animals? Is this some pagan superstition? Not at all. It is a profound theological statement. The king understood that man's sin affects the entire created order. When Adam fell, the ground was cursed for his sake (Genesis 3:17). The whole creation groans in bondage to corruption because of our rebellion (Romans 8:20-22). By including the animals in the fast and the mourning, the king was acknowledging the cosmic scope of Nineveh's sin. Their violence had not just harmed other men; it had wounded creation itself. This was a corporate confession that their sin had poisoned everything.
And the decree has two parts. First, the external act: fasting and sackcloth. Second, the internal reality it must reflect: "let men call on God with their strength that each may turn from his evil way." The king knows that outward ceremony is useless without genuine heart-change. Repentance, the Hebrew word shuv, means to turn, to reverse direction. He calls for every person to turn from two things: his "evil way," which is his general sinful course of life, and "the violence which is in his hands," which was the specific, characteristic sin of Assyria. True repentance is always specific. It is not enough to say, "I'm a sinner in general." We must confess and forsake our particular sins. For Nineveh, it was their brutal, bloody violence. For America, it might be our sexual perversion and the murder of the unborn.
The Hope of a Penitent Heart (v. 9)
The king's decree ends not with certainty, but with a desperate, humble hope.
"Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn away from His burning anger so that we will not perish." (Jonah 3:9)
This is the posture of all true repentance. It does not presume upon God's grace. It does not demand forgiveness. It casts itself entirely on the mercy of God, knowing it has no claim to it. "Who knows?" This is not the language of doubt, but of humility. It is the cry of a man who knows he deserves the fire but hopes for the water. He knows that God is justly angry, but he has heard just enough in the prophet's message, perhaps in his tone or perhaps by a direct work of the Spirit, to have a sliver of hope that this God might also be merciful.
The king hopes that God will "turn and relent." This is anthropomorphic language, of course. God does not change His mind as we do. But from our human perspective, when we repent, God's disposition toward us changes from wrath to grace. The turning is on our side, which results in a change in God's action toward us. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture. "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).
The king of Nineveh, this pagan ruler, understood the gospel better than the prophet of Israel. He understood that the only hope for a sinner standing before a holy God is to throw himself on the ground, confess his sin, and plead for a mercy he does not deserve, hoping in a grace that has not been explicitly promised. And in this, he is a model for us all.
Conclusion: A Greater Than Jonah is Here
The story of Nineveh's repentance is a glorious display of God's sovereign grace. But it is also a sign. Jesus said it was a sign pointing to Him. The Ninevites repented at the preaching of a reluctant prophet who spent three days in the belly of a fish. They were condemned by a five-word sermon, and they turned.
We have something far greater. We have the Son of God Himself, who spent three days in the heart of the earth and rose again in glorious victory over sin and death. We have not a five-word threat, but the full, lavish, explicit promise of the gospel. We have the message that God has already turned from His burning anger, not by ignoring it, but by pouring it out upon His own Son at the cross.
The cross is where the justice of God and the mercy of God met and kissed. Because of the cross, God can be both "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). Our repentance, therefore, is not a desperate "who knows?" We do know. We know that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We are not casting ourselves on a vague hope of mercy; we are fleeing to the accomplished work of Christ, where mercy has been purchased for us by His blood.
The question for us, then, is this: If the men of Nineveh will rise up and condemn the generation of Jesus' day, will they not also rise up and condemn ours? We who have been drenched in gospel preaching, who have Bibles in our homes and on our phones, who have heard the glorious news of a greater than Jonah. If we hear this news and do not repent, if our nation sees judgment looming and does not turn in sackcloth and ashes, our condemnation will be far greater than that of Sodom, and far greater than that of Nineveh had they not repented. For to whom much is given, much will be required.
Let us therefore learn from this pagan king. Let us get off our thrones of self-righteousness, lay aside the robes of our own accomplishments, and sit in the ashes of honest confession. Let us call on God with all our strength, turn from our evil ways, and cast ourselves upon the savage, scandalous, and saving mercy of God, which is found in the face of Jesus Christ.