See Jonah Reap

True confession is admitting openly your sin to Jesus Christ. So to avoid the Lord is to avoid true confession. And to avoid true confession is to avoid true forgiveness, since Jesus Christ is the only source of true and lasting forgiveness. The Apostle Paul wrote it to the Ephesians this way, In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. Do you ever for the gospel to spread?

People must be willing to share it. Do you ever struggle in your commitment to fulfill the great commission that Jesus gave us? As we've been studying Jonah these last several days, we've seen that Jonah's mission field was a nation of idolatrous, bloodthirsty people.

He resisted at first. I wonder if we ever act like him and run from the people that God has called us to speak to. Instead of running from people, we're supposed to be running toward them with the message of the gospel. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey continues this series with a message called, See Jonah Reap. A recent Wall Street Journal had a front page article entitled, Confession Makes a Comeback. It opened with a comment that, quote, sin never goes out of style, but confession is undergoing a revival.

That really piqued my interest. The article went on to catalog several different events that are growing in popularity, where people can confess their sins. In Colorado Springs, you can confess your sins during your trip to the Citadel Mall, where Catholic friars have come in their brown fryer gowns and listened to your confessions. You can shop, grab a caramel latte, pop in for a confession, head home absolved for yet another day. I came across some creative ways to confess, if you're too embarrassed to confess in person. For a modest fee, one company allows you to talk on the telephone to one of their personnel, and they'll go confess for you.

Kind of interesting. I went to one online site, by the way, where people could anonymously write out their sin in hopes of finding relief from their guilty conscience. True confession cannot be done online. It can't be done on the telephone.

They can hire somebody to do it for you. In fact, true confession is never a secret you keep. True confession is admitting openly your sin to Jesus Christ. It isn't for some priest on earth, since Jesus Christ is now the high priest, the only mediator between God and man, 1 Timothy 2.5. To avoid the Lord in all of these creative meanderings is to avoid true confession. And to avoid true confession is to avoid true forgiveness, since Jesus Christ is the only source of true and lasting forgiveness. The Apostle Paul wrote it to the Ephesians this way, In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us, Ephesians 1 5-6. Now if you want to see true confession, if you want to see hearts exposed and sin admitted and consequences accepted, the place you might never turn to in the Bible happens to be the perfect description of true confession. Where do you think you could find that? The book of Jonah. Amazing. You are really on the ball. Alright, the book of Jonah. Shocked, aren't you?

Turn there, would you? The book of Jonah. Jonah has begun to preach the word of God in Nineveh. In the English language, his sermon was eight words long. Now, we call this in Bible Exposition class, the main idea. He said a lot of things, but what we're given is the main thrust, the basic homiletical point.

Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now we can be certain that Jonah spent time telling the people about the true and living God. Because we're told in the very next verse, look there, verse 5, that the people of Nineveh believed in God.

They would have to know something about this true and living God of Israel in order to transfer their faith from Dagon, you remember him, the fish god, over to Elohim, the word used here, the true and living God of heaven. And so Jonah evidently described what it meant to believe in God and who this God was. And the text says after the main thrust of his God-honoring preaching, the people believed in God. The Hebrew word translated believed, aman, comes from a verb that means to confirm, to support. The tense of the verb indicates they considered that what Jonah was saying, they confirmed it was true, they supported him. They said, we believe you, we know what you're saying is the truth. But what's amazing is that it was simply a very direct, if not offensive, sermon.

It was extremely simple. And the people believed in, not Jonah by the way, they believed in God. The people believed in God. True faith never rests in the messenger. It always rests in the message of God. It was that kind of simple message where Jonah had invited the Ninevites to look to the God of Israel and they looked and they believed.

They exercised faith no longer in their idols, the idols of their fish gods, but on the God, the God of Israel. Now the proof of true confession is repentance. It's an about face. Repentance means you turn around and you head in the other direction. In fact, the New Testament word for repentance, metanoia, simply means a change of mind. You change your mind. And the change in mind brings about a change in direction.

It affects your feet and your hands. Your mind affects everything else. Did these cruel, barbaric, arrogant, idolatrous people really change their minds? Did they really believe genuinely in God? What I want you to notice are two proofs of true confession in this text.

First, their confession radically changed their personal lives. Look at verse 5 again. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. Now, what you have is from the king to the commoner exchanging their clothing for sackcloth. Sackcloth was a coarse, rough, dark colored cloth, usually made of goat hair or cotton. It was used for making sacks of grain.

Think of a burlap bag and you've just about got it. Whenever it was used for clothing, it was used to symbolize humiliation and mourning. You notice also in verse 6 that the king, it says, is sitting in ashes, which even further signified grief and humility.

Verse 8 is kind of interesting. It talks about them covering even their animals, their beasts, with sackcloth. This doesn't mean that they believe their animals sinned, animals don't have the will and ability to sin, or that animals then can repent. But what they're doing is they're making sure that even their property would become an outward testimony and expression of their humility and their mourning and despair and their grief over their sin.

It'd be like hanging a cloth, some kind of mourning cloth over your front porch to signify that there's mourning going on inside. They wanted even their cattle to walk around as testimonies that they are grieving over their sin before this God. They're fasting as well. They're giving up food in order to dedicate their time to pray to God for his mercy.

Now maybe you're thinking, well, Stephen, of course, they've been told they're dead in 40 days. It's the only reason they're doing all of this. They don't want to be judged by God.

Is that a bad thing? It seems to me that if someone wants to follow God because they don't want to go to hell, but they want to go to heaven, well, that sounds pretty selfish. Well, if that's all there is to it, well, yeah, but why don't you say this verse with me? For God so loved the world, say it with me, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. In other words, God loves you, sent his son to die for you, and if you believe in him, you won't die and go to hell.

You'll die and go to heaven. And by the way, the context of John 3.16 is that Nicodemus has come to Jesus Christ during the night and asked him, how can I get into the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus did not say, well, that's kind of selfish, never mind. No, he delivered to him the news of how he could avoid the judgment of God and enter the kingdom of God. And don't miss the fact as well that the Ninevites, they're doing this because of the goodness of God that's being evidenced in their lives.

Noah preached for over a hundred years and nobody believed. This is the work of God. Have you ever told an unbeliever you know of, you work with, you know, you're in trouble with God and what have they said? Oh, I've got to repent.

No. More than likely they'll say, well, big deal. Or how do you know? And so for this entire city to hear the news of God's judgment and say, we're in trouble, we believe it, we want to believe in God, is the work of the mercy and grace of God in their lives. It's the evidence of true, genuine confession. But there's something else that proves their genuine confession is more than just self-seeking. Their confession not only radically changed their personal lives, secondly, their confession radically changed their public behavior. Look at verse seven again.

He issued a proclamation, this is the king, and it said, In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing, do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth and let men call on God earnestly that each, now note this, each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Now the first proof of confession is personal. The second proof of true confession is public.

This is a radical change of being a Ninevite, public behavior. Did you notice that the king here doesn't even bother to prove to the people that they're wicked? He just says, You're wicked.

Now confess it. He doesn't try to prove to them they're violent. He says, Stop it. Get rid of the violence in your hand. You need to turn from your wicked way and from the violence that, by the way, they were all known for around that world. Let's repent, he's saying. Let's turn around. Let's change our minds.

Let's change our lives by and for the grace of this God who may allow us to live. Now can you imagine a king like this making a proclamation like this? It's one thing to call a nation to pray. In fact, that's still politically correct in a crisis. It's another thing to call for a national day of repentance.

Have you ever heard of one of those? We are calling for a national day of stopping sin. Do you understand the significance of this king's proclamation? He is not calling for personal or public prayer. He's calling for personal holiness. He's calling for national repentance. The king is saying, Look, let's stop rationalizing our sin.

Let's not deny our reputation for violence because everybody does it too. Let's not excuse our sin. Let's not minimize our sin. Let's not cover up our sin. We're going to confess it and get this.

Let's decide to stop it. Wouldn't that be something? If one of our leaders called on America to repent. Well, that would be the beginning of a great awakening, perhaps. So I have to tell you, I don't get excited when I hear some leader call for prayer. Something bad happens and from the president on down to the news anchors, they talk about their prayers. Listen, all it does is make unbelievers feel good and religious for a few days and then go back to living like a Ninevite.

Not here. This is true confession. This is a nation that's going to change.

What a vast difference. Notice their open and honest prayer. Verse 9, it includes, Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish. Now, from the human point of view, it looked like God then perhaps would change his mind because look what happens. When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them and he did not do it. From the human point of view, it looked like God changed his mind. God knew. From the divine point of view, it was simply God responding as he had already purposed to the change in the hearts of the Ninevites toward him.

Isn't that amazing? Who knows? Maybe God will forgive us. Maybe God will have mercy on us. And do you know how often God has mercy on people who ask him for mercy? Do you know what the percentage is?

One hundred percent. Frankly, if we learn anything from this amazing response, we need to remain open to the work of God's grace, God's mercy, and grace comes to the most unlikely. I doubt any faithful Jew in Samaria or Jerusalem had the Ninevites on their prayer list. Don't forget to pray for the Ninevites. I doubt anybody ever said that in a Jewish prayer meeting.

Ninevites were nowhere near the list of most likely to believe. Sometimes God's grace breaks through in unexpected ways and in unanticipated places. Who would have ever believed this would happen in Nineveh?

Here's the point. If Ninevites can repent, anybody can. No one is beyond writing down on your prayer list. No one is too violent. No one is too cruel.

No one is too far gone. No one is too sinful. No one is too idolatrous that Christ cannot redeem them. So for those of you who are in this study with me at this point, maybe someone's come to your mind and perhaps you have checked them off the list, put them back on. Or perhaps you have committed some sin that you think God has taken you off the list because of it.

He forgives 100% of the time for those who truly confess their sin to him. So here in Nineveh you have this amazing awakening of people coming from darkness to light. Evan Roberts was the preacher whom God used to bring about an awakening we talk about even to this day. In the early 1900s in Wales, it all began at a small meeting where he was preaching to a group of young people that he pastored as a volunteer. He astonished them by giving them four things to do that would radically change their lifestyles as believers.

I'll give them to you. First, confess all known sin. Secondly, get rid of anything doubtful in your life. Third, be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly. And fourth, confess Jesus Christ publicly. By the end of the first week, 60 young people had responded and they took up this challenge of these four activities, confessing all secret and public sin, getting rid of all compromise in their life.

No more doubtful activity. If it wasn't clearly something God-pleasing, they weren't going to do it. In other words, they raised the standard of holy living as high as they dared. They openly, thirdly, lived with a sense of anticipating whatever it was that God might want them to do. They stayed alert to the impression of the Spirit of God through his word. You can imagine how this changed how they were students. You can imagine how it would affect their honesty on a test, their relationships.

It affected everything. Finally, they told people whenever they had the chance that they belonged to Jesus Christ. And this, of course, implied the invitation would be given to others to accept Jesus Christ.

By the end of the second week, so many were signing on by the grace of God Evan Roberts started on a whirlwind tour of South Wales with a team of young people who would sing. And within one year, 100,000 people genuinely converted to Jesus Christ and joined the church. And I quote, As people confessed their sin and pleaded for the controlling of the Spirit of God, they did all they could do to confess wrongdoings and to make restitution. One proof of genuine repentance was this unexpected activity which created severe problems, especially in the shipyards along the coast of Wales. Over the years, workers had pilfered all kinds of things. Everything from wheelbarrows to hammers had been stolen. However, as people sought to be right with God, they started to return what they had taken with the result that soon the shipyards of Wales were overwhelmed with returned property. There were such huge piles of returned tools that several of the yards actually put up signs asking the men to stop. One sign read, and I quote, If you have been led by God to return what you've stolen, please know that the management forgives you and wishes you to keep what you've taken. What a change of heart. What a radical change of lifestyle.

And the world didn't know how to handle it. What do we do with this? We don't know how to deal with honest people confessing their sin, returning stuff they've stolen. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, when we began this chapter in our last session, I mentioned that it held the answer to another reformation. It holds within it the keys, a commitment to preaching and teaching the words of God, no matter how simple the message. And it follows up then by what we've seen in this session, the commitment of people to the very heart of God, believing the words of God, seeking to please the heart of God, confess all known sin. Raise your standard of holy living beyond any doubtful activity.

Would you dare to do that? I've asked myself the same thing. Third, stay alert to obeying whatever it is, no matter how mundane, no matter how routine, assume you're in it, God has led you in it, do it for his glory. Fourth, confess Christ publicly in your sphere of influence.

Who knows? Maybe that would start a great awakening. I do know this, it would start an awakening in your heart and mine when we embrace this kind of personal living, this kind of public lifestyle. By the way, we know from biblical history that Nineveh enjoyed a generation of pursuing God. This was not one night of revival or one week or a month. This was genuine.

This took root. Sadly, most of their descendants would turn back again to idolatry and a hundred years after Jonah, God would destroy Nineveh in judgment. But this generation and their children believed. They truly confessed. They repented and followed after God. Think of this, we will one day meet converted Ninevites in heaven. Think of this, they will one day meet us. Let's all make sure we identify with the Ninevites here, lost in sin, helpless and hopeless before the coming judgment of God, but they believed in God.

It radically altered their personal lives, their public lifestyles as evidence that the grace of God had indeed been poured out on them and it was lavishing upon them, making confession true and genuine. But don't stop there, don't stop there. Stay at confessing all known sin. You don't need a priest, you don't need a pastor, you don't need a confessional. You can confess to God your Father through Jesus Christ, your mediator. You can do it immediately.

More wonderful than that is you can do that regularly, daily, sometimes hourly. Stay at it. Become good at confession. Then keep avoiding doubtful things.

There's an undertow that pulls us into gray. Stuff that muddies our minds and it clouds our fellowship and we give ourselves excuses and we make loopholes for ourselves. And then stay obedient to the Holy Spirit. Stay open to his work and to his will.

Maybe his Spirit is provoking something in your heart even now to be alert to, no matter how difficult or mundane. And then commit to making your relationship this week public knowledge. There will never be a great awakening if we're all secret believers. If all we ever do is sing in here, say amen in here, study in here, pray in here. If we never take it out there, an awakening will never begin. He uses messengers with a simple message, I belong to Jesus Christ and I want you to belong to him as well.

Well, the work isn't finished here yet in Nineveh. In fact, there is one person who is going to hold out on God. Jonah.

Yes, the book's written about him. Everyone else has opened their heart to God and Jonah is in the process of closing his. Well, this gracious God, as we'll see in our next session, has used Jonah's words and we're going to watch him reach out to Jonah's heart. Thanks so much for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen's been working through a series on the book of Jonah called The Prodigal Prophet.

We have one more lesson to go in that series and that will be next time. Between now and then, we'd love to hear from you and learn how God's using these messages to bless and encourage you. Or maybe you just have a comment or question you want to share. Our email address is info at wisdomonline.org. Be sure and like our Facebook page and we post our daily Bible message to our YouTube channel, so subscribe to that as well. We'd enjoy interacting with you. If you prefer to correspond by mail, let me give you that address. Your card or letter will find us if you address it to Wisdom International, P.O.

Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. Well, thanks again for joining us today. I hope you have a great weekend and that you'll be back with us Monday for more wisdom for the hearts. Thank you.