Nineveh Repents: God Will Not Despise a Broken Heart

Introduction

The Momentum preacher opens Jonah 3, a chapter where the unthinkable happens: a pagan city, violent, wicked, with a reputation for terror, bows before the God of Israel after a single day of preaching. Great Nineveh, 120,000 people, the equivalent of the 8th or 9th arrondissement of Paris, covers itself in ashes, fasts, cries out to God, and turns from its evil ways. And God, who had determined judgment, spares the city.

The title of this message comes straight from Psalm 51, King David's prayer: "God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart." What David experienced, what Jonah finally discovered at the bottom of the sea, the Ninevites are about to embody in a radical way. This is a hymn to the glory of God's grace, an awakening to his mercy for every enemy who returns.

In the background of the sermon is an image of Paris, not Nineveh. Because the question this chapter asks isn't first of all archaeological. It's for you. Are you ready to hear the bad news of coming judgment, and the immense hope of forgiveness offered to anyone who returns to God?

Article outline

1. A second chance for Jonah and for Nineveh (v. 1-2)
2. True repentance comes from faithful proclamation (v. 3-4)
3. A deep despair: Nineveh takes God seriously (v. 5-8)
4. An immense hope: who knows whether God will not turn back? (v. 9)
5. God forgives anyone who comes to him in true repentance (v. 10)

1. A second chance for Jonah and for Nineveh (v. 1-2)

The chapter starts almost like a broken record. Jonah 1:1: "Now Yahweh's word came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying." Jonah 3:1: "Yahweh's word came to Jonah the second time, saying." Jonah had fled west, as far away as possible, down into the hold of a ship, then into the belly of the great fish at the bottom of the sea. He learned that the living God is an inescapable God, but also a hand that saves.

In the ancient world, every civilization had its local gods: the god of the mountain, the god of the sea, the god of fertility. Jonah and the people of Israel know that Yahweh is not some small local god you can dodge. He is the one living God. You cannot hide from him in some corner of the world.

And this time, the command is the same as in chapter one: "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you." Before God, Nineveh was "an exceedingly great city, three days' journey across." A rebellious superpower, whose wickedness had come up before God (chapter 1). To place it, the preacher notes that Nineveh's location is today's city of Mosul, in modern-day Iraq. In Jonah's time, it was the capital of a terrorist state, known for sending waves of terror ahead of its regular army.

And it is to that very people that God sends his prophet. Not first to destroy, but to warn. Because God does not let evil run rampant with impunity, but before final judgment, he lets people know his intention. It is one thing for judgment to come and for God to say nothing to anyone. It is another for judgment to come and for God to send a messenger to prepare a response.

2. True repentance comes from faithful proclamation (v. 3-4)

This time, Jonah obeys. Verse 3: "So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to Yahweh's word." And in verse 4, he proclaims to everyone, plainly and without polish: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The time it takes to cross the city (three days' journey) is the time it takes to cover every corner, every square, every street. And in every square, the same announcement: in forty days, it's all over.

Is what Jonah does a model for evangelistic preaching? The preacher answers: no and yes. No, because we're not required to have Jonah's hard heart, which lets only the hard part be said. And yes, because he still says the essential thing: judgment is coming, it has a deadline, and God will show the end of his patience.

To grasp the difference, the preacher points to Acts 17. When Paul arrives before the Athenians, he takes his time. He quotes their poets, explains that there are not many gods but one, that in him we live and move and have our being, that he is the one who gives us breath. He meets them in their culture, with sensitivity. And then he ends his speech by saying that this God raised a man from the dead, by whom he will judge the world.

You might be tempted to say to Paul: "You started so well, why end on judgment?" Simply because preaching God's word faithfully means not skipping the announcement of judgment. Failing to speak of God's judgment to this world is failing to preach the gospel faithfully. This is what Jesus himself announces in Mark 1:14-15: "The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News."

Perhaps, as a comfortable Western Christian, you sometimes forget these deadlines. You feel like life is one long, calm river. You paddle a little, sometimes harder, and you move forward. But what Jonah says, what Paul says, what Jesus says, is something else. Life, under God's gaze, is more like a river rushing toward a waterfall: God's righteous judgment against everyone who has rebelled against him. And the question this text puts to you is simple: what will you decide?

You can try to paddle, like many religions do. That will not get you out of the rapids. Being a Christian is not just collecting a set of true and useful facts about God, a bit like Jonah, who knew his psalms by heart. It is coming to realize, more and more, that the living God we sing about is the inescapable God. And that proclaiming his gospel means calling people to him so they can receive forgiveness of their sins, be saved from his judgment, and be transformed into his image.

3. A deep despair: Nineveh takes God seriously (v. 5-8)

And this is where the miracle happens. Verse 5: "The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least." The preacher invites us to read this slowly. An entire city (the equivalent of a whole Parisian arrondissement), which, in a single movement, hears an uncomfortable word and believes God. When the word is proclaimed faithfully, the word can do its work.

The contrast is striking. Jonah takes time to describe this repentance in detail, almost as though he hadn't seen the same movement much among his own people, Israel. Historical records confirm it: the people who did know God were the opposite of this attitude. A people who rejected God, turned to other idols, and produced evil at every level, from the king down to the least of them. A people about to be punished.

Look instead at the king of Nineveh (verses 6-8). The news reaches him. He rises from his throne, removes his robe, covers himself with sackcloth, and sits in ashes. Then he has this proclaimed throughout the city: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them be covered with sackcloth, man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands."

Extraordinary. These very terrorists, this arrogant superpower, Jonah's sworn enemies (people who did not even know God by his own name, Yahweh), are seized with deep despair. They take God's word seriously. They measure the uncrossable gulf, the wrath their wickedness calls down on them. They take seriously the bad news God addresses to all people in general and to Nineveh in particular.

At this point we must remember that we are heirs of Adam and Eve. Our default setting is not friendship with God: it is rebellion. We are not born friends of God; we are born his enemies. We are born more Ninevite than Israelite. That is what makes this text even more beautiful: if forgiveness is possible for Nineveh, it is possible for you too.

4. An immense hope: who knows whether God will not turn back? (v. 9)

But there is a but. This is not just deep despair before the unavoidable. Driven by the proclamation of the word, the Ninevites glimpse something essential. Verse 9: "Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?"

They know that if God is the inescapable God, the only judge, he also has the power to offer forgiveness, mercy, and salvation to anyone who calls on him. Jonah himself experienced this at the bottom of the sea: the same hand that exposed him to judgment also saved him. The Ninevites, in their genuine repentance, see the same thing even more clearly. True repentance is not only expressed in humbling oneself before God; it is also shown in immense hope.

This hope is like a rainbow over the rapids. If the God who made thundering, unavoidable waterfalls is able to set a rainbow above them, don't you think he is also able, he who will judge all people, to offer hope, to offer salvation?

The preacher's analogy is simple. On the road, when an oncoming car flashes its headlights at you, you check your speedometer and change your behavior. It's not always something we'd admit to, but we do it: we take the information seriously. On a river, if someone tells you "don't go there in your canoe," you pull the canoe to the bank or you change course. You change your behavior.

If you're capable of changing your behavior over things as trivial as that, why wouldn't information as clear and reliable as this (the Bible's, about coming judgment and offered forgiveness) be enough to make you change? To realign you with the God who is speaking to you?

5. God forgives anyone who comes to him in true repentance (v. 10)

God's answer fits in one verse. Verse 10: "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn't do it."

The wording is startling: "God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them." This is a set biblical phrase that shows up in several places, expressing the mystery that happens within God when people who deserved judgment are ultimately not judged, because they come to him asking for forgiveness. A grace-filled relenting. The relenting of the God who loves the men and women he created, who rebel against him, and whom he wants to save.

The Ninevites, however numerous and powerful, come before God with nothing in their hands. Just a cry for help marked by genuine repentance. And even more clearly than Jonah at the bottom of the sea, they know that their rescue rests entirely on who God is, not on anything they could offer him.

When you see the waterfall coming, the real question isn't "do we pray or do we paddle?" It's: stop paddling, stop believing that your own strength will save you, and pray. Because the Lord is the God who saves, and he forgives anyone who comes to him in true repentance. That is the central promise of the Bible and the supreme blessing for the nations.

What the Ninevites glimpsed from a distance, with such remarkable clarity, people of your time should be able to see even more clearly still. Because in the meantime, God let the judgment deserved by all people fall on his own Son. Romans 5:6-10: "For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man... But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God's wrath through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life."

A bunch of Ninevites, says the preacher, that's us. Born enemies of God, reconciled through the death of the Son, saved by his life. It must have cost Jonah something to speak to his enemies and tell them God was showing them grace. It might cost you something too. But remember: it cost Jesus so much more.

Key takeaways

• The living God is an inescapable God. You cannot hide from him in some corner of the world. Not Jonah, not Nineveh, not you.
• True repentance comes from faithful proclamation. It does not skip the announcement of judgment, because without judgment on the horizon, there is no good news of salvation.
• True repentance has two faces: deep despair and immense hope. Nineveh takes seriously both God's wrath and his possible mercy.
• We are born more Ninevite than Israelite. Our default setting is rebellion against God, which makes his grace all the more glorious.
• God forgives anyone who comes to him in true repentance. That is the central promise of the Bible and the supreme blessing for the nations.
• The judgment we deserved fell on Jesus. What Nineveh glimpsed from a distance, you can look at face to face at the cross.

Personal application

• Where are you with your own repentance? Is it a deep despair over your rebellion, paired with an immense hope in God's grace?
• Is there a way you're "paddling" in your life (relying on your own strength, your performance, your religiosity) instead of simply crying out to God?
• How do you talk about God's judgment around you? Do you avoid it because it's uncomfortable, or do you speak of it with courage and alongside the announcement of forgiveness?
• Who are your "Ninevites," the people you'd struggle to see receive God's grace? What does that reveal about your own heart?
• Take a moment of silence, and bring before God the people in your life (friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, enemies) who do not yet know him.

Verses cited

• Jonah 3 · main passage, the second word to Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh
• Jonah 1 · the first word, the flight, and the judgment intended for Nineveh
• Jonah 2 · Jonah's prayer at the bottom of the sea, "Salvation belongs to Yahweh"
• Psalm 51 · "God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart"
• Acts 17 · Paul before the Athenians, the announcement of judgment through the risen Jesus
• Mark 1:14-15 · "The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent"
• Romans 5:6-10 · Christ died for the ungodly while we were still enemies

FAQ

Why is Jonah's preaching only half a model for evangelism?

Because Jonah says the essential thing (judgment is coming in forty days), but with a hard heart that only says the hard part. He doesn't yet speak explicitly of the mercy that's possible. The preacher invites a comparison with Paul in Athens (Acts 17): Paul takes time to meet the Athenians in their culture, quoting their poets, before announcing judgment through the risen Jesus. Preaching faithfully means not hiding judgment, but it also means not stopping there.

What does "God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them" mean?

It's a set biblical phrase expressing the mystery of grace: when people who deserved judgment come to God in true repentance, he does not judge them. It's not that God changes his mind like a fickle person; it's that his merciful nature responds to the broken and contrite heart that turns toward him. The preacher calls it "a grace-filled relenting," the relenting of the God who loves his rebellious creatures and wants to save them.

How does this text apply to me if I'm not yet a Christian?

Precisely because you are in the exact situation of the Ninevites before their repentance: born an enemy of God, exposed to judgment, but also under a possible mercy. The difference is that you see much further than they did: you know that the judgment deserved by all people has already fallen on Jesus at the cross. All that remains is to do what Nineveh did: recognize your rebellion, cry out to God, and turn to Christ. God will not despise a broken and contrite heart.