Revival in Missions: Jonah Chapter 3
Introduction
Well, good morning. Please turn to Jonah chapter 3. I bring you greetings from Hillview Baptist Church. The elders there were checking in with me last night and were very interested to know how things were going here. And I told them I’m doing my best. Pray for us as we continue at this missions conference.
We have been going through this book of Jonah, and this morning we find ourselves in the third chapter. We come to Jonah 3, where we see God’s desire for the gospel and for His salvation to reach the ends of the earth.
When God Accelerates His Work
There comes a time in the work of missions and evangelism that God accelerates His work in bringing salvation in a special and unusual way. It’s rare. Most pastors and churches, most missionaries, most missionary movements will not experience this acceleration of the work of God in bringing people to salvation. In fact, it’s often synthesized or produced or forced. Sometimes people are gathered into stadiums and put into this emotional stupor and made to be excited and are told emotional stories and called up front. They come in their masses and are told to repeat a prayer, and reports are sent out saying thousands or hundreds or whatever it might be came to salvation.
But even the late great evangelist Billy Graham in an interview in the 1990s said that he thought that only 25% of all those who came forward at his crusades ever actually became Christians. Studies have been done to follow up these masses of people who come up front and repeat these prayers and make these commitments. And some say, as results of their studies, that only 6% of those who come up actually one year down the line have any change or transformation that occurs in their lives. My opinion is that the number is likely much lower than that.
It’s not difficult—we talked about this last night—to get people to come forward. Just tell the keyboard player to play the strings, and dim some lights, and tell an emotional story, get the brother or sister with a wonderful voice to sing “Just as I Am” slowly, and people will come forward. But they will not be transformed lives.
True Revival
That being said, there are times when God moves in unmistakable, powerful, undeniable ways with results that are real, tangible, lasting. Some have called them awakenings. Some have called them revival. For example, there’s the First and Second Great Awakenings in America and in Britain, when thousands of people professed faith in Jesus Christ, and it was undeniable.
In the First Great Awakening from 1730 to 1755—about 25 years—a handful of preachers proclaiming the Word of God led a revival and thousands of people, some say up to 50,000 people, got converted and became Christians. The population was only about a million, and so this was a pretty significant number from the population. It was undeniable. Bars and taverns shut down. Debts that people owed were paid. Families were reconciled. Crime rates plummeted.
One of the men involved, Jonathan Edwards, said, “God has seemed to have gone out of His usual way and made bare His holy arm.” In fact, Edwards, who said these words, who was a very conservative, cautious man, recorded the surprising work of God at that time in a document, in a book that he called “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.” And he defined revival as “nothing but the Spirit of God poured out in a far greater measure than the ordinary.”
That was in America. Around the same time over in England, another revival was happening under John Wesley. Unlike the awakening in America that was raw and disorganized, the one in Britain was very organized under John Wesley. There also tens of thousands were converted over several years. And the same things happening in America were happening in Britain. Drunkenness plummeting. The culture of swearing was beginning to disappear. Slavery was beginning to be abhorred. Cockfighting, prostitution plummeted. And the church called the Methodist Church was born.
Wesley said in 1739, “The Lord is doing a great revival of religion.” Twenty years later, it was still going on. He said, “God is visiting England with a day of Pentecost.” And twenty years after that, he wrote, “We are in the midst of a glorious revival.” By the mid-1800s, about 100 years later, one in 30 people in England were Methodist. One in 30. Just 100 years earlier, there was no Methodist church. 100 years later, one in 30 in England were Methodist.
There have been other revivals. The Korean revival in the 1900s, when Korea went from 1% Christian to 20% Christian in one generation. Today, South Korea has 30% Christians. In fact, one time, one of the members of my church—you know, they send out missionaries from Korea, imagine. One time, one of the members of my church said, “Pastor, there’s a man who’s built a four-story building, and it’s got accommodation, and it’s got a big hall that can seat a thousand people. Let’s go meet him.” And we went to meet him, and I found a Korean missionary in the middle of nowhere in Lusaka. How did this happen? And that’s when I learned that from the 1900s, there’s been a great move of God in Korea, from which missionaries that are Korean have even been sent out.
And in case you think this only happened in the past, there is in China, and has been in China, over the last 50 to 70 years, an undercurrent of revival. In 1949, there were under 2 million Christians estimated in China. Today, the number has risen to 100 million—100 million Christians in China. The irony is that in 1949, the communist government took power in China and expelled all Christians, all the missionaries, and began to heavily persecute Chinese Christians. And yet there was an explosion of these what they call underground house churches, where they are under the radar, but quietly and silently revival is happening. And today, we’re talking over 100 million Christians in China. There are more Christians in China today than card-carrying Communist Party members.
But of all these revivals, none is greater than the revival in the book of Jonah.
Scripture Reading: Jonah Chapter 3
Jonah chapter 3, the greatest revival of all time. Just 10 verses, let’s read it.
“Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.’ So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!'”
End of sermon. Probably the shortest sermon in history. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
“And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.'”
Have you ever heard of a church fast where even the animals are fasting?
“‘Let neither man nor beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.’
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”
Can this happen today? Can this happen in South Sudan? Can this happen in Kasama, where a brother was sent earlier this year? Can this happen in Tanzania and Angola, where brothers will soon be sent out of Kitwe Church? The answer is absolutely, without a doubt, yes. Can this happen in Kitwe? Absolutely yes.
God still wants to get His message out and gather for Himself a people from every tribe, every tongue, every language, every people, every nation. God desires to reach the ends of the earth with the message of His Son whom He sent to save His people from their sin. So let us understand what revival is and how it comes about as we look this morning at revival in missions.
Revival in missions. I have five things. Let’s see if we can get through them.
Point One: Revival Is a Great, Extraordinary Move of God
Number one, revival is a great, extraordinary move of God. Verse 5 says, “And the people of Nineveh believed.” In chapter 4, we see that it was 120,000.
Every once in a while, people respond to the preaching of God’s Word in repentance and in faith. Revival, though, is a different story. Revival is a different ball game. It is marked by unusual numbers turning to the Lord. And this is what we have in Jonah chapter 3, when an entire city, we are told in verse 5, from the greatest to the least, turned to the Lord. It was extraordinary. It was unheard of.
Nineveh, we are told, was a great city, great in size compared to the cities of that day. Jonah had only gone a day’s journey. It was a three-day journey. And just going a day’s journey, by the time he was clocking out at 5 p.m. on day one and taking a break for the day, the word, we are told, had already gone ahead of him. And the people turned, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and pleading with God for mercy. By the time the king is getting wind of it and sending out a directive, “Hey, hey, guys, can we do something about it?” the people are saying, “Way ahead of you, king. We are already in sackcloth and ashes. Just join in what we are already doing.” It was extraordinary. It was unheard of.
And you know, there are people who resist the idea of revival. It’s almost kind of difficult to even get out of the Bible. You don’t even really find the word. And so they resist this idea, but you can’t miss it. You can’t miss this extraordinary move of God that is unlike anything you have ever seen that cannot be attributed to anyone else other than God. When masses turn to the Lord, and it’s out of the ordinary, and it’s undeniable—it happens.
Point Two: Revival Is Indiscriminate
Secondly, revival is indiscriminate. It is an indiscriminate move of God. We’re told in verse 5 that this touched everybody from the greatest to the least. From the king to the pauper. Everyone puts sackcloth and ashes on.
You know what sackcloth was? It’s basically clothing that’s torn up. Clothing that is finished. Basically you had everybody from those in palaces to those who are poor going into their closets to the bottom of their closets to pick those clothes that were ripped and finished to put them on. That’s sackcloth. And then they went and picked ashes from under the pot from the stoves that were burning the previous day and put ashes on their heads. And it was everybody from the greatest to the least.
Do you know how we know we are dealing with revival? Do you know why it’s undeniable? Because it touches everybody. It’s not just the men. It’s not just the women. It’s not just the children. It’s not just the business people. It’s not just the educated. Everybody is hit. Everybody is touched from the greatest to the least.
You know you are dealing with a revival when people who are significantly different all respond. And so you can’t reason through it, you can’t explain it scientifically or anthropologically. You can’t explain it away. You can’t say, “Well, it’s just this tribe, it’s just this people.” It’s indiscriminate, as everybody is hit by it.
Point Three: Revival Is a Result of Preaching
Thirdly, revival is a result of preaching. Jonah 3 verses 1 and 2: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.'”
True revival, real revival is not a result of psychological tricks. Sometimes we cheapen revival. When we see a new church planted, and in a short span of time, there’s already 50 people there, there’s already 100 people there, we begin to think, “Ah, it’s a revival.” And we can’t even track it to—there are churches that have thousands, but you go in there and there’s no real preaching happening. The gospel is not being proclaimed, itching ears are just being told what they want to hear. You know you’re not dealing with revival, this is something else. These are psychological tricks.
Revival doesn’t happen through movies, putting up a Jesus movie and showing a very graphic depiction of Jesus being nailed and screaming on top of His lungs and looking bloody with a crown of thorns, and people are so moved by that. “Oh, look at how He bled, look at how…” And they have no understanding of the significance of what is actually happening on that cross.
Revival is the fruit of preaching. It comes through telling people the truth of God’s Word. In other words, the extraordinary work of revival comes through ordinary means. The means are not extraordinary, the results are. The means are very ordinary. You can go and analyze and try and figure it out. Maybe there’s a pastor here who is not experiencing revival, and there’s a pastor here who is experiencing revival, and he goes to consult his brother. “Brother, what are you doing? What are your methods? What are your…” And he discovers, “I’m doing the very same thing. It’s not different. I’m preaching just like you are preaching.” But how come you have received revival? “Brother, just go back and keep preaching. Keep proclaiming the Word of God and leave it to the Lord to see what He will do.”
The Power Is in the Message
All Jonah did was proclaim the message. And that’s all that God asked of him. God didn’t say, “Jonah, go and do somersaults. Go and fill up stadiums.” Just go preach. And that’s what Jonah does. He just takes a walk through the town. It’s a three-day journey. “I’m going to take a day at a time and walk through the town and I’m going to call out against it the message that God has given me.”
The power is within the message. It’s not even within the preaching. Jonathan Edwards, one of the key players of the First Great Awakening in America, was not much of a great orator. His most famous sermon was called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And he did exactly what Jonah was doing here. He just called out against sinners and said, “If you continue in your sins, you’ll fall into the hands of an angry God.”
And he wasn’t even saying it the way I’m saying it. In fact, Jonathan Edwards would put his arm on the pulpit and read out—this is how he preached, he just read his notes, monotone. Just read what he had written there. And amazingly, in monotone, just reading his sermon, not even looking up at the people, just reading his sermon, people were falling and collapsing. People were actually being lifted out of there on stretchers and being resuscitated. People were screaming out, “We’re finished! We’re done for!” And all he did was read out his sermon. It’s not even in the power of the preaching, it’s not about the volume, it’s about the message.
The Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 1, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The power is the message. And so all the pastor needs to do is unleash it, declare it, and let God do what He’ll do with it.
Jonah’s message was not even powerful. The shortest sermon in all the world resulted in the greatest revival ever. It was even a half-hearted message. It was just judgment, no good news there. How does he put it? “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” It’s coming. There’s no hope in the message. But that was enough for God to use this half-hearted, not even powerful sermon and people came to faith.
Point Four: Revival Is Evidenced by Repentance and Faith
Fourthly, revival is evidenced by repentance and faith. We need to take a few minutes on this one. Revival is evidenced by repentance and faith.
Verse 5: The people of Nineveh did what? Believed God. That’s faith. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth. That’s repentance.
Jonah 3:8—this is the king speaking—”But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.”
The king has been preaching more and more clearly than Jonah did. “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.”
What Is Repentance?
What is repentance? What is faith? Start with repentance. Repentance is misunderstood. People think repentance means a change of actions. If repentance was a change of actions, then works save us. Then it means that God requires that we change our actions in order for us to be saved. Is that true? No, God says come as you are—the sinner that you are. God doesn’t say stay as you are, but He says come as you are. God doesn’t say go fix yourself, go change your ways, go amend your ways and then come. Repentance is not a change of actions.
Repentance—in fact, all you need to do is look at the Greek word metanoia. Meta means “change.” Nous is “mind.” It’s actually a change of mind. It’s actually a change of thinking. It’s a change of perspective. It’s a realization. “I have sinned against a holy God. I’m guilty. I deserve His wrath and His punishment.” And so your mind changes. Repentance is a heart change. It’s a grief over sin. It’s a resolve, it’s a commitment to live in obedience. The fruit of that is now the change of actions.
No wonder we are told in the Bible, for example, Matthew 3:8, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” The change of actions is the fruit. But we all know before actions change, the heart must change. Before actions change, the mind must change. And that’s what we’re going for when we’re preaching. That’s why we’re not just trying to clean people up on the outside. We’re going for their heart. We want them to see God as He is, holy. We want them to see themselves as they are, sinful. We want them to see where they are heading, hell. And we want them to cry out to God for mercy. That’s repentance.
And that’s why we are told multiple times about them fasting, putting on sackcloth and ashes. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to show we’re broken. We recognize that we’ve messed up and we want God to have mercy on us. That’s repentance.
Repentance actually is a grace if you think about it. It’s a grace that God doesn’t say go clean yourself up then come. It’s a grace that God says what I want to see is that your heart has changed, your mind has changed. That you see Me as holy. You see yourself as sinful and that’s why you cry out to Me for mercy. And that’s all God requires. A change of mind, a change of heart. Sorrow over sin and resolve to be different.
What Is Faith?
How about faith? Faith is trust. There cannot be revival unless people repent and have faith. Repentance is how we view our sin. Faith is how we view Christ. Faith is where we place our hope. Not in anything that we have done, but in everything that God does, in the offer of salvation from God.
I talked about this earlier. I said, people filling up a church, a pastor shouldn’t get excited because the church merely gets filled up. “Oh, there’s revival.” On what basis? “We’ve just gone from 100 to 500.” Well, brother, has anybody repented? Has anybody believed? “Well, we’re working on it.” Get back on your knees, go and preach, go and work. Come and tell us about people who have repented and believed. Then we know that there’s revival.
So faith is trusting in God, trust in Christ, and hoping in Him, and looking to Him and saying, “Have mercy on me. If You don’t have mercy on me, I have no hope.” And for us, they didn’t have Jesus crucified on the cross by this time. For us, it’s looking to the provision that God has made for our salvation.
Both repentance and faith are graces of God to us, that you don’t need to work. You know, those in hell only have one person and one person only to blame—themselves. Because God had made the way for salvation simple. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but I’m certainly going to tell you that it’s simple. Just repent and believe, and all is forgiven.
Point Five: Revival Is All of God
Fifthly, and finally, revival is all of God. Revival is all of God. We’ve talked about repentance and faith as the result of revival. We’ve talked about preaching as the means by which the revival comes. But lots of preaching happens all the time, but revival doesn’t happen all the time. People trickle in, people get saved here and there.
Revival is a mighty move of God. And it’s undeniably a work of God. Because you look at two churches and they do the exact same thing, believe the exact same thing, and revival breaks out in one and doesn’t break out in the other. How do you explain that? It’s God. It is the sovereign God. Salvation, the theme of Jonah—salvation belongs to the Lord. And if He chooses to work in this area, in this church and not in this one, it’s all of Him. It’s up to Him. It’s His decision. And He does as He pleases.
The Need for Prayer
And this means we need prayer. If revival is all of God, then we need to appeal to the One who holds revival in His hands. There needs to be a dissatisfaction. “Lord, 10 converts this year are not enough. Lord, 20 converts this year are not enough. Lord, we want more. Lord, You’ve sent showers of blessing. We’re praying for a thunderstorm. Lord, we see trickles of Your hand and You at work. We want to see a great move by You amongst us. Lives transformed. Lord, do it because it is all of You.”
As we have seen, what we have here is a pitiful preacher, a pitiful audience for the message, and the pitiful message itself. And the book of Jonah is clearly telling us salvation belongs to the Lord. Revival belongs to the Lord. God is the only ingredient here that is able to make this happen and make this work. Nothing else explains what happens in Jonah. It’s a deficient message, a deficient audience, a deficient preacher. But revival happens.
And so the hidden element, the hidden message here in Jonah is the key place of prayer for revival to happen. On our knees, pleading with God.
Men of Prayer
When you look at the lives of these men by whom revival came in the history of the church, these were men of prayer. Even when you look at mighty moves of salvation in churches. Spurgeon—you’ve heard of Charles Haddon Spurgeon—how in every single sermon he preached, at least one person got saved. Wow. One time when they had worked on the building, he was just testing the acoustics. Have you heard the story? And to test—some of us would say, “Hello, testing one, two. Can you hear me there, testing one, two?” He decided to say, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” to test the acoustics. And one of the cleaners in the balcony heard that and got saved. Imagine. Some of us are sweating up there for 10 years, nobody’s getting saved.
So one time Spurgeon was giving a tour on a Sunday morning to some visitors. I think they came from America, the story goes, because Spurgeon was in England. And he was showing them around the church building. And then he took them to the basement. And he opened the door, and it was a Sunday morning. And he opened the door and he told them, “Shh, look in there.” And there were people praying. And he said, “That’s where the power comes from. Every Sunday, there are people under the basement of the church praying. And that’s where the power you hear about Charles Spurgeon comes from.”
Why? It’s all of God. It’s not the power of Charles Spurgeon. Certainly not the power of Jonah. It’s the power of God. Can God do this in Kitwe? Can God do this in Sudan? Can God do this at Kitwe Church, at Hillview, where I’m coming from? He can, he can.
The great hymn goes:
Revive Thy work, O Lord,
While here to Thee we bow.
Descend, O gracious Lord, descend.
O come and bless us now.
Revive Thy work, O Lord.
Give Pentecostal showers.
Be Thine the glory, Thine alone.
Because the only one we can attribute revival to is God. Be Thine the glory, Thine alone. The blessings, Lord, be ours.
Let’s seek revival.
A Word of Encouragement
I often wonder, why doesn’t revival happen more often? Why is it that most pastors—I would estimate maybe 80%, 90%—who go through their entire ministries and all they’ll see are trickles? Never see a great move of God. Back at Hillview, we’ve had an influx of people coming into the church, certainly religious, but interacting with them, you can tell these are not saved, they are not Christians. And some of them come for years, and it breaks my heart—they come for years. And they sit under my preaching, Sunday in, Sunday out, and they leave the way they came.
I once complained to another pastor, “I’m not seeing conversions, it’s getting embarrassing, you know? And I’m standing up there and I’m preaching and nobody’s getting saved, it’s getting concerning. I’m worried the members are going to come and say, ‘Pastor, what’s going on? Is there a sin in your life that we need to deal with?'” And I’ll never forget. I’m preaching the gospel every Sunday, and someone comes from Uganda, and I just meet him on a Saturday at a wedding. “Oh, you’re a pastor? Preach for me Sunday.” “No problem.” And he comes in, preaches—English not even that great—and a guy gets saved. And he comes to me and he tells me, “Pastor, I’ve become a Christian.” How? “Through that guy who came to preach from Uganda.” You—I’ve been preaching the same thing! Every Sunday! And he’s saying, “No, so what touched you?” “No, he said Jesus came and died for my sin.” What? Are you deaf?
Sometimes God Is Working on the Missionary
A word of encouragement to the brothers who will never see revival. You know what I’ve concluded? Sometimes God is working on the heart of the missionary. That’s the only explanation. God is not just interested in working in the audience, He’s working in me. And as I experience that frustration and wonder, “Why is it this guy comes with a silver bullet one Sunday and it works? I’ve got a machine gun every Sunday, and nothing is happening.” Well, God is working on me as well. And sometimes He may withhold revival, and He’s working on you, and it may trickle in.
Sometimes—I was encouraged this way—whether that guy understands it or not, or realizes it or not, you laid the foundation. And that message that brother preached was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but you had already loaded the camel with truth and he just came and placed a feather and the whole thing came crumbling down. Sometimes God is working on us.
Sometimes God uses revival strategically. There are things He is doing by allowing this outbreak of salvation and unleashing His Spirit on people. And there are things He’s doing in the world. There are things He’s doing in history that we’ll only understand when we get to glory. Why revival happened for that faithful preacher but it didn’t happen for that other faithful preacher.
The Example of David Livingstone
I gave a seminar on David Livingstone at our church, the great missionary and explorer, and he had trouble speaking to our ancestors, even us Zambians, as he would move from village to village. And every Sunday he preached. You know, he’s accused of abandoning mission to become an explorer. It’s not true. Even his exploration was all about making entrances into Africa for the gospel to get through and the gospel to come in. But every Sunday through his travels, he would stop at whatever village he lands at and he would travel on Sunday. And you know what he would do? He would hold a service and he would preach.
David Livingstone preached to thousands of Africans in that way, but he hardly knew any converts. He wrote in his journals how hard the hearts of the Africans were to the gospel. He said they want me for my medical help. They don’t want to hear anything I have to say about Jesus Christ. They listen attentively and they go back into their wickedness and into their sin. And then he wrote, “May those who come after us never forget the sacrifices that we made.” He said a day will come when people who come after us will preach one sermon and people will be saved at once. May they not forget the sacrifices and the labors we made to lay the foundation.
Be Faithful
So must we pray for revival? Absolutely. Must we be frustrated when it doesn’t come? No. It is a sovereign work of God. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He will do it if He pleases, and He has reasons for why He does it, but we must never be satisfied with little. We must always be seeking His face and say, “Lord, do a work.” And that’s the role that you have. As these brothers go back, you’ve got to be on your knees. You’ve got to be praying. They need those prayers, lifting them up, coming alongside their prayers and looking to God to move mightily among them as they labor for Him.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, we are astounded. And I think that’s the whole idea at the greatest revival in biblical and world history where one message, one pitiful message, one half-hearted message results in the salvation of an entire city, a great city of over 120,000 people. We long to see work like this in our own time and lives. Our hearts ache as we see people trickle in and we long for a thunderstorm, a great move of You amongst us. May we never tire of storming the throne of grace. May we never tire of banging on the doors of heaven and pleading with You to do a mighty work. But we know that ultimately it’s up to You. We ask that we might never be discouraged, that we might take the fruit that You give us, but remain faithful. Do a mighty work, we ask, in our day, amongst our people, in our churches, in our church plants, in our mission stations. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.