Jonah 3:1

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”3 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. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

“overthrown” - destroyed; changed completely.

In a word picture, what it means is: The whole city is getting turned upside down by God.

In Jonah’s day, Assyria was rising to global dominance. Nineveh was their capital—massive, intimidating, brutal. They saw themselves as unstoppable. Israel, by comparison, was small, divided, and spiritually compromised. From an Assyrian perspective, the Jews were nothing more than a fragile hill-country people with an outdated deity. Their gods had conquered stronger nations—why would they fear Yahweh? And yet, God sent Jonah—not with an army, not with a miracle, but with a message. — Tim Keller

Jonah 3:5 

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.

Jonah 3:6 

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 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. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 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.

Sackcloth was clothing that you would put on to demonstrate repentance

Jonah 3:9 

Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 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.

When they repented, God relented.

Who in your world needs to be changed completely?

Jonah 3:2 

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

Jonah 1:2 

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

Love doesn’t mean silence in the face of evil.

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,

John 9:39

For judgment I have come into this world

Judgment isn’t the absence of love, it’s an expression of it.

We actually want God to be a God of judgment.

It's not loving to overlook evil.

We want a God of judgment for them, but we don't want a God of judgment for us.

Grace makes total sense when it’s for us.

We’re not so different from the people we want God to punish.

Can we trust God in His judgment?

4 things about God’s judgment

1. God’s judgment is fair

Psalm 98:9

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.

Jonah 4:11

Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who notice this: do not know their right hand from their left

2. God’s judgment is loving

Jonah 4:2

I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

3. God’s judgment is restorative.

Jonah 3:10

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented…

4. God’s judgment is sacrificial.

Jonah 3:6

he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in dust.

Jesus didn’t just step off a throne—He stepped out of heaven.

He didn’t just throw on sackcloth—He put on skin and carried our sin.

He didn’t just sit in the dust—He laid down in a tomb.

And three days later? He walked out of it… so you and I could walk out, too.

Jesus is the King of Kings who judges justly and rightly and loves relentlessly.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.