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"So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh"

Text: Jonah 3:3

A CHASTENED SERVANT OF GOD

Jonah heard the word of the Lord and immediately he responded to this command. He had been chastened and he determined that he would fulfil his vow as a faithful prophet of God.

“So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh,
according to the word of the LORD.
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city,
a three-day journey in extent.
And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk.
Then he cried out and said,
‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!'”
Jonah 3:3-4

1. “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh”

a) Jonah could not have forgotten his recent episodes.

i) Of being caught in a severe tempest.

ii) Of being in the belly of a great fish.

b) He would not have forgotten his prayer to the Lord.

i) He had made a vow to God (Jonah 2:9).

ii) He needed to pay the vow he had made.

iii) That vow must have involved obedience to the Lord.

c) Had God desired him to go to Nineveh?

Then to Nineveh he would go!

2. Nineveh

a) This was the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

b) Brief description of the city:

i) It was an “exceedingly great city” (in the ancient world).

ii) It would take three days to walk from one end of the city to the other.

3. “And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk”

a) Jonah went to work immediately.

b) On the very first day he began to preach to the city of Nineveh.

4. “Then he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!'”

a) It would take a very courageous man to go to the heart of Nineveh and proclaim this word.

b) This was the message God wanted Jonah to preach. It was a message of warning to the city of Nineveh that it would be destroyed in forty days! It was an alarming message!