G’day everyone. Welcome back to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. Dave here.

Did you know that you’re listening to these stories with people all over the world? In England and Russia and Australia and America and South Africa and The Philippines and Cambodia. And that’s really really cool. Because just like we’ve been seeing in Jonah, God is God everywhere. So people everywhere can get to know him. Don’t forget to hit “follow” in whatever app you’re listening on. That way you’ll get notified whenever a new episode comes out. Its usually one a week but sometimes there’ll be 2.

Now, I’m going to ask you to think of someone… and I don’t want you to say their name out loud. Just keep it in your head.

I want you to think of the meanest… nastiest… naughtiest person you know. Someone who you find it really hard to be around. Someone who makes other people’s lives miserable.

Have you got the name in your head? Remember don’t say it out loud.

Okay. Now I’m going to ask you a question.

Do you think that that person could ever be saved by God? Could they be forgiven? If they asked God to forgive them… would he? What do you think?

Well in today’s true story from Jonah chapter 3, we’re going to be hearing about a city from almost 2 thousand 8 hundred years ago. The city of Nineveh. And it had the meanest… nastiest… naughtiest people you can imagine.

Get ready for our next episode… of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

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Picture it! Ancient Israel. It’s a time of kings and battles, droughts and rain. A time when God chose prophets to take his word to the world. Mighty prophets like Elijah… who obeyed God’s word and challenged the 450 prophets of Baal. Prophets like Moses, who spoke God’s word to the king of Egypt and defied the gods of Egypt. And now… God’s chosen a new prophet to take his word. God said to Jonah… “Get up! And go to Nineveh, tell them they’re in trouble because they’ve been so evil.” So Jonah got up, and obeyed the word of the LORD…

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Wait, What?

That’s almost exactly the same start as Jonah chapter 1. Except… except then… Jonah ran away from God. He didn’t want to have anything to do with God’s special mission.

Now… Jonah obeys God’s word. God says go and he goes. What’s happened? changed? What’s made this big difference?

God’s made the big difference.

When Jonah ran away from him… God had a few options. He could just let Jonah go. And if God didn’t care about anyone… that’s what he would’ve done. God could’ve destroyed Jonah. Jonah doesn’t want God? Fine. He can’t live in God’s world then. It would’ve been totally fair for God to do that.

That’s not what God loves to do though. God loves to save people.

And so… God gave Jonah just enough of a taste of what it really means to run away from him… He showed Jonah what a silly decision it was to run away… and then… when Jonah asked to be saved… God saved him. He didn’t give Jonah what he deserves… He gave Jonah what he didn’t deserve. Forgiveness. Mercy. Kindness. And now Jonah’s ready to obey God.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell them that they’re going to get what they DO deserve. Nineveh isn’t in Israel. Its in a country called Assyria. And you might remember that the Assyrians are the biggest, meanest, nastiest country around. They loved boasting about all the people they’d killed and treated badly. They deserve to be punished by God. And now, Jonah obeys God and goes to Nineveh to tell them… that’s exactly what they’re going to get.

Now, verse 3 of Jonah three tells us this about Nineveh. It says:

It was a very large city. It took a person three days just to walk across it.

I don’t know about you, but I generally don’t walk across cities. So that doesn’t mean much to me. But obviously to the Bible writer that’s like… “Whoa! This is huge!”

Later in chapter 4 we’re told that there are more than 120,000 people there. Which is pretty small compared to big cities today. But in those days… it was massive. Its more than double the size of Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel.

So… it takes three days to walk across this huge city. Day 1… Jonah starts walking through the city. And he starts calling out the message that God’s given him. And to be frank… its not a very exciting message.

I mean… if you want to bring news to people… you kind of want it to be good news, right? Like… “Hey, guess what? Your baby brother’s been born.” Or… “Hey, you’ve just been selected to represent your country at the Olympics.” Or… “Great news everyone. The government’s just given everyone a year’s supply of any ice cream flavour you choose.”

That’s not the message that Jonah gets to say though. Jonah has to say the words that God’s given him to say. Its God’s word. And so this is what Jonah has to say. In verse 4 we’re told that he calls out:

“After 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed!”

Riiiiiiiiggghhhhtttt. You want to run that by me one more time?

“After 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed!”

O…k. I bet you don’t get invited to a lot of parties Jonah.

You’d think that with a message like that… it wouldn’t go down well. Maybe people’d just ignore Jonah. Or maybe they’d laugh at him. “Destroyed? We’re really strong. As if we could be destroyed.” Or maybe they’d get really angry. “Hey you. Go back home to your own country before we start chopping bits off you.”

But remember… Jonah didn’t just make this up. This is God’s word. And God’s word is powerful. When God made the world, he did it by speaking. When the fish swallowed Jonah, it did it because God spoke to it. Well now… God’s word’s come to Nineveh. And Jonah doesn’t make it the three day journey before things start happening. In fact, he doesn’t even make it past the first day. God’s word starts doing things to these evil people… immediately.

Let’s give it the drama it deserves:

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And Jonah came to the evil city of Nineveh. The city so evil… so bad… that God had decided to destroy it. Jonah announced the Lord’s word, just like he’d been told to. He cried out, “After 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed!”. And then… The people of Nineveh believed in God.

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Wait, what?

They believed God? But… but… these people don’t even worship the one true God. They worship all these other, fake gods.

But that’s the power of God in making people believe. Just like with the sailors on the boat in chapter 1… these people believe.

And immediately, they’re sorry for all the evil things they’ve done. And they do these things which… may seem strange to us… but to them were things you did to show that you were sorry. Let me read it to you from verse 5:

The people of Nineveh believed in God. They announced they would stop eating for a while. They put on rough cloth to show how sad they were. All the people in the city wore the cloth. People from the most important to the least important did this.

Its not like the poor people all said they were sorry but the rich people said… “Are you joking. I’m not taking off my silk pyjamas.” No, they all did it. From the poorest guy begging on the street to the richest man in his mansion.

Pretty soon… even the king heard the message. And he didn’t say, don’t panic everyone, I’ve got a big strong army. No… he believes as well. Verse 6 says:

When the king of Nineveh heard this news, he got up from his throne. He took off his robe. He covered himself with rough cloth and sat in ashes to show how upset he was.

He doesn’t just think about himself though. No, he’s a good leader. And so he sends a message throughout the city. This is what it says in verse 7:

By command of the king and his important men: No person or animal should eat anything. No herd or flock will be allowed to taste anything. Do not let them eat food or drink water. 8 But every person and animal should be covered with rough cloth. People should cry loudly to God. Everyone must turn away from his evil life. Everyone must stop doing harm.

Notice that even the animals are getting in on the act here? Because every living thing is in danger of being destroyed.

And the king knows that you can’t mess with God. He doesn’t just tell people to do things to make it look like they’re sorry. Stop eating… put on the rough cloth. Do you ever do that thing where you make your face look all sad and you hunch your shoulders over and you say you’re sorry… But you don’t really mean it?

If you’re really sorry… then your behaviour changes. And so… as well as telling the people to look like they’re sorry… he tells them to actually be sorry and change their behaviour. He says Everyone must turn away from his evil life. Everyone must stop doing harm.

And you know what he’s hoping? He’s hoping that God’ll change his mind. He says in verse 9:

Maybe God will change his mind. Maybe he will stop being angry. Then we will not die.

Are you serious, king? Change his mind? Do you know how evil you guys have been? You really deserve to be punished. And God’s message didn’t give any reason for you to think that he’ll forgive you. He just said, “Hey, guess what? In 40 days you’re going to be destroyed”. No… unless you stop doing evil. No… “but I’ll forgive you if you ask really nicely.” No. Why on earth would God save you? Ha! Take that. Now I’m going to read what God does. Verse 10 says:

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God saw what the people did. He saw that they stopped doing evil things. So God changed his mind and did not do what he had warned. He did not punish them.

Record scratch

Wait, what? God… did NOT punish them?

Why not?

Well remember what Jonah sung at the end of the last chapter? He sung, “Salvation comes from the Lord.”

You see, God loves to save people. He loves it! Sure, if people keep going in their sin and evil… God’ll punish them. Especially when Jesus comes back… everyone who hasn’t turned away from their badness back to Jesus’ll get punished. But that’s not what God loves to do. What God loves to do is save people. He loves it when people say… please forgive me, and they work to live God’s way.

Do we deserve it? No. Do we earn it by doing good stuff? No. These Ninevites didn’t earn it. They didn’t deserve it. Just like Jonah didn’t deserve to be saved. God forgave them and didn’t punish them because he really loves to save.

Do you remember how at the beginning I asked you to think of the meanest person you know – DON’T SAY THEIR NAME OUT LOUD. And I asked you if you thought they could be saved by God.

Well… if it was up to them being good and earning the way back into God’s good books… then of course not. But… then again… if it was up to us being good and earning our way back into God’s good books, we wouldn’t be saved either. But its not up to them… and its not up to us. The only reason people get saved is because God loves to save people. And because he loves it so much then anyone in the world can be saved. Anyone who asks God to forgive and save them. Even the Ninevites. Even that person you’re thinking of. Even you, and me.

This is such good news. But there’s one person who’s really not happy about it. Someone who’s really angry in fact. Who’s super mad that God would forgive the Ninevites. And that person’s name… is Jonah. But that’s a story, for next time.

See you then.

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Bye for now.