Ever been scared out of your wits?

I don't know what it is about watching horror movies, but they can be very popular. We watch, waiting to see what will happen, jumping when a cat pops into the scene. Our nerves are stretched tight, and then the movie concludes and the main characters are safe. We may have nightmares, but we know, for the most part, we are safe. It's not going to happen to us.

And then there is a different fear. As our country slides into depression, we wonder what is going to happen to us. We can know we are safe, because we have a gracious Father who is watching over us all the time. We don't know what safe looks like, though, and so we may be scared because we don't know what changes will come in our life and how we will cope with them.

What if you discover a lump in your body that should not be there or you hear about it in someone you dearly love? You become scared out of your wits that it might be cancer. You go to the doctor who runs tests and gives you a diagnosis. If it is cancer, you know your life is going to change. If it's not, you will be relieved. Either way, you know-at least in your head-you have a gracious Father who will watch over you, who will protect you from spiritual harm, even if He does allow physical harm to come to you or your loved one.

But what if you didn't know about your gracious Father? What if you were an atheist, who doesn't see anything bigger in life than basically himself? A scare like this, could only be faced with your own resources and no confidence of any kind of divine love and mercy. Or what if you were a whole city who knows nothing of a God like the one we know, but has just heard from Him that they will be destroyed?

Do you think they might be scared out of their wits? Nineveh was.

Now, we might think, why would they even think it was a legitimate threat? And that's a legitimate question.

Two things to consider, here--one is natural, and the other, supernatural. First, the natural consideration. Now, as a child I had imagined the fish threw up Jonah right on the shores of Nineveh. He walks into the city, looking like he been digesting in a fish's belly, with seaweed in his hair and whitened skin and and the people really sat up and paid attention. That is, until I saw where Nineveh was. It's kind of landlocked. It's not just kind of, it is really landlocked. The fish would have had to spit him like a rocket Missile to get him to go that far.

No, I'm sure by the time he got to Nineveh, he had washed the seaweed off, and his skin had recovered, but his story got there before he did.

Think about it. As we have been hearing, Jonah was a prophet. He was a prophet for the Northern Kingdom and even gave counsel to the king. He probably had a popular message against the hated Assyrians, and was probably well rewarded for being a patriotic Israelite. He was wealthy and was able to afford chartering a ship to Tarshish for who knows how long it was supposed to be.

Do you think the Assyrians knew who Jonah was? I doubt he was a household name in Nineveh until he received his call and preached there, but I have a feeling the leaders probably knew who he was. Isn't T.D. Jakes an advisor to President Obama? Although, not everyone in Iraq will have heard of T.D. Jakes, and maybe you haven't, it's likely the leaders have.

So Jonah is one of the king's advisors. He even told the king to restore some of Israel's borders. This probably had them keep an even closer eye on him. But for some strange reason, this prophet just takes off. He leaves his position and goes AWOL. Reports are that he is headed off for Tashish, but ran into a storm and was thrown overboard. But the latest reports are that he was swallowed by a fish, where he lived for three days, and is on his way to Nineveh.

Now he arrives in Nineveh, preaching a simple one-sentence sermon, "Yet, 40 days and Nineveh will be overturned." He may not look like he was digested by a fish; he may not have seaweed in his hair, but when they heard how his life was spared and he was on a mission from the god who spared him, maybe they thought, it might be wise to listen to him.

That's the natural explanation. Then there's the supernatural one. Jonah was speaking the Lord's Word. Isn't His Word like a consuming fire? Isn't it like a two edged sword? It's not just sounds and symbols. This is the living voice of God. God spoke and there was. There was land. There was light. There were stars, trees, animals. His Word does what it says. Man speaks in vocables; God, in reality. It does what it is supposed to do, and this word was to create repentance in the people of Nineveh. It did.

The Lord gave Jonah the words of his sermon. There was nothing elaborate about it. Simply, "40 days and Nineveh will be overturned." I can hear the talk radio pundits of Nineveh. "O.K. callers, what do you think he meant by overturned? Did he mean destroyed or changed, like transformed? Text your choice and we'll report to you the thoughts of the great city of Nineveh after we close the polls.

Perhaps they read into Jonah's sermon, the chance to be transformed, but that's not what Jonah meant. No, after Jonah got started preaching, going over the whole city, preaching "40 more days," he probably really got into it. He knew what he hoped. And he figured it was going to happen. Nineveh would finally be destroyed. Yeah! Happy day! Israel would be free of her fear of the Assyrians. His predictions of judgment against Nineveh would come true.

But there was something Jonah knew that the Ninevites were counting on-The Lord is gracious and merciful. They heard his word and believed him. They reacted with deep penitence. All the people, even the king became penitent.

They had no promises. They were not told that the Lord would have mercy on them, they just hoped He would. Instead, they acted like they believed the prophecy, because they did. It showed by what the king decreed and what the people did. They were to put on sackcloth, call to God fervently, and turn from their evils ways and violence. This they did.

They were scared out of their wits. Have we ever been scared out of our wits when it comes to salvation?

Consider the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee prays about himself and all he does for God. The tax collector won't even look up, but beats his chest and cries, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." This man was scared. He knew what he deserved. If he was given what he deserved, he was damned to hell.

Zaccheus knew what he had been like. He had cheated the taxpayers. He wasn't trying to buy forgiveness, but repentance came out with the desire to do what is right, including compensating for all he had cheated. He knew, if God did not show Him mercy, He was doomed.

How clearly do we see what we deserve? We say it in the confession of sins. I deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. Those are some strong words. This is what we deserve. Yet, do any of us get scared that we might just get what we deserve?

No--at least I don't. We could say it's because we already know about the grace of God in Christ, but I'm not sure I could say my faith in God's mercy is the reason I'm not scared.

It's more a matter of I don't believe what I say I deserve. I don't believe God's judgment. What if I did? What if you did? What if we really thought about what we say, and really believed it was true? "I am a poor, miserable sinner. I deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment." What would be the effect? Lent would be more like Lent should be. We would be doing like the Ninevites had done. They put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. They dressed their animals in sackcloth. They cried out for mercy, and said, "Who knows? Maybe He will have mercy on us." They were truly desperate. They saw themselves as beggars, and nothing but beggars.

And they came to know mercy. At the end of the 40 days came, they saw they had been spared. They knew what mercy was like, like no one else.

I would never have us not know the mercy we already know in Christ, but if we thought about what God demanded, how poorly we do meeting that demand, and what we deserve for not meeting it, our hunger for the Gospel would be insatiable.

As it is, the Lord is merciful to us even in this. He spares us of that paralyzing fear.

I can imagine what it was like in Nineveh. They clearly believed what Jonah said, and people probably marked their calendars, x'ing off each day, counting down to the D day. The king had even stepped down from his throne, all to show he and the people bowed to the Lord and hoped He would show that mercy they were counting on. But no promise. And Jonah was not about to give it. They would have to wait 40 days before they found out the Lord had spared them.

We on the other hand, with pastors who are faithful, hear of the mercy of God immediately. His called men speak it immediately and all throughout the message He gives. That's because the Lord would not want to see you in unnecessary anguish. He doesn't want to see you suffer without hope.

But here at this tail end of Lent, pray a little harder that you could understand and believe what the Lord has said you deserve. Pray that you would grasp that we don't deserve mercy, and then look to Jesus to see He had already provided it.

In a little less than a week, we will be seeing that mercy, up close and personal. Our purpose for observing Lent is that we would be better prepared to celebrate Easter. What better way than for us to see we don't deserve what He gives, but He gives it to us anyway, simply by His grace, just like the grace He showed to the Ninevites so long ago.

AMEN