Alright, we're here in Jonah chapter 3 and we're going to finish the rest of the book
here.
So Jonah chapters 2 through 4, and I thought about just doing two chapters here today and
then the next two next week, but I decided to kind of cover it all.
So I'm going to kind of quickly give explanations on these verses because as I mentioned in
the first sermon, it's a little bit of a different sort of sermon because it's more instructional
of just what is every verse talking about.
I'd really encourage you to take notes if you can because I'm going to go through verses
kind of quickly, quickly explain them because there's a lot of very interesting and important
verses, and so there's going to be a few verses I spend a lot of time on.
Most of the others I'm just going to kind of quickly go through, okay?
And so go back to Jonah chapter 2, go back to Jonah chapter 2, and we end in Jonah chapter
1, and Jonah was swallowed by a great fish or a whale.
So he's inside of the whale's belly.
And I want you to see here in Jonah chapter 2, verse 1, and kind of the theme of Jonah
chapter 2 is Jonah's redemption, okay?
He gets right with God in Jonah chapter 2.
And in verse 1, it says, then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly
and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me.
And so when he says affliction, basically he's gone through real trials in his life,
okay?
He's inside of the whale's belly, and what he's saying is because I'm inside of the whale's
belly, that caused me to pray.
The reality is that most of us, including myself, we allow ourselves to not necessarily
be as dedicated as we need to be, and sometimes we kind of need that wake-up call where, man,
my life is being destroyed, and you say, God, forgive me, help me get right on the back
on the right path, help me to just get back to my Bible reading, my prayer.
And moments like this, and none of us have had a moment quite like that in our lives,
but probably all of us have had moments where it's like, man, that's a wake-up call.
I don't want to go down this direction.
I want to fix my life.
And because he's afflicted, he prays.
That's what he's saying.
And so here's the reality.
You don't want to have to wait until you get your life destroyed to call on to God.
Turn to Zephaniah chapter 2.
Go forward in your Bible, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zephaniah chapter 2,
Zephaniah chapter 2, Zephaniah chapter 2, Zephaniah chapter 2.
And sadly, this is the way we are as people, that basically we don't really cry out to
God unless we need him.
Now in reality, we need him every single day.
But until our life's really destroyed, we're like, okay, now I'll call out to God.
Now we need to make sure we just have a habit of daily living.
And whether it's five chapters, 10 chapters, 15 chapters, five pages, seven pages, 15 minutes,
30 minutes, 45 minutes where we say, I'm doing my Bible reading every day.
I'm doing my prayer every day.
Now whether it's a lot or less, whether you're really busy or not, you have to have some
time and just a daily routine.
Now I want you to understand that if you spent 30 minutes reading the Bible every day, that's
three and a half hours during a week.
But I want you to understand it would be a mistake to say, I'm going to spend three and
a half hours on Monday and just kind of not do any reading on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
You say, why?
This is your spiritual food.
You don't just say, I'm going to go to the buffet on Monday and just eat until I'm good
for the week.
Okay?
That's not how you live your life.
You just need this daily spiritual walk with God, daily Bible reading, daily prayer.
But notice what it says in Zephaniah 2 verse 2, before the decree bring forth, before the
day passes the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day
of the Lord's anger come upon you, seek ye the Lord.
What that's saying is before God has to destroy your life and rain down judgment, seek the
Lord beforehand.
Don't allow your life to get screwed up like Jonah.
And don't misunderstand me, we are all going to have some moments in our lives, some time
periods in our lives where we get backslidden, but you do not want this to be a normal routine
where your life gets destroyed and then all of a sudden you basically cry out to God and
you go back and fix your life, you destroy it again, fix your life, you destroy it again.
Just get in a pattern of every day, every week living for God.
Before your life is destroyed, seek the Lord.
Go back to Jonah 2, Jonah 2.
And what he said in Jonah chapter 2 verse 2, he says, I cried, verse 2, by reason of
mine affliction unto the Lord.
Because of the affliction, because of the trials, he cries unto God, and he heard me.
Out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou hurtest my voice.
Now I have heard people say this, and this is not true, that Jonah actually was in hell
when he said this, okay?
No, he's in the whale's belly.
You can look at plenty of places that say that, okay?
He was not actually in hell, but the reason why he says hell is kind of a dual meaning.
One is because this is a good picture of hell, and two, because when your life is really
being messed up, which is kind of the same thing, he's saying, I was out of the belly
of hell.
Basically, it's not very fun to be in here.
Now, look, we can't really do a science experiment to how is it like to be in a fish's belly
for three days.
I would imagine, though, if it's kind of like with humans, with this fish, you have kind
of stomach acids.
It was actually probably really burning him, it was probably itchy, he was dirty, it was
probably a decent depiction of hell.
He's probably burning from the acids, he was itchy, he was kind of disgusting.
It's probably like the worst three days of his life.
I'm sure it was the worst three days of his life.
It was probably a really terrible place, and that's why it's used as a depiction of hell.
Once again, this is the Old Testament.
If hell was paradise in the Old Testament, then this is a nice place.
But I don't think anyone would say a whale's belly is a nice place, okay?
To spend three days.
He says, out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou hurtest my voice.
This does show us, though, no matter how badly you screw up your life, if you actually
pray unto God and mean it from your heart, God will give you a second chance.
This does not mean there will not be repercussions.
Those could still be coming.
David got right with God in 2 Samuel after he committed adultery and murder.
There was still a four-fold punishment that came upon him.
I'm not saying that, hey, if you've been really getting some sin and today you decide
I'm going to get right with God, get back to my Bob reading, I'm not saying no punishment's
going to come.
There's going to be repercussions, but at least you can get back on the path of living
for God.
As a saved person, as long as you're alive, you still can live for God and do something
with your life.
There's still a chance to come back to God.
Now, I want you to notice here in verse number three, it says, for thou hadst cast me into
the deep in the midst of the seas, and the floods compass me about, all thy billows and
thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Now, at the end of verse four, as he's inside the ocean, he gets swallowed by a whale, he
has confidence because he says, I will look again toward thy holy temple.
It sounds like a man who realizes, if I decide to get back right with God again, God is going
to use me again.
He understands that because he was a great man of God.
You don't see this in the book of Jonah, but in the book of 2 Kings, you only see good
things about him.
He was a great man of God.
This is just showing you the down part of his life.
He understands, if I get right with God, then I will get another chance to live for God.
Verse number five, the waters compass me about even to the soul.
The depth closed me round about, the weeds are wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with her bars was about me forever.
Now you have to understand, this is what's taking place in Jonah's life, but he's also
using symbolism for basically Jesus being in hell, out of the belly of hell cried I.
So in these verses, some things are kind of applying to Jonah directly, and some are kind
of symbolic, but actually applying to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is an example of this, because he says the earth with her bars was about me
forever.
Okay?
Now he might have just been exaggerating with his life, that's how he felt, but it's literally
telling you that when Jesus was in hell, it was forever, but it was only three days and
three nights.
Why?
He suffered in eternity of hell in three days and three nights.
Okay?
Now you're saying, Brother Stuckey, that doesn't logically like a math problem make sense.
No, no it doesn't.
I can't fully understand that.
I'm just saying that the penalty for our sins is forever in hell, and Jesus took that penalty
upon himself, and so for three days and in three nights, the earth with her bars was
about him forever.
He suffered for all of your sins, past, present, future, big and small, in those three days.
How does that work?
I don't know, but God is outside of time.
We can't comprehend this, because we're inside of time.
It does not logically make sense to me how God has always existed, because in my mind
everything has a beginning, but I believe that.
We know that.
In the beginning, God created the heaven.
He was here at the very beginning, and I want you to understand, we believe what the Bible
says, and I'm not saying you shouldn't study it, but I think you can go overboard by trying
to fully understand everything in the Bible.
Some things you just have to believe it.
You say, I don't fully understand this, but I'm just going to believe what the Bible says.
Instead of just saying, well, I've got to philosophically understand this and just understand
it like it's a math problem, you won't understand all of it like it's a math problem.
We know the Bible is the word of God, but some parts we might not be able to understand
perfectly, like two plus two equals four, but realize that nobody can explain everything.
If you were to be an atheist, there's plenty of questions you can't answer, so yeah, are
there things that I can't fully grasp?
Yeah, but you know what?
I don't believe in this apologetics mindset of just having to fully understand stuff and
prove it and debate and everything like that.
I just believe what the Bible says, and when we come to unsaved people, we show them the
Gospel.
If they reject it, it is what it is.
Hopefully in the future, they will accept it.
Now I want you to see here in verse six, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
The earth with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption,
O Lord my God.
Verse seven, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came
in unto the end of thine holy temple.
So basically it kind of goes back to verse number four of hitting rock bottom, then I
remembered the Lord.
But you know, the verse I want to spend the most time on in chapter two is verse eight.
I think this is the most important chapter, most important verse in this entire chapter,
and this is a very important verse when you pay attention to what's being said.
It says, they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Now I want you to understand that Jonah has confidence, I'm going to get a chance to live
for God again.
But there are prerequisites to that.
Just simply praying to God does not mean God's going to give you another chance.
What Jonah says in Jonah chapter two is, they that observe lying vanities forsake their
own mercy.
What it's saying is you can have mercy, but you can throw it away and get rid of it and
forsake it if you observe lying vanities.
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.
Let's say that one day somebody at this church gets kicked out for railing, okay?
And look, I believe with railing that would be something very extreme.
This has never happened, but I'm just saying let's say somebody kind of backslides, gets
mad, they're causing a lot of fights, and it gets to the point where we go to First
Corinthians and we give them a chance, we talk to them about it, and basically they
get thrown out of church.
And they decide a month later, my life is messed up, I want to get back in church, I
want to come back to church.
They have the opportunity to come back, but if they come back and say, you know what,
I didn't do anything wrong, but I want to be back at church, you've forsaken your own
mercy.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
If they say, you know what, I didn't do anything wrong, I was justified, but I went back to
church, you're forsaking your own mercy.
Why?
You're observing a lying vanity.
You won't admit that you screwed up your life.
I want you to understand that if one day, 10 years from now, you've just destroyed your
life, you're not in church, you're not living for God, you're just out getting drunk all
the time and everything, and you have this attitude, it's not my fault.
It's not my fault my life's like this.
It's so-and-so's fault, or so-and-so's fault.
You're forsaking your own mercy.
You could get another chance from God, but if you say, I've done nothing wrong, you're
forsaking your own mercy, and God won't give you another chance.
This verse shows us that when Jonah prayed to God, he meant it.
When you look later on, and he once again is rebellious in a few chapters, that could
confuse you, but God was merciful because he did not observe lying vanities.
God would not have been merciful unless he actually meant it.
He fully meant it when he prayed.
He fully got right with God.
He felt bad.
He knew he had screwed up, and he did not forsake his own mercy.
He got another chance because he did not observe lying vanities.
Think about if you raise kids.
Let's say my son, when he's five years old, let's say, for example, he's just playing
around and he accidentally breaks a window, and look, kids get into trouble.
I'm lucky I never broke a window when I was a kid because I would play sports in the living
room and sometimes I'd accidentally kick the soccer ball and I'd be like, then it
didn't break when it hit the window.
I was like, oh, thank you, thank you.
I was lucky, but I almost accidentally broke windows before.
Let's say, for example, I accidentally broke a window and my parents were in the other
room, and then they come running in and I just pretend like I didn't do it.
I don't know what happened.
Maybe a bird came and just smashed into it or something.
We see the soccer ball rolling.
It's obvious.
It's like, I didn't do it.
I don't know what happened.
Look, I'm forsaking my own mercy, and that spanking is going to be like 100 times bigger.
Look, if your kids mess up but then they just kind of admit it and they're not rebellious,
you're more merciful with them.
Same way with God.
If you really screw up but you actually get right with God from your heart, he will give
you another chance.
Look at two people in the Bible, David and King Saul.
When you think of these characters with King Saul, you think negative things automatically.
They're both in heaven.
That's a whole other sermon, but they're both in heaven.
The Bible teaches that.
You think of King Saul and you think, man, that guy was a bad king, et cetera, et cetera.
You think of David and say he was a good king.
Look at the mistakes they made in their lives.
Whose mistakes were worse, David or King Saul?
What David did was worse than King Saul, except King Saul keeps getting rebellious, sort of
does the same thing, but David committed adultery and murder.
It doesn't really get worse than that.
Here's the difference.
When Nathan comes to David, David, I have sinned and we know he meant it.
Saul, what's his first reaction?
He justifies himself.
I didn't do anything wrong.
It's like you took too long to come, Samuel.
You're blaming me.
It's like there isn't a point in time you weren't here, so I forced myself to make an
offering.
He lied multiple times.
What he did was not as bad as David.
The difference is when he screwed up, he got right with God.
What am I saying?
Hey, I don't know everybody's personal lives, but if you've committed some major sin and
you got something in your life, God will forgive you if you just admit it, forsake it, ask
for forgiveness, and don't observe a lying vanity.
Basically, you mean it when you say you're sorry and you get right with God, but if you
observe lying vanities and you want to be dishonest with yourself and pretend like you've
done nothing wrong, you're forsaking your own mercy.
When it comes to sermons preached at a church like this, every single person, including
myself, we have sermons where we're like, man, I'm guilty on that.
I need to change.
Forgive me, God.
We're going to be starting a worldliness series in a couple months, and that will step on
every single person's toes, including mine.
Say why?
Because none of us are perfect.
But here's the thing.
When you hear that sermon, just admit, you know what?
Yeah, I am worldly.
I need to make that change.
You need to apply that to your life.
I remember one time specifically, and this was not very common, but I remember one time
when I was at Verity Baptist Church, I knew there was something I needed to kind of make
a change about.
I remember Pastor Menes preaching a sermon, and I knew, because he was talking about guys
going into the ministry, but he was talking about how they're never going to make it in
the ministry of such and such reason.
I knew what he was basically saying was indirectly kind of talking to me.
He very rarely said that, but I knew he was talking to me.
You say, what did you do?
Did you get mad and quit the church?
No, I just changed.
I realized, okay, I need to make a change.
I do want to make it in the ministry.
I need to listen to what he says.
He's a man of God who's trained.
He's teaching me right from God's word is what the Bible says.
I just need to change.
When it comes to sermons preached here, you are going to hear things that you are guilty
of because we are all sinners.
Just change, and God will be merciful with you.
But if you choose to say, you know what, I'm just going to do it my own way, you're forsaking
your own mercy.
That's the reality.
Verse number nine, verse number nine, and I want you to realize in life, don't blame
other people for your mistakes.
If you screw up your life, just admit you screwed up.
I had a good friend of mine, and this was a person who was really living for God several
years ago.
He went to Verity Baptist Church.
He started to backside.
I was a good friend of his, and generally I don't come and tell people, hey, you know
what, you need to change, get this sin out of your life, but I was good friends with
him.
I was the best man at his wedding.
So it's kind of like a friend loveth at all times, and faithful are the wounds of a friend.
I don't think you personally should just go up to other church members and say change
this, change this, change this, but if someone's your best friend at this church and you see
them making a major mistake in their life or getting involved in something really wrong,
they start dating an unbeliever, then you as a good, close friend, that's something
you can step in.
If it's someone you don't know very well, don't get involved in matters that don't belong
to you, but there is a time where faithful are the wounds of a friend, and I remember
telling this person, I said, you are bitter, you're backslidden, you're wrong, you're going
to destroy your life.
Now why did I say that to that person?
It's not because I hated that person.
I cared about that person.
I didn't want to say that to them.
Do you think I want to tell someone that, oh, man, you're bitter and everything?
No, I don't want to do that, and I remember his response.
He just kind of brushed it off.
He's like, no, no, that's not true, et cetera.
Basically what did he do?
He observed lying vanities, and look, as far as I know, he doesn't go soul-winding.
I don't know.
I haven't talked to him in a while, but it's just like, you know what?
When you hear the truth, you just need to change, but if you observe a lying vanity,
you're going to destroy your life.
Now I want you to see here in verse 9, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice
of thanksgiving.
So basically here in Jonah 2, there's a contrast being made between verses 8 and 9.
He says, I'm not going to observe a lying vanity, but I will sacrifice unto thee with
the voice of thanksgiving.
What is he saying?
I'm just going to be thankful for whatever you give me, God.
You tell me to preach to Assyria, I'll preach to Assyria.
You tell me to do this, I'll do this.
Even if I don't want to do it, I'm just going to be thankful, okay, for what you've given
me, and he was actually thankful.
I will pay that that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord, and he's like, I'm making
this vow to you.
I'm making this commitment.
I'm going to do what I say, okay?
So he does not observe lying vanities.
He decides to be thankful for what God's given him.
He decides to get right with God.
Verse 10, what's the reaction of God when he gets right with God?
And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
Now trying to think of this in your head is kind of weird.
I don't know if Jonah, because he was vomited out upon the land.
I know if this was me, because I like to take showers.
I'm more likely to take two showers in a day than none, okay?
If it was me, I would have quickly hopped in the ocean to get off all the filth and
everything like that.
So I'm not sure if Jonah just went marching into Nineveh, like this is my mission, and
he just was like looking like a wreck in a mess.
I'm not really sure.
It's kind of interesting to think about.
I know I would have hopped into the ocean real quickly and just, you know, tried to
look somewhat presentable.
I'm not really sure what Jonah did, okay?
But he's vomited out upon the dry land, okay?
Jonah chapter 3.
Let's look at verse number 1.
We're going to hit a few highlights here on Jonah chapter 3 as well.
Jonah 3 verse 1.
And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh,
that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
Now let me ask you a question.
Did God's message to Jonah change in two chapters?
No, it didn't.
He said, go to Nineveh.
Jonah says no.
And guess what?
God still says to Jonah, go to Nineveh.
He hasn't changed.
And here's the reality in life.
When it comes to your life, especially as you're new at church, a lot of this stuff
you're not really familiar with when you're new at church.
When I first started hearing independent fundamental Baptist preaching, a lot of it was very new
to me.
And all of a sudden they're preaching against, it's like, oh, wow, he's preaching against
rock music?
I listen to rock music.
He's preaching against movies and TV and all this stuff.
It's like, oh, wow, you know, I got that in my life and everything.
And here's the reality.
We basically have moments in our life where we kind of hit a stumbling point, where we
hear the sermon and you can either remove that altar of Baal, so to speak, and get rid
of what the pastor's preaching about and get right with God.
Or you can just say, you know what, I'm not going to listen to that.
Here's the reality, though.
If you refuse to get past this point, you're never getting to this point.
You're going to hear sermons in life on various topics and whenever you hear it, you change
it.
If you reject it, you're going to start to backside and then all of a sudden if you get
right with God, all of a sudden you've got to get through this point again.
God doesn't change.
He says, go to Nineveh and preach what I told you.
Jonah backslides.
It's not like God says, okay, I changed my mind.
I'm going to meet you halfway.
God's not going to meet you halfway.
If he tells you to do something, you do it.
And the main way we're going to hear this message today is when you read the Bible,
number one, and when you hear sermons preached.
And when you hear those things and you see very clearly what the Bible says, you must
make that change.
But if you refuse to, you'll never reach past this point.
It's like climbing a mountain to get close to God and you get up about two-thirds of
the way and you hit a stumbling point.
And here's what makes it difficult to live for God.
All of us have things in our life we're willing to get rid of, but we have certain things
we're not willing to get rid of.
Isn't that the case?
I mean, we have different lives and everything, but for me it's just like, you know what,
I didn't grow up drinking, so for me it's like, okay, I can't drink, do drugs or smoke.
Well, I don't do that anyway.
That's not a big deal to me.
But then there's been things in my life where I kind of hit a point and all of a sudden
you don't realize it's wrong before and then all of a sudden you hit that point and you're
like, man, that one's going to hurt.
I don't want to get rid of that.
But if you refuse to get rid of that, you're never getting past that point.
Whenever you hear whatever it is from the Word of God, you apply it to your life if
it is what the Word of God says.
And if you do not do that, you'll never get past that point.
That's what we're seeing here because God's message does not change.
Verse 3, so Jonah arose and went on to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
I think when it says three days' journey, I think what it's saying, if you walk from
one side to the other, it's three days.
I don't think he's saying it's three days away because he makes it in one day.
So I think what it's saying is like from end to end, it's three days.
Otherwise he was a very fast runner, okay?
I don't know.
I think basically it was just like end to end.
It was like three days.
I think that's what we're seeing here.
And so in verse number 4 it says, And Jonah began to enter into the cities of
days' journey, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from
the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Now I think it's very important to pay attention to what's being said here, okay?
I'm going to go very specific on a lot of these verses, but I want you to see in verse
4 what is the message that Jonah said.
Does Jonah say if you believe in the true God you'll receive eternal life and be saved
and on your way to heaven?
No he doesn't.
He says Nineveh's going to be overthrown in forty days.
Now that doesn't mean that's the only phrase he repeated.
That's the summary of what he said.
We do not know for sure what else he said, what verses he used or what he said.
We don't know, okay?
I'm not saying that I know, and when the Bible does not specifically speak on something,
I don't try to form a dogmatic opinion.
We can all guess and we could have different opinions.
All we know for sure is he says Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days, okay, unless you
guys get right with God.
That's what he's basically saying.
It's going to be destroyed in forty days.
This is the judgment of God, okay?
You say, Why is this important?
This is a very famous street preaching passage, because what they say is, Well, Jonah just
got up there and preached, and just the whole area turned to God.
Like seventy percent of people got saved, because he just stood up there and said, You'll
be destroyed.
He doesn't preach on salvation.
We don't see him preach any words on salvation, and I'm not saying he didn't say anything
about salvation, but if the Bible does not specifically say, I'm not going to just stand
up here and say, That's for sure what he said, because it doesn't say he did that.
What it said is, Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days.
That's what we know for sure he said.
That was the message of God.
God's message was not, Preach the gospel, because here's the thing, if you preach the
gospel to a large crowd, it's not the best way to win people to the Lord.
The best way to win people to the Lord is talk to people in small groups, one on one.
At Rizal Park, we had seventy-six salvations, because we had a lot of people doing the work.
It wasn't one person.
It was a lot of us, and this is why street preaching is not an effective way to get people
saved.
I want you to understand, when my son messes up, and he does something wrong, and I say,
Zeph, I talk in a way where he basically realizes, Oh, I messed up, and he looks, he's scared,
I hope I don't get spanked, whatever, depending on what he did and everything.
What I'm basically doing is telling him, You need to change, quit doing that, with the
tone of my voice.
When people stand on a corner, they never scream, Believe on Jesus!
You say, Why?
Because when you're crying aloud, it's natural to cry aloud against sin.
And so in street preaching, they cry against sin, that's not salvation.
They stand on a corner and scream, Repent!
It makes sense if you're screaming, that's the sort of words coming out of your mouth.
If you're screaming, you're not going to say, The gift of God is eternal life!
No, you're going to talk to someone one on one and just explain, because you're not trying
to scream at them to get sin out of their life, you're just going to talk to them.
The gift of God is eternal life, and if you receive this, you'll receive forgiveness
of sins, you become a child of God.
You say, Why?
Because you're explaining, you're not basically preaching to get sin out of your life.
Jonah was preaching to get the sin out of that area.
You're going to be destroyed in 40 days.
So his message was a message of judgment.
Did he make sin salvation?
It's possible.
When I preach sermons, I'll mention salvation from time to time, but I don't believe just
tons of people got saved from one man preaching the gospel.
We don't even know that he mentioned the gospel, but we know that he said Nineveh will be destroyed
in 40 days.
Now we're going to see in these next couple of verses why this is important, because in
verse 5 it says, To the people of Nineveh believed God.
What did they believe?
They believed God was going to destroy Nineveh in 40 days.
That's what they believed.
It doesn't say they believed its eternal life through the true God alone.
It says they believed God.
Well, what's the message?
We're going to be destroyed in 40 days.
By and large, people believe that.
It doesn't mean they all got saved.
Look, if for example there was some major tsunami or something here or whatever and
people were really afraid, you might have a lot of people believe, God's judgment is
upon us.
That doesn't mean that they're getting saved though.
I'm sure when Mount Pinatubo happened, my wife grew up near Mount Pinatubo.
I'm sure the people in that area were thinking, man, God's judgment is poured out upon us.
I'm sure a lot of people thought that.
I agree with them because of their idolatry.
That's my opinion.
I'll tell you what, that doesn't mean that all those Catholics got saved automatically
because they believed God's judgment was upon them.
Street preachers use this passage because what they're saying is one man stands up and
everybody just believes on Jesus or believes on the true God and gets saved.
That's not what we see here.
They believe God, but it doesn't say they believe in terms of eternal life.
They believed God that they were going to be destroyed in 40 days and proclaimed a fast
and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Now we're going to see here in verse six something.
Verse six and verse seven is a very important verse, but I want you to understand something
though.
Whenever the word of God is preached, even if it is not about salvation, it will result
in salvation.
Not necessarily from the person who hears the sermon about judgment, but when the word
of God goes forth into an area, the word gets sown into people's heart.
They still need to hear the gospel, but whenever you hear ... For example, a church that preaches
hard against sin, it's the same church that gets people saved.
When God's word is being put out there in Nineveh, I'm sure a lot of people got saved,
but not necessarily from Jonah's message.
You say, what are you talking about?
I'm confused by that.
Let me show you, verse six and seven.
Notice what it says in verse six.
Why did the people of Nineveh believe God?
For word came on to the king of Nineveh, verse six, and he arose from his throne and he laid
his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes.
The king hears the message and he believes, we're going to be destroyed in 40 days.
But notice verse seven, and he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his nobles.
You know what we're seeing here?
The king says, I believe this message, and he says, I want every single person in Nineveh
to hear the same message.
He caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh.
Everybody heard this message, and it wasn't because they had cell phones.
It was being mentioned by a lot of people.
These are the words of God.
This doesn't necessarily mean everybody who's preaching the word of God to these areas was
a saved person, but the word of God was going forth into the entire Assyrian empire.
All of Nineveh, he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree
of the king and his nobles.
So what is that telling us?
What's saying everybody in the area heard the word of God?
Every single person.
Because one person back then is not going to be able to preach a message to 300,000
people here or whatever.
It's three days' journey from one end to the other.
That would be a pretty loud voice to reach every single person.
Nobody has that loud of a voice.
Everybody is hearing this message because the king says, I want everybody to hear it.
Does Jonah go to every single area and preach the same message?
No.
He's not going to have that ability.
It's three days, and he doesn't have an area.
Basically the king hears it, and he says, this message of the Hebrew God, get it out
to everybody.
Well, what's going to take place in my opinion, and I can't prove this, but my opinion, I
believe every saved person in Assyria says, here's my chance.
I believe the word of God was being preached, and the gospel was being preached.
I do believe a lot of people got saved, but not because Jonah preached on salvation.
When the word of God goes forth, the gospel always is going to end up coming out there
as well, and people will get saved when the word of God is being proclaimed.
What I believe is taking place, there are saved people in Assyria.
There are saved people everywhere in the world, and I believe every saved person said, this
is my opportunity because in Assyria you probably would have gotten killed for preaching the
word of God.
They had the green light.
The king says, I want everybody to hear this, and I bet you every soul would have been saying,
here's my chance, and they're going to town.
Imagine living in Iraq or Afghanistan, Iran, whatever Muslim country or in India or whatever
country you could be persecuted for preaching the word of God, communist China, and all
of a sudden, or in Russia, it's illegal to preach the gospel.
Say anything against the Orthodox Church, it's illegal now.
Imagine if all of a sudden the president or the king said, you know what, I believe this
message.
I want every single person in China to hear about this message from the word of God.
Do you realize every saved person who was scared to say anything is going to crawl out
and just preach to everybody?
It's like, hey, the king just said, we're preaching this message, so here it is.
You know what's going to take place?
Some are going to believe and some aren't, but the majority will not believe.
Why?
Because narrow is the way which leads them into life.
Most people certainly wouldn't get saved even if they heard the gospel, because narrow
is the way which leads them into life.
People are very receptive in this country, but you must understand that if everybody
heard a clear presentation of the gospel, most would reject it.
When we go soul winning, not everybody wants to hear.
If you preach the gospel to someone who does not want to hear, guess what always happens?
As soul winners, we know this.
You get to the end and you're talking to a group of three people, and one person does
not want to hear.
How often do they get saved?
They don't get saved very often, do they?
If they don't want to hear the message at all, they're not likely to get saved.
Now I'm glad they hear the message, but realize that's why the Bible says if somebody doesn't
want to hear, you just move on, talk to the next person, because if they don't want to
hear, they're probably not going to get saved.
Here's a situation, though, where the king says everybody's going to hear.
Doesn't necessarily mean everybody heard a clear presentation of the gospel, but I personally
believe probably a lot of people did.
Even though I can't really prove in this passage that a lot of people got saved because the
message they're believing is that Nineveh will be destroyed, logically it makes sense
to me, and you can form your own opinions, that basically this was the green light in
the Assyrian empire where it was probably illegal and dangerous to preach the word of
God, where all the saved people say, you know what, here's our opportunity.
I do believe a lot of people got saved, but not because one man preached on salvation
and everybody just turned to Christ.
No, because he caused it to be proclaimed and published.
This is why every word's so important.
It was proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by many people.
So I do believe a lot of people get saved because I believe that hard preaching does
result in people getting saved.
Not necessarily from that sermon, though.
Let me give you an example.
Hard preaching results in people getting saved because you get the sin out of your life and
all of a sudden you start going soul winning more, and you get better at soul winning.
And so realize, you say, why don't you just preach on salvation all the time?
Because hard preaching will get you to change your lives and then you'll get other people
saved.
That's why you're always going to see the churches that preach hard against sin are
the same churches that have lots of people saved.
So yes, hard preaching goes along with people getting saved, but look, you're not going
to get saved from this sermon I'm preaching because I'm not really talking about salvation.
It will result in salvation, but not necessarily from this sermon.
But it causes you to get sin out of your life, you live for God more, and then you become
more zealous.
If I preached on soul winning every single week in salvation, less soul winning would
go on eventually.
Why?
Because you're going to have other sins that you need preached on.
We need all of the word of God.
And so here in Jonah chapter 3, it's up to you to form your opinions because honestly
I just don't think the Bible says a whole lot in these verses.
When it says they believed God though, what they believed was that Nineveh was going to
be destroyed in 40 days.
That doesn't mean that every single person believed.
I personally think that means that most of them believe, over half.
But you're never going to have over half of people getting saved.
Now did some of those people believe on the true God and get saved because they heard
a message of salvation?
Probably I think.
It's kind of up to you to form your opinion, but what they believe is that they're going
to be destroyed in 40 days unless they make a change, and that's what the king is hoping
for.
It's proclaimed and published through Nineveh, and look, whenever you have countries where
it's illegal to preach the gospel, there will be less people saved.
There are countries of the world right now that there's not really a green light.
We can't do a missions trip to North Korea.
It's not going to be very effective because you don't have a green light to preach the
gospel.
Are there saved people there?
Absolutely.
Do people still get saved there?
Yes, I believe that some people get saved there, but people have to be very careful
how they preach the gospel there because they could get killed.
We don't have to worry about getting killed in present day here in the Philippines, and
so as a result of us having a green light, even though the politicians are not forcing
the word of God to go out in the gospel, we have a green light, so it results in more
people preaching the gospel.
Now look at the end of verse 7, and he caused it to be proclaimed and published through
Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast,
herd nor flock, taste anything.
Let them not feed nor drink water.
Now this is a pretty intense fast because the animals are not allowed to eat.
So I mean this is pretty extreme.
The king's like, and I'm assuming the king doesn't really necessarily know the word of
God.
He's like, I don't know, but let's just everybody fast, all the animals and everything.
He says we've got to go to extremes here.
And then it says in verse 8, But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
unto God.
I'm not really sure how a beast is going to cry mightily unto God.
Yea let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands.
And so basically the king has this idea because the message is 40 days will be destroyed.
And what the king is thinking is, well, maybe if we get all the sin out of our area, God
will be merciful.
Think of a country where there's a lot of abortions.
And let's say, for example, the president realized, man, the judgment's coming upon
us.
And he says, if we just get rid of all the sin, maybe God will be merciful to us.
You know, that makes logical sense.
Okay.
And so basically he's saying, let's just get all the sin out of our lives, and then maybe
God will be merciful to us.
Okay.
Verse 9, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger
that we perish not?
Now I don't want to spend too much time on verses 9 and 10 because I preach this in a
lot of sermons and there's a lot of material to cover, but I will briefly mention this
because notice in verse 9 it says turn and repent.
What does repent mean?
What repent means is to basically change or to turn.
That could be in reference to sins.
It might not be in reference to sins.
It could mean change your mind and believe on Jesus.
It could just be saying change what you believe.
It could be saying change your lifestyle, change your sins.
And so when you see the word repent in the Bible, you have to look at the context and
find out what is it talking about.
Repenting of what?
Is it a saved person?
Is it not a saved person?
Because I want you to understand, we do not have to repent of our sins to be saved.
But I want you to understand the Bible also says repent ye and believe the gospel.
What that's saying though is change your mind about what you believe and believe the gospel.
Now I want you to understand something, that I've been saved for a long time, I've been
saved since 2003, and I want you to understand that I started going soul winning in 2004.
And I want you to realize you hear a lot of sermons from a lot of Baptists and a lot of
people say things about repentance, and I'll be honest with you, you know what, I'm sure
I misexplained repentance when I preached the gospel many times.
I did not believe in work salvation, okay, I got saved in 2003.
But I want you to understand that I would, and you know, I don't have a recording of
myself preaching the gospel, but I would imagine I explained the gospel pretty well, and then
at the end I'm like, well now you've got to repent of your sins and believe on Jesus.
And if you had asked me what does repent mean, I would have said, I don't know.
And then you say, well are you saying you have to quit drinking to be saved?
No.
You don't have to quit drinking to be saved.
I didn't know what it meant.
You say why?
Because the word repent means a million different things to a million different people.
A lot of different opinions, and there are saved people that are confused on what do
you mean by repentance, okay?
That's why though it's so important that we explain it clearly so people fully understand
that when it comes to us getting saved, we don't have to turn from our sins or change
our lifestyle to be saved.
It's just believing.
Just change what you believe and believe the gospel.
Now when it comes to after we are saved, if I were to stand up here and preach a sermon
and say you need to repent of your sins, not to be saved, but to get right with God, that's
an accurate statement.
Get the sin out of your life, because this is kind of what's being said here in Jonah
3.
You'll be destroyed in 40 days, so basically the king's like, hey, get in sackcloth, you
know, quit fast, go and start fasting and everything like that.
Basically, hey, turn from your wickedness is what's being said.
But that has nothing to do with salvation, okay?
That's where it's very important.
You say, why is this important?
Because in verse 10, what it says is this, and God saw their works that they turn from
their evil way.
So what the Bible says is that turning from your evil way, according to verse 10, is works
because God saw their works that they turn from their evil way.
When we preach the gospel, if we tell people, and I'll tell you what, there's kind of different
beliefs on this spectrum when people say stuff.
When people say you got to repent, you really got to kind of find out what do you mean by
that, because people have different opinions on that.
But I've heard of preachers who say this, we're basically somebody, and we don't have
an altar call here, you say, why don't you have an altar call?
I think the sermon's in two weeks, you'll find out, okay?
Just make sure you're here in two weeks.
You'll find out what we don't.
But I want you to understand something, that sometimes I've heard of altar calls where
basically somebody comes down to the front to get saved, and then the preacher who's
you know, repents of sins heretic or Calvinist or something like that, he asks them, you
know, basically, you know, their life, and they say, you know, yeah, I've got sins, I'm
living with your girlfriend.
And he's like, well, before you can get saved, you must stop living with your girlfriend
first.
You say, does that happen?
It happens a lot.
Because there are people that believe that.
Now, you say, what is the difference here between these people that believe on repentance?
Generally, the difference is this.
Repentance of sins and lordship salvation, and I don't have time to go into it.
In a couple months, we're going to preach to the Protestant Reformation, we'll talk
about it more.
Repentance of sins and lordship salvation are not the same thing.
Lordship salvation is repentance of sins on steroids.
It's the same thing times 20.
That sort of statement is usually said by a Calvinist.
Because what they say is you must make God the Lord of your life in order to be saved.
So you must get, generally when a Baptist preacher says you must repent of your sins,
what they mean is, well, you've got to be sorry for your sins and kind of be sad and
feel guilty.
And I don't agree with that, but that's generally what they mean.
They would not say, well, no, they wouldn't say you have to quit living with your girlfriend
or quit drinking first.
That's what a lordship salvation person says, which is what Calvinism is.
Their moment of salvation is you make God the Lord of your life.
You can go on YouTube and listen to John MacArthur and all these people, and they'll tell you
about their stories of conversion.
Very rarely, and I say rarely because I've never heard it before.
I'm sure it probably exists, but usually when you hear about their salvation, you never
even hear somebody preaching the gospel to them.
And unless John MacArthur has different stories, here's his gospel.
This is how he got saved.
This is how he believed on God.
He was in a car accident.
He got thrown from that car, and then he decided, you know what?
I'm just going to live for you, God.
And that was his salvation.
As far as I know, because I searched for his moment of conversion, and that's what I found.
He told a story for like eight minutes about how he's thrown from a car when he was a teenager.
He was not living for God, and he just decided, I'm committed to just living for you, God.
As far as I know, and look, if there's another clip and you find it, I would love to hear
it because I look for it.
That's all I found.
Where basically he just got thrown from a car.
Nobody preached the gospel, but he just decided, I'm going to start living for you, God.
Why would someone believe something like that?
Because they don't believe somebody needs to preach the gospel to them to get saved.
It's these bizarre, over-the-top sorts of conversions, which is ridiculous, and that's
a whole other sermon.
But I want you to understand the statement, well, you've got to quit drinking before you
can be saved.
Basically that's someone who believes in lordship, salvation.
So some people will say, repent.
They can be confused.
But to have to turn from your sins, according to Jonah 3.10, that is works.
God saw their works that they turned from your evil way.
When you hear the preaching from this church, and I'm telling you to get sins out of your
life, doesn't it take work to change your bad habits?
Doesn't it take work to quit smoking?
And I've never smoked a cigarette, but I'm sure people in here have, and that takes work
to quit.
It takes work to quit drinking.
It takes work to read the Bible every day.
We came back from soul-winning last night, and this is why you need a Bible-reading plan,
because I was like, man, I'm tired.
I just want to relax, and I was like, I must finish these chapters on the chart.
So I made sure I finished them, but I was like, man, I'm exhausted.
It takes work to read the Bible and to pray and to do these things.
It takes work to go soul-winning.
It's not easy.
If you have to change your lifestyle or turn from your sins to be saved, that is your works.
It's not the work of God, what He did.
That's what Jonah 3.10 says.
And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it
not.
So what we see is God repents.
Now, God does not sin.
Evil is not necessarily sin, but if God destroyed Nineveh, that would be evil according to the
Bible.
God repented.
He changed His mind about what He was going to do because they got their sins out of their
life.
Now turn to Jonah 4, and I'll quickly go through Jonah 4.
And so, look, if you did the memorization challenge, there's a lot of great information
here in the book of Jonah.
And it's very important, though, that we fully understand all these verses, what they're
saying, because if you don't closely read, you can kind of miss a lot of what's being
said.
The most important verse, in my opinion, outside of Jonah 3.10, is where it says He caused
it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh.
That shows you it's not just one person, but everybody's hearing it because a lot of people.
If we're going to reach Luzon for the gospel, it's not because they just all heard me preach
a sermon.
It's because lots of people are preaching the gospel.
Now we'll be quick here in Jonah chapter 4, but it says in Jonah 4 verse 1, but it displeased
Jonah exceedingly.
He was very angry.
So Jonah's mad that God's not destroying Nineveh.
Now you say, it doesn't seem like Jonah got right with God.
Well, he did get right with God because he said in Jonah 2.8 that you're not going to
have any mercy if you observe lying vanities.
So we know he got right with God, and I can actually prove in this chapter that he did
get right with God.
It's going to make sense in a bit.
He got right with God.
It just didn't last very long.
Verse 2, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray to you, O Lord, was not this my saying
when I was yet in my country?
For I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
And he said he fled before unto Tarshish, and there's kind of two ways you can look
at the last half of this verse.
Either he's saying he knew God was gracious and merciful, so he thought he would be gracious
and merciful to him, not having to preach to them, or basically he didn't want Nineveh
to get right with God, and he knew that God was going to be gracious with him.
That's why he didn't want to preach them to begin with.
I believe the latter.
I think what he's saying is, because he's angry that they're getting a second chance,
and I think what he's saying is, you know what, I'm mad.
I knew you were a gracious God.
I knew when you told me to preach to Nineveh, they'd get a second chance.
And I'm not happy about it.
I think that's what he's saying, because he hates Assyria.
Assyria was very wicked.
I'm sure a lot of saved people during that time here would have thought everybody's wicked
in this area, but that's not true.
And so we see here, and we don't know who the king was.
I've tried to look it up, who people think the king is at this time.
The king doesn't seem like a bad guy.
The king of Nineveh.
Now, I don't know whether he got saved or not, or whether he just had the word of God
proclaimed and published everywhere, but he seems like a decent guy, okay?
I don't know.
He doesn't seem like he's like, you know, I don't know, the wicked leaders we have today.
Verse three, therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better
for me to die than to live.
Then said the Lord, doest thou well to be angry?
And so what does Jonah say?
Just kill me.
I don't want to live, okay?
It's like, Jonah, make up your mind.
You could have just stayed in the whale's belly and died, right?
I mean, he was basically at the point of death.
He's like, I want to live.
Give me a second chance.
And then all of a sudden, he's like, just kill me.
It's like, make up your mind.
So yeah, he wanted out of that whale's belly.
He got right with God.
Then all of a sudden, he's like, I changed my mind.
I just want to be done.
I don't want to live anymore.
Obviously, this is a foolish attitude, but there are characters in the Bible that are
godly characters, like Elijah, who basically say something similar.
I don't want to live anymore, okay?
And so depression is a real thing that can take place.
We see this with Jonah.
He doesn't want them to be spared.
He's angry.
He wants to die.
Verse 5, and look, I don't know whether he actually wants to die.
I don't think he does.
I think it's kind of just speaking out against God personally.
I don't think he really wants to die.
I think he's just trying to, you know, when people get in fights, they say things they
don't mean.
Husbands and wives get in fights, and they say things back and forth, and they don't
really mean any of them.
I don't think Jonah actually meant this.
I don't think he actually wanted to die.
But I don't know.
Maybe he did.
But I don't think he actually wanted to die.
I think he's just basically talking against God, and he's upset.
Verse 5, so Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there
made him a booth and sat under it in the shadow till he might see what would become of the
city.
So in verse 5, this is what's basically taking place.
Here's Nineveh, and Jonah's just kind of sitting here saying, all right, I hope God destroys
Nineveh.
I'm going to sit here and hope and wait.
It's like he's at a sporting event.
He's watching the basketball game, seeing what's going to happen.
He's hoping that God will destroy Nineveh.
He's just kind of sitting there.
So he's just kind of relaxing, hoping God's going to destroy Nineveh.
We see in verse 5.
Now notice what it says in verse 6.
And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a
shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief.
So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
And so basically Jonah's out in the sun, you presume, you see that in the next verses.
It's very hot, and he's sitting here and he wants some shade.
He didn't bring a hat, okay?
So basically he needs a gourd.
He needs something over him to a plant to basically protect him from the sun.
And so God creates a plant.
And notice what it says in verse 7.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd
that it withered.
So God prepares a plant, and he has some shade for a day, and the next day he destroys it.
You're saying, Brother Stuckey, why in the world is this in the Bible?
Well, explain it in a second.
It actually makes a lot of sense here, okay?
Verse 8.
And it came to pass when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and
the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and
said, It is better for me to die than to live.
So he actually does wish to die in verse 8, although I don't really think that he meant
that earlier.
He's out in the sun, he's really hot, and he's like, Man, I just want to die.
And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?
And he said, I do well to be angry even unto death.
Remember, this was actually a very godly man.
He did a lot of great things, but most of his life's recorded here.
But even in the book of Jonah, he still does good things.
He's still preaching the word of God and everything like that.
He does other good things in his life.
In 2 Kings, it says he's a prophet, he's a great man of God.
He just, and even in the Bible, Moses makes mistakes.
Moses was a great man of God, probably greater than Jonah, but Moses makes mistakes as well.
We all do.
If you were to look at my entire life over, since I got saved at the age of 18 and I lived
to be, let's say, 118, I'm hopeful, over those 100 years of being saved, I'm sure if you
counted up every single mistake I made, you'd be like, Wow, I'm very glad God's merciful,
I'm very glad, you know, it's eternal life, right?
But we all make mistakes, and that's what we see here.
Verse 10, then said the Lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd for the which thou hast
not labored, neither mayest it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.
And so God says to Jonah, you're merciful for the gourd, like you want the gourd to
be okay, but you don't even care about these people.
You say, what exactly is the gourd meant to represent?
And I don't want to go to other verses for sake of time, but there's a lot of different
things that it kind of represents.
There's kind of a dual, triple, maybe even quadruple meaning, and I wrote down a few
things, and I want you to understand that Jonah was merciful to Nineveh, right?
He got right with God and he preached to them, but how long was he merciful to Nineveh for?
One day.
As merciful as you are towards others is as merciful as God will be to you.
The gourd was there for basically one day, less than a day.
So it was merciful to Nineveh for this long, and God says, I'm going to give you a gourd
and be merciful to you for this long.
As merciful as you are to others, God's going to be merciful to you.
You say, what's the point of the gourd?
Well, that's kind of the big point I see.
Basically, you know, the amount of mercy you show towards others is the amount of mercy
that you're going to have shown towards you.
And so realize this, that if somebody at the church does something wrong to you, and they
really do something wrong, and you're mad at them, and you show this much mercy, that's
fine.
Your choice.
This is how much mercy you're going to get in the future from God.
As much mercy.
With a merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful.
I'm misquoting that verse.
You guys know the verses I'm talking about.
But God says, as merciful as you are, or as compassionate as you are to others, is the
same compassion God's going to show to you.
He was merciful for basically one day, and he got right with God for one day, and God
was merciful to him for one day.
So that's one thing from the gourd.
But another thing I think this is showing you is that your life is going to be a series
of ups and downs.
And Jonah should have already realized this before because his life is going through ups
and downs, but basically Jonah had to preach to Nineveh, and he didn't want to do it.
It was a difficult journey.
He didn't want to do this job.
He might be scared for his life because he's there in Assyria.
But I think the gourd is showing you that you're going to have your ups and your downs.
And so when you're underneath the gourd, and your life is good, your job is going great,
your marriage is great, your kids are healthy, everything is awesome in your life, praise
the Lord for that.
But that gourd is going to last for one day.
And once the gourd is gone, you're going to have the vehement east wind that comes against
you.
You're going to have the strong sun that's going to come upon you.
Your life is a series of ups and downs.
And look, if you're underneath the gourd and say, hey, I'm going to serve God.
My life's going good.
I'm excited.
I'm going to serve God.
And then once you get through just a little bit of trouble in your life, and you just
backside on God and say, I don't even want to live, that's a foolish way to live your
life.
And you're not going to last in church if that's the case.
You're going to last in church if you say, I'm going to stay at this church and live
for God and go soul winning, no matter whether I'm going through a good time or through a
bad time.
Since this church has existed just over a year, and in some ways I can be more knowledgeable
about things that are going on.
Like I hear about things.
I know what's going on in people's lives.
I'm praying for people.
And I didn't ask anyone, so I'm not going to name any names.
But there are people in this room that went through a lot of trials this past year.
They went through trials in 2019, and it wasn't easy.
And your first reaction might be like, well, being at Verity Baptist Church Manila just
means my life's going to be terrible, so I quit.
That's the way people act, right?
I'll serve God when it's going well.
If it's not going well, I'm just going to forsake God and go back to offering to the
Queen of Heaven.
That's what you see in the Book of Jeremiah, right?
Look, whether your life's going good and you're underneath a gourd and everything's going
great in your life, or whether or not you're going through the storms of life which are
going to come upon you, you still serve God faithfully, no matter what, okay?
So that's another lesson we can learn from the gourd.
But I also think there's another lesson that's being taught, kind of referenced here, and
I could be wrong about this.
Not only do I think that God was telling Jonah, I'm going to be merciful to you for this long
because this is how long you are merciful, I think he's also trying to tell Jonah, hey,
I'm going to be merciful to Nineveh for this long, too.
Because all you have to do is go two books further in the Bible and Nineveh's destroyed.
So basically, like, yeah, you know what, Jonah, you're right.
And I don't know God saying this exactly, I'm just thinking like what he's thinking
in his mind.
So I could be wrong.
But basically if he's talking to Jonah, and I don't think he was literally saying that,
but I'm just saying, hey, Jonah, yeah, if they're wicked, they'll be destroyed, don't
worry about it.
If they're wicked and they're not right with God, once God decides to lay down the hammer,
sometimes he's not ready to lay down the hammer.
But sometimes he's not ready to lay down the hammer.
So God decides to give Nineveh another chance and say, I'm not going to destroy them yet.
But hey, yeah, if they're wicked and evil, don't worry about it.
Now look, we preach hard against wickedness, we preach hard against the LGBT, we preach
hard against, you know, people that are wicked false prophets, but realize that if God allows
them to still be here and cause problems or persecute us, that's God's choice.
And he might just allow us to go through those trials.
But he's only going to be merciful for this long, and eventually his mercy will run out.
And for sure when those people die unsaved, they'll burn in hell forever, but he might
lay down the hammer earlier.
That's his choice though, okay?
And so I do think he's hinting, and I could be wrong about this last one, because I think
the first two for sure, but I think he's basically saying, you know, yeah, Jonah, I'm going to
be merciful to Nineveh, that's my choice.
But the gourd's going to be destroyed, and then they're going to be destroyed.
So the time period I'm merciful is only going to be a short time if they don't stay right
with God.
Nineveh did not fully get right with God, okay?
And so one last verse here, verse 11, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city
wherein are more than six square thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?
And so here it mentions 120,000 people.
So Nineveh's more than 300,000 people then.
I don't know the exact number, but 120,000 people that cannot discern between their right
hand and their left hand.
What does that mean?
It means they're too young to understand the difference between right and left.
They're talking about young children.
That's an expression used in the Bible and also in some societies to say a young child.
Because I don't know the exact age, but right now my son doesn't know the difference between
his right hand and his left hand.
If I told you, you know, take this in your right hand, he knows a lot of things, but
he doesn't know that.
But he'll reach the age where he understands that.
He's not going to be 50 years old, and he still doesn't know his right and his left.
He'll learn that.
This is a reference to people that are basically young.
So God's basically saying there's 120,000 young people.
What he's saying is shouldn't I be merciful for all the children that live here?
Even if the politicians are wicked, I mean, there's children that live here.
And I'm not trying to go there for the sake of time, but also it's not really part of
the sermon.
But it's like you think of these wars that the U.S. is going and fighting with Iran.
It's like, yeah, you know what?
There's young children.
And look, you know, most of the Bible did not – I mean, the Bible didn't take place
in America.
It took place over towards like the Middle East where you have all this conflict going
on.
But it's like, yeah, you know what, 2,000 years later, 3,000, 4,000 years later, you're
thinking the same thing.
There are a lot of just innocent young children and moms that are just nice people that live
over in Iran, and they need the Gospel.
They don't need to be bombed.
They don't need to be destroyed.
Now, one thing that's interesting about this verse is this expression discerned between
the right hand and their left hand.
I actually heard a speech online.
I listened to the last speech that Saddam Hussein ever said before he was hung to death.
And I just listened out of curiosity like what he was saying.
I was curious.
It was a big event.
I don't remember the exact year he died, but it was a big event like 10 years ago.
Saddam Hussein was a very well-known terrorist, obviously a wicked person, obviously very
– and I don't know if this is true.
But what I heard about him was that he believed he was King Nebuchadnezzar reincarnated, like
he was come to bring back.
And I don't know if Americans just made that up or not.
I'm not really sure, but he was a wicked person.
He killed family members, lots of people.
He was a bad person.
But he actually used this expression in the speech where he talked about people not being
able to know the difference between their left hand and their right hand.
And I was thinking, oh, wow, that's just like the Bible says.
So that's not an expression we use in the United States, but there are parts of the
world – and obviously I don't speak whatever language he was speaking, but they had like
subtitles for the translation into English, okay?
And so Saddam Hussein used that expression of kids that don't know the difference between
their right hand and their left hand.
I was like, oh, wow, that, you know, the Bible actually, a lot of these expressions are used
even if it's not used where, you know, we are here.
And so the Book of Jonah, we covered a lot of material in a short amount of time, okay?
The Book of Jonah is a very interesting book, and I hope that you're able to take some
of this away.
But the verses are really important, because when you want to defend how we go soul-willing
and salvation, you need Jonah 3.
It's very important to understand those verses.
But in Jonah 2, you need to know that chapter about getting right with God, especially Jonah
2, verse 8, they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
That's a very important verse, and obviously Jonah 1 is really interesting, and Jonah 4
is interesting as well.
And I'll tell you in terms of the conclusion what happened to Jonah after this time.
I don't know.
I don't know whether Jonah decided to get right with God after this event.
I personally tend to believe that he did, because he only asked to preach to Assyria
one time.
Maybe this is just something he was mad about.
I believe he went back and served God personally.
You might not think that way.
The Bible doesn't tell us.
We don't really know.
But Jonah was a great man of God.
We just see some mistakes he made in his life.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to read
your word and see about the life of Jonah and the Book of Jonah.
It's a very interesting book from the Word of God.
Help us to apply this to our lives, God.
Help us never to backslide as far as Jonah did.
Help us always to try to apply the things we hear from reading the Bible and the preaching
of your word to our lives and make the changes that you command us to make.
But if we do ever really screw up our lives, God, help us to remember that there is a chance
to return for us, but we must be willing to just admit we screwed up, God, just like David
did when Nathan confronted him, God.
Help us to apply this to our lives, God.
Help us to continue to serve you and help us here in 2020 to continue to serve you and
for all of us in our personal lives to continue to serve you and just live for you and help
continue to bless this church.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.