Thank you.
Oh how sweet
Oh
I trust them
How I prove them
More and more
Jesus, Jesus
Precious Jesus
Hope for grace
To trust him
More
Thank you.
We want to ask the Lord's blessing
on the service.
Father in Heaven, we pray
God that you please bless this service
and please help Pastor Anderson
to be able to preach your word
and we pray God that we can listen to the message tonight
and we pray God that we can have the
strength in our voices to be able to praise you
and your son Jesus Christ
and we pray this in the name of your son Jesus
Amen.
Amen up to hymn 132
hymn 132
never alone
hymn 132
sing about that promise that he'll never leave us
or forsake us. I've seen the lightning flashing
and heard the thunder roll
singing out on that first now
I've seen the lightning
flashing
and heard the thunder roll
I felt
the flakers
lashing
trying to conquer my soul
I heard
the voice of Jesus
telling me
still to fight on
He promised
never to leave me
never to leave me alone, no, never alone, no, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone,
no, never alone, no, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
The world's fierce winds are glowing.
Temptations are sharp and keen.
I feel a peace in knowing my Savior stands between.
He stands to shield me from danger,
when earthly friends are gone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
No, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
No, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
When in afflictions valley I'm treading the road of care,
my Savior helps me to carry my cross when heavy to bear.
My feet entangled with briars ready to pass me down.
My Savior whispered his promise never to leave me alone.
No, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
No, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
He died for me on the mountain, for me they pierced his side.
For me he opened that fountain, the crimson cleansing tide.
For me he waited in glory, seated upon his throne.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
No, never alone, no, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
No, never alone, no, never alone.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
Sing it, sing it.
All right, this time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6.
Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week we'll be in 2 Chronicles chapter 21.
We've got the Soloning times listed there below as well as salvation and baptisms.
And then across the page is the note about the maternity shower for Eileen Urban.
And that's going to be next Sunday, September 29th from 2 to 4 p.m.
And if you don't know Eileen, she's famous for that one time that she couldn't pay the bill at a restaurant.
And she actually had to do dishes.
No, I'm just kidding.
It wasn't her.
It was a friend of hers, all right, just to be clear.
It wasn't her herself.
But in all kidding aside, even if you don't know Eileen, definitely show up for this,
all ladies and teen girls.
These are just kind of just social events for the ladies and teen girls in our church
to just get together and have a good time together.
And obviously it's about Eileen, but hey, it's also not all about just all about Eileen, okay?
It's also just about fellowship and socializing and everything like that.
There will be a catered lunch served.
And please RSVP to Mrs. Jenny Akinosho.
And Zuzia, can you refresh?
What is a maternity shower?
This is basically like, if they bring a gift, is it like maternity clothes?
It's for the mom if she's a first-time mother.
So is it like?
Okay, so like clothes, maternity books, what?
Body care products to pamper.
Okay, I don't know what you're talking about.
All right.
Never mind.
Sorry I asked.
Just kidding.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, that's next Sunday at two o'clock right here, catered lunch.
RSVP to Mrs. Jenny Akinosho.
Taking portraits for the yearbook is already in full swing.
That'll go through November 3rd.
Get it done sooner rather than later.
And the sign up is over here to my right.
On the back, the Navajo trip was a success.
31 soul winners, 26 salvations.
And thank you to everyone who participated in that as we work toward this goal of getting it finished.
The final reservation, there's 21 reservations in Arizona.
And we've finished 20 of them.
And the Navajo's the last one.
And more than half of the Arizona side's done.
So we're excited about finishing.
There's still a lot left.
But the vast majority of it's behind us.
So the light is at the end of the tunnel.
We've been doing these Indian reservations since, I want to say, 2016.
So we've been working on this for a long time.
It's a big project, but we've stayed with it.
Keep praying for our expectant ladies.
Oh, sorry, I skipped.
Brother Alex Larson's going to be hosting some small town soul winning in Coolidge on Saturday the 28th.
So you can see him for details on that.
Keep praying for the expecting ladies.
And that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning for the past few days.
So going back to Thursday the 19th.
Okay.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
Anything else from Thursday?
How about Friday?
Anything from Friday?
All right.
And then Saturday.
Okay.
And then like a total from the Navajo, I need to add that in.
What was that again?
26, right?
26?
Who can read the bulletin and find it?
There we go.
Okay.
26.
Okay.
Anything else from Saturday outside of that trip?
All right.
Very good.
And then how about today Sunday?
Okay.
For the North Phoenix crew.
Gotcha.
All right.
One for the main group with Brother Scott.
All right.
Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right.
You should find the answer in front of your hymnal with how great thou art.
If you don't have an answer, you can raise your hand and you'll receive one.
We'll sing it out together on that first verse.
Sing about the greatness of our God.
How great thou art, O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder.
Let's sing it out together.
How great thou art, O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder.
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.
I see the sky.
I hear the rolling thunder.
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
When through the woods and forest glades I wander.
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur.
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
And when I think that God is not sparing.
Send him to die.
I scarce can take it in.
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing.
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation.
And take me home.
One joy shall fill my heart.
And I shall bow in humble adoration.
And there proclaim, my God, how great thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
How great thou art.
Man, excellent singing, everybody.
Let's go in your hymnals now to hymn number 99.
Hymn number 99.
Come, ye disconsolate.
Hymn number 99.
Sing it out together on that verse.
Come, ye disconsolate.
Wherever ye languish.
Hymn number 99.
Sing it out now.
Number 99.
Come, ye disconsolate.
Wherever ye languish.
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts.
Here tell your anguish.
Her earth has no sorrow that death cannot heal.
Joy of the desolate, light of the straying.
Hope of the penitent, painless and pure.
Here speaks a comforter, tenderly saying.
Her earth has no sorrow that death cannot cure.
Here see the bread of life, sea water flowing.
Born from the throne of God, you're from above.
Come to the feast of love, come ever knowing.
Her earth has no sorrow that death cannot remove.
Man, good singing tonight.
Alright, this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Jonah chapter 3.
Jonah chapter number 3, as we always do.
We'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads.
Jonah chapter 3, beginning in verse number 1.
Jonah chapter 3, the Bible reads,
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.
So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey,
and he cried and said, Yet forty days in 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.
For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne,
and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes.
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.
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth,
and cry mightily unto God.
Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way,
and from the violence that is in their hands.
Who can tell if God will turn and repent,
and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way.
And God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them,
and he did it not.
Father in Heaven, thank you for your son Jesus Christ,
and for the earnest of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of your children.
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson,
with the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit,
as he preaches your word, so that we, your children,
would become better and better Christians with every passing day.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Amen. Over the last several weeks, I've been preaching on and off
sermons from the book of Jonah,
and tonight we're going to be looking at chapter 3,
and talking about God repenting of the evil
that he had said that he would do unto Nineveh, and doing it not.
Now starting at the beginning of the chapter, it says in verse 1,
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.
So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey,
and Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey,
and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Now, this is the only statement that we get from Jonah's sermon.
Just, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Here's one thing that we have to understand when we're reading the Old Testament especially.
There are often a lot of details that are left out of stories
where you have to kind of read between the lines.
How do I know that that's true?
Because a lot of times you'll go to the New Testament,
and the New Testament will interpret stories from the old,
and it will be kind of filling in those kinds of details.
Like, for example, when you're reading the story of Balaam,
and there's kind of just this jump where you read the story about Balaam in chapters 22 through 24,
then all of a sudden in chapter 25 everybody's worshiping idols and committing fornication.
You don't really know why, but then you find out from the New Testament that, you know,
Balaam had taught them to do that and so forth.
So, this is just a style of storytelling that doesn't necessarily give you every little detail
and kind of expects you to read between the lines and fill in the blanks a little bit here.
Obviously, he said more than this, but the crux of what he said,
the important thing to the story about what he said,
was that in forty days Nineveh is going to be overthrown.
Now, here's why I'm making a big deal about this,
is because when he says this, okay, there doesn't seem to be in that statement any hope for this not happening.
He's not saying forty days it'll be overthrown unless you get right with God,
unless you repent, unless you do something different.
It's just you're getting destroyed. Forty days and you're toast.
That's all he tells them.
Now, when we go later and look at chapter four, you're going to see that in chapter four,
Jonah wants the city to be destroyed even though the people repent and get right with God
and turn from their evil ways.
Jonah still wants them to be destroyed and he sits there outside town watching
because he wants to just wait and see when Nineveh gets destroyed.
And of course, they don't end up getting destroyed
and then he becomes angry at God for not destroying Nineveh.
So, if you look at chapter four and see that fact and then you look at the text here in chapter three,
it's clear that Jonah's preaching does not include an appeal for the people to get right with God.
It's simply just a pronouncement of judgment.
Here's why this is so important.
Keep your finger there in Jonah. Go back to Jeremiah chapter eighteen.
Jeremiah chapter eighteen.
Now, this principle that I'm going to preach here in the beginning of this sermon,
I think is one of the most important principles that you can learn in the Christian life.
It's so critical. It's so important.
I'm constantly explaining this to people.
I'm constantly preaching about this because I think it's so important to grasp this truth.
And I've seen so many people throughout my life who don't understand this and to terrible consequences.
And that is this, that as a Christian, it's never too late for you to get right with God.
And what I see is that a lot of people, once they feel like they've screwed up,
they just feel like it's too late for them, so they just kind of throw in the towel.
Now, here's the thing. As Christians, we know that it's never too late for us.
Because we're saved. We're Christians. God's mercies are new every morning.
We can always get right. We can always go back and get right with God, get back in church,
get back reading our Bibles and soul winning and doing the right things.
But for the Ninevites, you know, they're not even being given that guarantee explicitly.
They're not even being given that option.
But yet, the Ninevites end up being smart enough to know that even though they're not being given that option,
God in his nature is a merciful God.
And so knowing that God's nature is to be merciful, they ask the question, well, who knows?
Maybe God will repent and turn from the fiercest of his wrath.
Maybe he will not destroy us. It's worth a shot.
And it ends up working out because God does back down and not destroy Nineveh.
He does respond to their repentance.
Look at Jeremiah chapter 18, verse 7, and we'll see that this is just a general principle about the Lord.
It says in Jeremiah 18, 7, at one instant I shall speak concerning a nation
and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it.
If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil,
I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
See, this is not specific to Nineveh or anywhere.
This is just a general principle about the way God operates.
He says if I speak concerning a nation and I say I'm going to destroy that nation,
but then they get right with me, I'm not going to do it.
And we see this borne out over and over again throughout the history of Israel, right?
Where there will be times when judgment is pronounced, Jerusalem is going to be plowed like a field or something,
but then they get right with God and it doesn't happen.
And we can look at example after example after example like that.
And the reason that I really want to park it on this point is because this has some serious application in our lives as Christians
because people often get this attitude of, well, you know what, I screwed up, so now I'm just going to throw in the towel.
I'm just going to give up, whatever.
And you can see how Nineveh could have had that attitude.
They could have just said, oh, well, you know, we're too wicked and God says we're going to be overthrown in 40 days, so whatever.
It's too late for us.
No matter what I do, you know, I'm going to be destroyed anyway.
But you know what? God is super merciful.
And you never know when God is just going to forgive and help you out and get you out of the situation that you're in.
Don't just give up, okay?
And you know, the thing about this is that in our lives, everyone is going to make mistakes.
We're all going to have failings and shortcomings and do stupid things.
We're going to commit sins and do these things.
And here's the thing, you don't want to ever get the attitude of, oh, I blew it now, I'm done.
And on the one hand, we want to be sorry for our sins.
You know, on the one hand, we should feel bad when we do wrong.
But we don't want to be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow, as the Bible talks about in 2 Corinthians.
It's possible to feel too bad about something that you've done because then it can just cripple you.
And you just think, I'm worthless, I'm bad, you know, and then there's no way forward for you, okay?
And you know, this even can be applied to just carnal situations, you know.
It's sort of like this, you blow your diet by eating this one piece of cake or one piece of candy that you weren't supposed to.
And then you're just like, oh, that's it, diet's blown.
And then you just go into some major binge.
We've all done it, right?
We're being all strict about our eating.
And then one bonbon goes in our mouth and then it's just like, ah, whatever, you know.
Might as well just go all the way in for a penny, in for a pound, you know.
Instead of just eating one bullet cinnamon toast crunch, it's just like, okay, let's go, the whole box.
You know, why not?
This is how people think, you know.
A girl loses her virginity and then it's just like, oh, whatever, not a virgin anymore, and then just goes out and commits a bunch of fornication.
Folks, that is not the way life works, okay?
If you mess up, you've got to find a way to just confess that to God, forsake that, and dust yourself off and go forward in the Christian life.
And not just keep beating yourself up about it.
And look, some sins are little sins, some sins are really big sins.
But whatever you've done in the past, you can't change it, but you can decide that you're not going to just give up.
You know, and Nineveh had done some serious violence in the past.
We don't know exactly what Nineveh was guilty of.
God just said their wickedness has come up before me.
He talked about, you know, the violence that was in their hands.
So we don't know exactly what the particular wickedness was, but that's not really the point, is it?
The point is, they had done wickedly, but God was not done with them and it was not too late for them.
Even when God's making it sound like it's too late for them, it's still not too late.
But you know, even just if you're actually looking for an excuse to repent and get right with God,
even just the fact that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown, there's an implication there
that why would you be telling us that if there's nothing we could do to fix it?
Why would you be even telling us this and giving us this certain time limit?
It kind of sounds like a deadline, even though there's nothing explicitly saying,
unless you do this and that, right?
We should just always know that God is merciful in his character
and that he just operates this way where if he says he's going to destroy it and they get right with God, he doesn't.
Okay? So no matter what you've done, no matter where you're at in this process of either living for God,
not living for God, being backslidden, being right with God, if you're a saved Christian, right?
Then you need to decide right now, okay, whatever I've done in the past, I can't fix that.
I can't change that, but you know what? I can be pure from here on out.
I can abstain from fornication from here on out.
I can abstain from alcohol from here on out.
You know, I can abstain from drugs from here on out, okay?
And it's never too late to at least get right with God and make those kind of efforts.
Now look, if you're not saved, then you just need to get saved, okay?
And you say, well, how do I know if it's too late for me to get saved?
Well, if you want to get saved and you believe in Jesus and ask Jesus to save you, then it must not be too late for you.
Because you just did that and that's what you have to do to be saved.
And so if you do that, then it clearly wasn't too late for you.
Because the people for whom it is too late, what the Bible would refer to as a reprobate,
the Bible talks about these people having their heart hardened and their eyes blind to the point where they can't believe
and where they actually hate God and don't even want to retain God in their knowledge.
So I've had people come to me and say like, oh, I'm scared I might be a reprobate.
I'm just like, do you hate the Lord? Do you hate the Word of God? No. Well, then you're not a reprobate.
Because reprobates hate the Lord. They hate God's Word.
Of course, there are reprobates who lie and say that they don't.
But you know yourself though, right? You know yourself.
And here's the thing. If you're hearing the Word of God and saying, you know what?
I'm hearing the Word of God. I'm believing what I'm hearing.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and you put your faith and trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ
and to ask Him to save you, hey, Him that cometh to Jesus, He will in no wise cast out.
And so that's the proof that it's not too late for you is the fact that you heard God's Word, believe it, and you're ready to call upon Him.
Then do it. Be saved before it is eternally too late.
Because if you die without Jesus Christ, it's too late.
And you do not want to play with that. You want to make sure that you get saved immediately.
But obviously I'm preaching to a saved crowd. Obviously the vast majority of people here are already saved.
We're a church here that's filled with born again, baptized believers.
And so I'm telling you as a saved Christian, don't give up or despair or be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow
because of sins that you've committed, even if they're major sins.
Even if they're huge sins like murder or like fornication or adultery.
And you say, who would commit murder? I don't know, like 25% of American women maybe?
Right? Abortion? Anyone?
You know, I mean, murder, adultery, huge sin, wicked sin, right?
Drunkenness, fornication, drugs. You know what? If you've done those things, God is not just throwing you in the trash.
If he were, you'd be dead. If God's just done with you as a Christian, you're just going to be dead at that point.
If you're still alive and breathing air as a saved Christian, it's not too late for you to get right with God.
And don't despair and say, oh, it's too late for me. I'm doomed. God's going to punish me no matter what.
You know, who knows if God will turn and repent and turn from the fierceness of his wrath.
And you know what? Let's apply this same situation to you and your parents, okay?
Teenagers will often just get this attitude, well, my mom's got it in for me no matter what, so I'm just going to stop trying.
My dad's got it in for me. And look, let me testify. When I was a teenager, and I know I've told the same story too many times,
but I said that if Jesus Christ lived in my house, he would get yelled at every day.
Okay? And it was a stupid statement, and I was wrong, but that's how I thought as a teenager.
And that's how teenagers think. They just think it's impossible to please mom and dad.
It's impossible to get along. Right? That's how they think. So they just give up trying.
And you know what? That's garbage. Never give up on doing what's right. Don't give up on doing what's right.
Don't give up on trying to get the sin out of your life. Don't give up on reading your Bible, going to church.
Don't give up on obeying your parents. Don't give up on soul winning.
Look, it's so easy to just think, oh, I screwed up. I messed up my streak on Duolingo, so now I'm just never going to go on Duolingo.
Right? It's like you got some 500-day streak on Duolingo. You're just on Duolingo every day. Duolingo, Duolingo, Duolingo.
And then you lose your streak, and then it's just like six months go by.
Wouldn't it make more sense to just miss that and then just get back on the next day and just pick up and start a one-day streak?
And why didn't you have a streak freeze equipped anyway? Why didn't you have two streak freezes equipped, for crying out loud?
And look, this is a little personal for me because, like, I haven't been able to keep a streak going lately, so, you know, so I'm preaching to myself tonight, amen?
But the point is that isn't that the way people think? They'll literally get hundreds of days streak, and then as soon as they break the streak, they just don't go on for weeks.
Now, Duolingo doesn't really matter, but guess what? In our Christian life, your Bible reading streak matters. Your prayer streak matters. Your church attendance streak matters.
Your soul-winning streak matters. You know, hey, you got out of soul-winning for a few months, jump back in. You haven't read your Bible in a few months, jump back in.
Right? You used to be sober, and you fell off the wagon and had a drink. Don't you be like, oh, I drank one beer, so, hey, let's go.
No. Just, big deal. You drank one beer, get over it, move on. Don't just go all the way off the cliff.
But that's how people are. They tend to go all the way off the cliff. Thank God that the king of Nineveh was a little smarter than that.
Okay, so let's go back to our Nineveh story here in Jonah chapter 3. It says in Jonah 3 verse 4,
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's 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 sacraments. And here's a startling statement.
From the greatest of them, even to the least of them. So, I mean, there's just like a universal repentance going on here. Okay?
In general, the people of Nineveh believed God, and you've got the leadership of Nineveh, the king and his nobles,
issuing a proclamation that we're all going to be fasting, we're all going to put on sackcloth, we're all going to get right with God,
and then just universal repentance here of just everybody in Nineveh in general doing this, right?
The people in general believed God, and the people in general are, you know, or every single person is putting on sackcloth,
because they're being like commanded to even by the government.
Now, this is kind of startling, because all throughout the Bible you have prophets preaching, and they're usually not getting a great response to their preaching.
Right? Typically, we read more about prophets preaching, a lot of people are rejecting their message, maybe some people are accepting it,
some people are not, some prophets have more success than others, but it's a little bit startling to just see this guy show up and preach in a foreign country,
and just everybody's just listening. I mean, think about it. Like, if I went to some foreign country and preached some hard sermon and called them to repentance,
you wouldn't just expect everybody to just be like, wow, and then the president of the country, you know, if I went to Botswana or something,
and I'm calling them, you know, to repentance of their wickedness, and then basically, you know, the president's just issuing a proclamation,
we all need to fast, we all need to get right with God, you know, whatever. No, you know, the president is like calling the police and saying,
throw this guy out of our country. That's what actually happened to me in Botswana. And so, this is a little bit surprising, isn't it?
Now, I think that there may be a little bit of an explanation here for why Jonah was so successful here, okay, besides just the power of God's word.
Obviously, God's word is powerful, but still, even though God's word is powerful, this is still a little bit of an abnormal result. Am I right?
Based on the Bible and based on what we see in our lives, actual experiences that we've had.
So, flip over and go to Matthew 12. Let's go to the New Testament and see if maybe we can shed a little light on this,
because remember what I told you a little bit earlier in the sermon about how sometimes in the Old Testament,
stories will leave out certain details, and you have to read between the lines a little bit,
and sometimes the New Testament will kind of shed a little light on some things that are going on behind the scenes in these books.
But back in Matthew chapter 12, I'm going to read you some famous verses beginning in verse 39.
It says in Matthew 12 39,
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it,
but the sign, don't miss this, the sign of the prophet Jonas.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So we have two signs that we're talking about. Number one, the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Number two, the sign of the Lord Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
Now what do we mean by a sign, right? Typically when we would use sign in this context, we're talking about a miracle.
Right? When people are coming to Jesus and saying, show us a sign from heaven, our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, what are they saying?
They're saying, perform a miracle. Okay?
And so there's the miracle of Jonah being swallowed by a whale, living inside that whale for three days and three nights, and then being vomited onto the dry land.
That's a miracle. I mean, that's not a normal thing that could happen.
God prepared a great fish in order for that to happen because that's not something that could normally just take place.
Okay. And then obviously, of course, Christ's death, burial, and resurrection is a miracle.
So it's the sign of Jesus's resurrection. So keep that in mind. Let's keep going.
Verse 41, the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.
And behold, a greater than Jonah is here.
So what do we see here? We see that the men of Nineveh, they heard Jonah preach that in 40 days, Nineveh would be overthrown.
And they repented as a result of hearing that preaching.
But now let's look at Luke chapter 11, verse 29, parallel passage in Luke 11 29.
And we're going to see a very interesting statement in Luke 11 29 that kind of gives us a different perspective about this whole story.
Go back to Luke 11, verse 29.
And the Bible reads, when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say unto them, this is an evil generation.
They seek a sign and there shall no sign be given to it.
But the sign of Jonas the prophet, for as Jonah, watch this, was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation.
Now think about this. If Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, they must have seen the sign or at least been aware of the sign or heard about the sign.
Because remember, the sign of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection is a sign to that generation.
Now obviously, everybody in Christ's generation did not witness the resurrection.
Jesus, after he resurrected, he did not appear to all the people.
He didn't even appear to all of Israel, but unto people that were specially chosen to be witnesses of his resurrection.
So he appeared unto the women of course, he appeared unto the apostles, and then he appeared unto 500 brethren at one time.
First Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul is saying, hey, some of these guys are still alive, the 500 that he appeared to.
Some of them have since fallen asleep, but there are a lot of witnesses to the resurrection.
So people are hearing about, knowing about, being aware of the resurrection of Christ.
That's what was being preached in that generation, the gospel was being preached.
Obviously, we're still preaching it today, the sign of the Son of Man.
So it says Jonah was assigned to the Ninevites, the Son of Man will in the same way, right?
Because that's what so means, right?
So shall the Son of Man be to this generation.
And so to me, I don't think that there's really any other way to interpret Luke 11 30,
but that somehow the Ninevites were aware of Jonah's ordeal in the whale.
Because in order for Jonah's three day and three night ordeal in the whale's belly to be a sign unto the Ninevites,
it doesn't just say it was a sign, it says it was a sign to the Ninevites.
In the same way that Christ's resurrection was a sign to his generation,
then it seems that they somehow must have been aware of what he had gone through.
And again, we could speculate about how they knew about it.
You know, I think that probably the most obvious way that they knew is that when Jonah was vomited upon the dry land, right?
Because if we if we want to go back to the Book of Jonah, you know, it says in Jonah chapter two, verse 10,
the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
When the whale came and vomited Jonah upon the dry land, you know,
one possible explanation is that there were witnesses that see a whale pull up and puke this dude onto the beach.
And so if people see this happen, they're going to be pretty freaked out.
They're going to be pretty intrigued.
And then they're going to ask him what's going on.
And he's going to tell them, I've been living in this thing, you know, for three days and three nights or whatever.
And he tells them the story.
So there could have been witnesses that saw this that are testifying and saying this guy was in the belly of this whale because we saw the whale puke him onto the pavement.
OK, so that's one explanation.
And then the other explanation would simply be that Jonah himself is just testifying of this and that it's Jonah himself saying,
I was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights and I was puked onto the dry land.
And because I didn't come here and now I'm here.
So here's the message that I'm going to begrudgingly give you that I didn't want to tell you anyway.
Nuts to you all. I'm going to go watch you guys get destroyed now.
You know, whatever.
But somehow I just feel like Luke 1130 is kind of the smoking gun that somehow the Ninevites must have known about what he went through.
Now, I think it's also pretty safe to assume that his body was somehow mutilated or marred from being inside of the fish for three days and three nights.
You know, and it would just stand to reason that if he's inside the whale's belly, that he's going to come out and he's going to be maybe looking like some kind of a burn victim or something from just all of the stomach acids or whatever.
You know, and again, this is speculation on my part, but at the end of the day, something really got the Ninevites attention to the way they're like, OK, there's a sign here from God.
God is giving us a sign. And so we're going to take this message really seriously because of the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Of course, the sign of the Lord Jesus Christ is greater. He says, Behold, a greater than Jonah is here about Jesus.
And obviously, Christ's resurrection from the dead is a bigger miracle than, you know, living inside of a whale's belly and being vomited out on dry land.
But I, you know, again, we could speculate about was it Jonah himself that told them this or have other witnesses, you know, backed up his story or even gone ahead and told the story and said this guy was literally vomited up from a whale?
Who knows? And was, you know, again, I'm speculating, but I think it's very likely that his appearance was somehow mutilated or marred or disfigured from being in that ordeal.
Who knows? But either way, I think that that kind of explains why he was so successful at his preaching.
Look at Jonah chapter three, verse six. It says, For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
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 heard nor flock taste anything.
Let them not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God.
Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands.
Who can tell? What a great statement. This guy is smart. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not?
You know, and that's the attitude that we should have instead of just giving up, saying, Hey, maybe there's a way forward for me. You know, maybe God's going to be merciful.
Maybe I can get my life on track. And we as Christians, we have way more promise than the Ninevites had.
And yet they were still smart enough to say, Hey, you know what? It's worth a shot to get right with God and try to live right and try to do the right thing.
And this is very similar. If you want to keep your finger in Jonah and just flip back a few pages to the left in your Bible, a very short distance, maybe six, seven pages to the book of Joel Chapter two.
It's right there. Just a couple of pages to the left. Look at Joel Chapter two, verse twelve. The Bible reads, Therefore also now sayeth the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning and rend your heart.
Rend means tear, right? Like to tear something in half. Rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil.
Who knows? Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?
Who knows? Maybe he'll turn from his anger. Maybe he'll repent. Now, what does it mean here when it talks about God repenting of the evil that he said that he would do unto them or here in in Joel?
It says, repenteth him of the evil at the end of verse thirteen. What are we talking about? The first thing that we need to talk about is what is the word evil mean?
Okay, because a lot of people, when they see this word evil, they think to themselves, oh, we're talking about sin or wickedness or something morally wrong, but that is not what evil means in this context.
You know, like I saw someone had this logic the other day of saying like, okay, hell is evil. God created hell, therefore God created evil or something.
You know, this is obviously a faulty logic because what you need to understand is that you're using the wrong definition of evil there.
Evil often in the Bible simply means harmful, not wrong or sinful or wicked, just harmful.
If I do evil unto someone in a certain context, it could be just harming them. Okay, so God does evil.
Now, God is obviously totally without sin. The Bible says God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There's no unrighteousness with the Lord.
There's no wickedness with the Lord, right? Everything he does is right. So then how can he do evil? Because he's not doing wickedness or sin.
He's doing evil only if you have the right definition of evil in this context, which means harm. Harm, right?
So like when the Bible says, you know, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. What is he saying?
I'll fear no harm that could come upon me. He's not saying I'm not scared of sin. He's saying I fear no evil, meaning I feared nothing bad happening to me in the sense of bad like harmful.
Does everybody see what I'm saying? So when God is going to destroy Nineveh, he's going to do evil to Nineveh because he's going to harm Nineveh.
He's totally right in doing so. He's not sinning or doing any wickedness.
And there's even a verse in Amos chapter three where the Bible says, you know, is there an evil in the city and the Lord has not done it?
Saying, you know, if there's an evil in the city, God did it. But we're not talking about sin. It's not like, oh, look at this evil stuff going on.
God's behind that. Not unless you're a Calvinist. OK, we don't believe that God is behind these sinful, evil, wicked things in that sense.
But does God harm? Now, look, is hell a harmful place? Absolutely. God did create hell. God is in charge of hell.
Hell is harmful, but it's a righteous punishment for the wicked. So therefore there's no there's no issue there.
And so we need to understand what evil means in this context. It's talking about harm.
So God repents of the evil. It's saying that he repents of the destruction and doom and punishment.
The harm that he was going to bring upon Nineveh or, you know, the obviously we're talking in Joel about a different group of people.
But the point is that when God repents of the evil, it's that he decides not to do what he was going to do.
Now, let's talk about the word repent. What does the word repent mean? OK, the word repent can either mean something like turn.
So if you repent of something, it means you're turning away from it. Or maybe you were going to do one thing.
Then you repent and do something different. So I was going to do A, but you know what? I repent it. I'm going to do B.
And this is why also the word repent is often defined as changing your mind.
Right? Because this is how we would express that in English if I said I was going to go to the store, but then I changed my mind and didn't go to the store.
You could say, you know, I was going to go to the store, but then I repented and did not go.
Now, the problem is that a lot of people, when they hear the word repent, they automatically think repenting of sin.
So they automatically think that you're repenting of something bad and doing something good.
Whereas the Bible uses the word repent in a whole bunch of different ways. And it's not about repenting of sin.
Now, look, when God repents, he's not repenting of sin. He doesn't have any sin.
Also, when the children of Israel leave Egypt, God says he doesn't want them to go through the land of Philistines because they'll repent when they see war.
Now, going to the promised land is a good thing. If they repented, that would be a bad thing.
So repentance can be bad if you're if you're serving God and then you repent of serving God.
Now, that's a bad repentance because you change your mind or you change your direction or you turned away from one course of action to another.
Now, when it comes to salvation, the repentance involved in salvation has to do with changing what you believe, changing what you're trusting.
Because, look, if the one thing you have to do to be saved is believe in Jesus, put your faith in Christ. Well, then what's the repentance?
It's like, well, you used to not be trusting in Jesus. Now you are. You used to be Buddhist.
Now you're Christian. You used to be a polytheistic pagan idol worshiper.
Now you're trusting in the living true God. You turned from idols to God.
That's that's a that's a repentance involved in salvation because you can't just keep worshipping Hindu gods and saying, well, I'm also a Christian.
You have to repent of the false gods turned to the true God.
You repent of Mormonism and its false teachings and its works based salvation.
You turn to biblical Christianity.
OK, you turn from a Roman Catholicism and all of its hocus pocus, fufu dust and and all of its manmade works based salvation.
Hail Mary, full of grace. Swing those beads all over the place.
Swing them high. Swing them low. Swing them. Mary, go, go, go.
You know, I don't have a Catholic background, so I don't know the real version of that.
But the point is, that's what you repent of, because that's a wrong way to heaven.
The right way to heaven is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that shall be saved.
The right way to heaven is through Jesus, not through Mary and the saints and the priest and the pope and all those things.
It's through Jesus through Christ alone. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me, Jesus said.
And it's by grace that we're saved through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.
And so look, if somebody is an atheist and says, I don't believe God exists, they're going to have to repent of that in order to get saved.
Because you have to believe that God exists in order to be saved, right?
Because you've got to believe Jesus is the Son of God and God better exists.
Otherwise, how can Jesus be the son of somebody who doesn't exist?
Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So the point is, is repentance involved in salvation?
If we properly define repentance, then absolutely.
Because something's got to change in order for you to be saved.
You go from false religion to biblical religion. You go from false belief to right belief.
Not believing to believing. Idols to God.
But here's what's not involved in salvation. You don't have to, quote, turn from your sins in order to be saved.
And you know what? I can't even believe how many times people say this and they say it with a straight face and they act like it makes sense and it doesn't.
They'll literally sit there and tell you, all you have to do is just put your faith in Christ and you'll be saved.
You just believe in Jesus and you're like, great.
And then it's just like, all right, so you just turn from your sins and it's like, hold up, what?
Like they try to like smuggle this in. Like they just finished telling you it's faith and it's not works.
But then it's like if you read the fine print, like it sounds like a great deal.
And you're like, great free gift of salvation. And then there's like this fine print, oh, you got to turn from your sins.
That sounds like work to me. Like shouldn't just logic tell you that that's works?
Keeping the commandments, turning from your sins or whatever.
And it's just, it's so funny to me how you'll listen to a preacher get up and out of one side of his mouth.
He's telling you salvation is by faith. But then the other side of his mouth is like, oh, you got to turn from your sins to be saved.
Well, that's basically like reforming yourself to be saved. That's a, that's a workspace salvation.
Like you have to do this, do that, don't do this, quit this sin, start doing this.
And they're like, well, you don't really have to do it. You just have to be willing to do it.
So you just got to like commit that, OK, I'm going to stop doing this stuff.
Either way, then you're just committing to work then. Because guess what? Turning from your sins is work.
I think common sense should tell you that. That it's going to take effort and work and diligence.
And by the way, keeping the commandments of God is called the works of the law. Right?
Any way you slice it, that's works. And so when people say, well, you have to repent of your sins and believe in Jesus,
they're basically saying do works and believe in Jesus. Basically what they're saying.
Now, sometimes people will use this terminology repent of your sins, but then when you pin them down, they don't really mean it.
They're just repeating something they've heard. So I'm not saying everybody who teaches this is not safe.
Because some people are just saying it and then you pin them down. Well, what does it mean to repent of your sins?
And they're just like, well, it just means you just like admit you're a sinner and that what you did was bad.
It's like, oh, wow. Everybody already knows that. Like what person out there doesn't know that sin is bad?
Like you really think that people out there are unsaved because they don't know they're a sinner?
Or because they don't know that sin is bad or that they don't regret their sins? I mean, stop and think about it.
If we go out solely and we walk up to people and we show them Romans 3 23 all have sinned.
How many people argue with that? Almost no one. Usually when we show them Romans 3 23 all have sinned.
Ninety nine point nine percent of people are just like, of course. Right? Absolutely.
Like like that's the easiest part. Showing someone they're a sinner is super easy.
It's almost just a formality to make sure that they know something that because every once in a while you'll get that guy who's like, no, I don't know.
I don't think I've ever said you're like, what? The point is, like everybody knows that they're a sinner.
And then if you ask people, hey, do you wish you were a better person? Ninety some percent of people are like, yeah.
You feel bad about some of the bad things you've done in your life, like stealing or, you know, killing or committing adultery or whatever. Yeah.
You know, folks, it's just kind of like, duh, sin's bad. Shouldn't have done some stuff.
Hello. Right. That's not the point. The point of the gospel, pretty much everybody knows that they're a sinner.
Obviously want to clarify to people, though, that you're a sinner and you're doomed for hell without Jesus.
Like that's the part that people might not be aware of. Everybody knows they're a sinner and that sin's bad.
The main thing that they need to realize, though, is that your sin condemns you to hell and that you need Jesus to be saved.
And then you get into the fact that salvation is by faith and you show them the gospel, death, burial and resurrection.
I'm not going to go through all that for sake of time. I've preached plenty of sermons about that and we and we preach it every week door to door.
Amen. We do soul winning every week around here. Every day somebody from our church is out soul winning.
And so the point is that, you know, when it comes to repentance, the repentance involved in salvation has to do with believing in Jesus as the only way to heaven.
It doesn't have to do with quitting sinning or being willing to quit sinning.
And the reason where people are getting this wrong is they'll take verses that say repent and they'll just add of your sins.
But you can't do that because repent has to be interpreted according to its context.
And in this context, when God's repenting, he's not repenting of sin. He's repenting of destroying Nineveh.
He was going to destroy it, changed his mind, doesn't destroy it.
Now, are you there in Jonah 3? Look at verse number 10. It says,
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way.
And the thing that we need to see here is the fact that turning from their evil way is works.
So if somebody says to you, oh, repenting of your sins, that's not works.
Turning away from a sinful life, that's not works. That's not works salvation.
Of course, you have to stop doing these sinful things.
Well, then take them to Jonah 3 10 and show them this verse and say the Bible here says God saw their works.
And then what were the works? That they turned from their evil way. That's what the works were.
Because guess what? Again, common sense should have told you this.
But in case common sense doesn't kick in, Jonah 3 10 is the backup.
Turning from your sins is works. That's what the Bible explicitly says here.
And so what you did, your deeds, your works, that's not what saves you.
It's faith in Jesus Christ that saves you. Okay.
God saw their works that they turned from their evil way.
Now, here's the thing about this is that in this story, turning from their evil way prevents Nineveh from being destroyed.
God sees the works that they turned from their evil way. And then what does God do?
God repents of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and did it not.
And here's what you have to understand is that doing works or turning from your evil way is what spares you from being destroyed in this life.
Whereas believing in Jesus is what gets you eternal life that saves you from hell after you die.
Everybody see the difference? You see, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you're saved from hell.
You're going to heaven when you die. But that does not guarantee that you're not going to be destroyed here and now on this earth.
In fact, if you are a saved Christian, you're more likely to get destroyed on this earth for being wicked.
See, unsaved people, they might go out and do a bunch of sinful stuff and just get away with it because they're not God's children.
And whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and the Lord scourges every son whom he receiveth.
But is he guaranteed to discipline and scourge and chasten and chastise those who are not his children?
You know, am I disciplining the neighbor kids?
You know, there was probably a time in our country when if you saw some neighbor kid acting up, you'd just give him a whip in yourself or something.
There's probably a time like that, but it's not 2024. I promise you that.
You know, I heard some story about like John Wayne came to this town in Montana where my old pastor lived and I guess, you know, some kid spooked his horse.
And John Wayne, the actor, got off his horse and spanked the kid in the street and then got off his horse and continued on.
He disciplined this kid for messing with his horse or whatever. I don't know if that story is apocryphal. I'm just repeating the story that I heard.
But, you know, obviously that was a different time.
In today's world, you spank the neighbor kids, it's not going to go over very well.
You okay?
And here's the thing about that is that, you know, God has said that he will discipline his children.
And he said if you're without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.
That tells me that there are some people that are without chastisement.
It must exist or we wouldn't be talking about it.
There are bastards that are without chastisement.
And so, therefore, it's possible for an unsaved person who's not a child of God to go through life committing sin, doing wickedness, and not getting what's coming to them.
Getting away with it, as it were.
But are they really getting away with it?
No, because why? Why are they not getting away with it?
Because they're going to hell when they die.
And going to hell is worse than anything that could happen to them in this world anyway.
So are they really getting away with it?
I mean, they could live to be 120 and be surrounded by loved ones on their deathbed and everything's great.
And they could just sort of peacefully drift off into the fires of hell.
You know, it's like, who cares?
Like, so what?
It doesn't matter how good their life was, they're in hell.
Does everybody understand?
Okay, whereas the saved Christian, the Bible says, God scourges every son whom he receiveth.
And if you're without chastisement, you a bastard, not a son.
Because everybody who's saved is going to be disciplined.
Meaning that if you're saved and you go out and start living a wicked life, you're not going to get away with it in this world.
Now, here's the thing.
You're not going to lose your salvation because Christ has said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.
We're sealed by the Holy Ghost on the day of redemption.
And he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
And we're saved, we're sealed, we're secure.
We know that.
But just because you believed in Christ, yes, that guarantees you a home in heaven.
Yes, that gave you eternal life.
But it does not guarantee you that you're not going to get destroyed in this world.
Because God can still cloud up and rain on you in this world.
Now, let's expand that to a nation.
Let's think about America, for example, right?
So, let's say that America is filled with a ton of saved people, which it is, right?
We go out so many, we're constantly running into people that are already saved.
I mean, there are just tens of millions of Baptists, tens of millions of evangelicals,
just so many people who believe on Jesus, they're actually saved, so many.
But does that mean that America is just never going to be judged by God?
No, because here's the thing.
If you're saved, but you don't turn from your evil way, okay, yeah, you're going to heaven because you believe.
But in order to get spared physical judgment on this earth, you got to turn from your evil way.
You know, so if it's like, oh, we're saved, but people are still fornicating, drinking, doing drugs, right?
Having abortions or whatever, you know, all that stuff is still going to bring the wrath of God on a nation,
regardless of whether people are saved or not saved.
In fact, the more saved they are, the more likely they are that they're going to be judged.
You know, like I won somebody to Christ when I was in Armenia that basically said like,
oh, you know, I don't feel like I've ever been like judged or punished by God.
I was like, well, don't worry, that's going to start now because you're saved now.
So, you know, buckle up, you know, so you bet you better start making some changes then because it's coming.
Now that you're saved, you know, here's the good news and the bad news about being saved.
But at the end of the day, though, even God's chastisement is a blessing because why does he chastise us?
He wants us to do right. He's trying to get us on the right track.
He wants us to be partakers of his holiness, right?
Our fathers, our earthly fathers, we talked about this morning, our earthly fathers, they chastened us after their own pleasure,
but he, for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
And so he's doing us a favor by disciplining us and getting us back on track.
Of course, we're doing our kids a favor too when we discipline them so that they don't grow up and become criminals and horrible people.
And so the point is that God is going to judge nations in this lifetime because nations don't go to heaven or hell.
Like, it's not like America just all goes to heaven, you know, and France goes to hell and, you know, Venezuela goes to hell.
Germany definitely goes straight to hell. Lowest hell. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just messing with people in the auditorium.
I'm just looking at the auditorium, just, you know, just, you know, Nigeria goes to heaven, you know.
India goes to hell. I know. Yeah, that's obvious, right?
But that's not how it works, right? Whole nations don't go to heaven, don't go to hell.
Okay? Individuals go to heaven and hell. And what's it based on? Believing in Christ.
Cities and states and countries, they don't get punished in the next life. They get punished right here, right now.
So you have the Old Testament story of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed, right? Just right here, right now.
It just got nuked. Okay? But then, even in the New Testament period, you have the city of Pompeii, which was also a super faggoty city.
Okay? Because my family and a bunch of other families from church, they went to a homeschool field trip to a museum and the Pompeii exhibit had a warning label on it.
It said, warning, this exhibit is super faggoty. Like, do not bring kids in here.
Now, it didn't word it like that, but that was the gist of it. You know what I mean? And it was just like, that's why they got smoked, right?
It's just a bunch of exhibits. Well, I'm not even going to say what, you know, I wasn't there, but I'm getting the story secondhand.
But the point is, I know enough about Greco-Roman history to know that Pompeii is a perverted place.
That's why they got the old Sodom and Gomorrah treatment, you know? And God rained fire and brimstone down on them.
And, you know, it's like a New Testament version of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Cities get destroyed, states get destroyed, countries get destroyed. In this lifetime, Nineveh was running the risk of getting destroyed because of their great wickedness.
You know, you could have a town that's a pretty moral town and maybe nothing bad is going to happen to them in this life, right?
But they still need to worry about their own personal salvation, making sure that they believe in Jesus and that they're on the way to heaven, right?
And so these are just two separate issues. There's believing the Lord, that gets you to heaven.
And I think that in general, or we don't, you know, I'm not saying that everybody in Nineveh got saved, but I think that a lot of the people in Nineveh are doing both.
They're believing God, they're getting saved, they're believing on the Lord, but then they're also turning from their wicked way.
Because obviously, in a perfect world, we're all going to do both.
You know, we don't want to just be like, well, I believe in Christ, I'm going to heaven, that's it, that's enough, enough religion for me, you know?
No, no, no, man, you need more than that because you want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And you want to clean up your life because you don't want to get destroyed.
You know, obviously, just because we're going to heaven, don't you want to live a good life between now and then, too?
I don't know about you, but I want to live to be a very old man.
And I want to be a very old man who's healthy, and I want to prosper, and I want to succeed in my endeavors.
And, you know, I want to live a happy life, a blessed life, and I want to do great things for God.
And I don't want to just be destroyed prematurely because I was an idiot.
Well, I'm going to heaven, so who cares? You know, let's go, let's go hit the club, man, let's go hit the bars, let's go hit the casino.
That's stupid. I want God to bless me.
And it's like, it's like, oh, well, you're going to heaven anyway. Yeah, but we're still going to be here for a while, man, because, you know, I'm 43 years old.
You know, I'm probably going to be here for decades longer. Obviously, you know, maybe I'll die tonight.
But I'm just saying, I'm hoping to be here for another 50 years, 60 years, you know, maybe even 70 years.
You know why? Because I honor my father and mother, that's why.
But the point is, hey, that's a long time. And so, you know, I don't want to just live some messed up, horrible, stupid, worthless life and then go to heaven.
I want both. Like, I want to live the blessed life and I want to go to heaven. Both.
Right? Now, if you had to choose, obviously, you'd rather live the messed up life and get to heaven. That's the most important thing.
But why not both? And so I believe that the Ninevites in general did both.
Now, the outward repentance from their evil way was universal.
Every single person put on the sackcloth, at least outwardly cried out to God and turned from their violent ways.
So every abortion clinic was shut down, you know, all of the criminals and everything, they all quit their, you know, evil enterprises or whatever they were doing.
That part was universal. But obviously, what went on in the hearts of every person wasn't necessarily universal, right?
There were obviously people who actually believed God and then there are probably some people that are just like, well, everybody else is doing it and we're being commanded to do it, so hand me that sackcloth.
I mean, they even put sackcloth on the animals. We know the animals aren't really thinking about this. You know, he gets his little sackcloth doggy sweater or whatever.
It's not because he got right with God. It's not that he believes in the Lord. He's not calling upon the name of the Lord. Right? Best he knows how, you know, you know, he's an animal.
And so the point here is that it's possible to put on the sackcloth and turn from your evil way and you're not safe.
I mean, look, there are people all the time who just go to like Alcoholics Anonymous or something and just clean up their life and get their life on track.
And that's great, but it doesn't make them safe. That's a separate deal where they got to believe on Christ.
So there's two things going on here. Believing in Christ, obviously, they didn't know the name of Jesus back then, but they're just kind of calling upon the name of the Lord more vaguely back then because they didn't know the details.
But there's also turning from your evil way. I think the Ninevites did both. Number one, because the passage says they believed God and it says they turn from your evil way. Two things.
And then in the New Testament, it says in the in the day of judgment, like in the end of the world, day of judgment, they're going to rise up in the judgment with this generation, condemn this generation like you guys are idiots.
We got saved and you didn't. We got saved because of Jonah. You had Jesus and didn't even get saved. You're idiots. Right?
I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that's basically what they're going to say, something like that.
And so we obviously want to do both in our lives. We want to tell people to do both. But at the end of the day, we need to make sure we separate the fact that salvation is by grace through faith.
Being blessed by God in this lifetime right here, right now. Well, you got to turn from your evil way. And we preach both, but we got to keep them in their distinct, proper place.
And so, again, just just a quick review is that don't give up and think that there's no way forward for you, because even though judgment was pronounced on Nineveh, they ended up being spared.
Okay. And how do you get spared from temporal earthly judgment right here and right now? By turning from your evil ways.
Getting saved isn't enough because salvation is talking about being saved from hell, saved from your sins, going to heaven.
But it does not save you from chastisement, punishment, discipline that comes now upon God's disobedient children.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great passage, Lord.
And Lord, thank you for the sign of the prophet Jonah that was assigned to the Ninevites.
But of course, we have a greater sign of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Lord God, help us to preach the gospel to every creature.
But, Lord, in addition to preaching the gospel to the lost, help us also preach righteousness to the saved and to preach turning from the evil way unto the saved.
That we as a nation and that we as Christians might be spared pain and suffering and heartache in this lifetime.
And in Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's take our hymnals together. Go to hymn 306. Hymn number 306.
Have thine own way, Lord. Hymn number 306. We'll sing this out together and be dismissed tonight.
Hymn 306. Sing this out unto the Lord this evening.
Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Thou art the Father. I am the clay.
Hold me and make me after thy will. While I am waiting, yield it and stay.
Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Search me and try me. Master today.
Wider than snow, Lord. Watch me just now. As in thy presence humbly I bow.
Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Wounded and weary, help me I pray.
Power of power surely is mine. Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Old or my being, absolute sway. Filled with thy Spirit, till all shall see.
Christ only, always, living in me.
May I sing tonight? We are Smiths.
We are Smiths.