The Compliance of the Preacher

If you would, please turn back
to Jonah 3. As most of you know, we were
there last week. Jonah 3, toward the end of the
Old Testament there. Probably one of the more famous
minor prophets, or infamous, should I say. We were looking at the first
two verses last week, and what I would like to do this morning
is walk through the rest of that chapter. When we think of Jonah, we usually
think of his rebellious attitude when God commissioned him. We
think of the things involved in that, but this book is, however,
more than the story of a prophet with a rebellious attitude. There’s
theology here, there’s the beauty of repentance, there’s the typology
of Christ, and there’s other glorious things in this book
that are often left unnoted. I hope that this morning’s study
would help us with that, put some of those things back in
our mind and keep them there. If you found Jonah 3, please
follow along as I read through the entire chapter. Now the word of the Lord came
to Jonah the second time saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great
city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going
to tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh
according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly
great city, a three days walk. Then Jonah began to go through
the city one day’s walk. And he cried out and said, yet
40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Then the people of Nineveh believed
in God and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the
greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king
of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from
him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued
a proclamation and it said, In Nineveh, by the decree of the
king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd or flock taste
a thing. Do not let them eat or drink
water. But both man and beast must be
covered with sackcloth and let men call on God earnestly that
each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which
is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent
and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish. When
God saw their deeds, that they had turned from their wicked
way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared
he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. Would you join
me in prayer to this gracious God? Lord God, we are grateful for
your word. We’re grateful that we can come
here and look at your word together. I have one request, Lord, that
your people, that they be fed. Lord, please grant this today. Give grace to me as the speaker
and give grace to the listener to follow along. Father, we just pray for a better
understanding of your word. We pray for hearts to be transformed
by the word as we heard Friday night, that word of yours that
performs its work in us. Father, we pray for your blessing
on this, so please give grace to all of us. It’s in Christ’s
name that I pray, amen. So as I mentioned last week,
we were looking at the first two verses here in Jonah 3, and
in that we saw that, number one, the preacher is commissioned
by the word of God. It’s stated clearly there in
the beginning of the chapter by these words. Now the word
of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise and
go. We looked at portions in the
New Testament to see if God is still the one who commissions
men to preach the word by his word, and we concluded that he
does. It’s still him who does that.
Furthermore, we saw between Acts 13 and Ephesians four that God’s
design, that’s his design, is to use men in leadership in the
local churches to do three things to recognize, to prepare and
to send off his messengers. Now, we maintain that the principles
in Acts 13 should be followed by us today. God gives us principles,
even in narratives, for our instruction. How many of you have heard of
the regulative principle of worship? Most of you probably, a lot of
you probably have. What we mean by that is that
God’s word tells us how corporate worship should be regulated.
That there’s principles and there’s clear commands in his word on
how corporate worship should be regulated. God does care how
we worship him. Just ask Nadab and Abihu, right? For this reason, we object, many
Christians object, I’m one of them, we are one of them. We
object that the Sunday morning gathering should be turned into
a place of entertainment for the world. But those who want to do what
is right in their own eyes, maybe some good motives, I’ll let God
determine that, they would argue that God didn’t give us explicit
commands on how the worship service should be conducted. They build
straw man arguments and then tear them down. And I’ll just
give you an example of that. of, for example, God doesn’t
tell us what color shirts to wear, or to wear ties or not,
or what color carpet we should use, or even gather in buildings.
Well, he doesn’t, that’s right. And then they use those arguments
to try to refute what we’re saying. It is true that he didn’t give
us those details, but that’s not what we’re saying. Their strawman arguments do not
nullify what we are saying, that God did give us principles and
clear commands on how we should conduct corporate worship. Now that’s not the subject at
hand, but I bring that up because that is, brethren, exactly what
some otherwise faithful Christians also do when it comes to the
regulative principle on how to make worshipers, which is our
subject at hand. And if anyone had any misgivings
on how I used Acts 13 to bring this out last week, it’s my hope
that I can relieve you of those misgivings by showing you that
Paul himself handled the word in that way. In 1 Corinthians
10, Paul is reminding us of the events that took place in the
Israelite camp while they were in the wilderness. In verse 11,
he says this, Now these things happened to them as an example,
and they were written for our instruction. Paul takes a narrative
that doesn’t give explicit instruction for us, and he draws out principles
and turns it into explicit instruction for us. That’s what he does.
Such as we should not grumble, we should not act immorally,
and so forth. This is how Paul handles the
word, and so should we. The New Testament knows nothing
of God being pleased with negligent leadership or, the other thing
I was addressing last week, and primarily this, men acting upon
their own initiative to engage in the public ministry
of the Word. The second thing we saw there
in the first two verses of Jonah is that the preacher must communicate
the Word of God, must communicate the Word of God. Just as God
told Jonah, proclaim the proclamation which I’m going to tell you.
In the same way, we are to proclaim the Word of God, the written
Word of God. We must preach the Word, not
the philosophies of men. The preaching of the word cannot
be replaced with anecdotes, though an occasional one may be helpful.
Nor shall we only preach the inoffensive parts of God’s word.
The offensive part of God’s word, that is where our sin is confronted,
must be communicated in love so that the gospel is understood
and believed upon. If the Christ we’re preaching
never offends anybody, we’ve probably got the wrong Christ.
Because the Christ and his cross are by nature offensive to the
flesh. Now, when God commissions men
to preach his word, he’s not merely giving men an opportunity
to proclaim the word publicly. He’s commanding those of his
choice to do so. Right. How well did it go with
Jonah when he treated it like an opportunity in which he had
the liberty to decline? It didn’t go well with him at
all. Now, this doesn’t mean that we do it unwillingly. Two are
not mutually exclusive. Jonah learned rather quickly
how serious God is when he commissioned someone. And for this reason,
there must be compliance on the part of the preacher, the one
being commissioned, there must be compliance. And that’s exactly
what I want to draw your attention to this morning. I want you to
see from Jonah 3 what the compliance of the preacher looks like and
what follows that, what follows in God’s timing. Jonah was commanded
to do two things, arise and go, and number two, proclaim God’s
word. So as we look at his compliance
to this command, the first thing we will see is his going forth.
And the rest of the chapter is about his speaking forth and
what progresses from that. Look at verse three. Notice that Jonah went to the
province that God directed. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh
according to the word of the Lord. Jonah had learned a hard
way what happens when we treat an obligation like an optional
opportunity. We’ve all done this. We’ve all
neglected some of our obligations. However, this is in the past.
Jonah now goes to the province in which God had told him to
go. The Lord told Jonah precisely where to go, to Nineveh. Now,
without going into a lot of detail, I want to remind you that we
are in a different economy today. Today, we see God leading through
Providence. and through giving men the desires
in their hearts in which he would, in the direction he wants us
to go. He does not tell us these things through direct revelation.
That ended with John on the island of Patmos. We shouldn’t be focused
so much on where God wants us to go. He’s going to take care
of that. Yes, we should pray about it.
where God would want us to be, but our main focus should be
on being faithful where he has us. About this very subject,
I would like to share some words by a noted author. He’s particularly
talking about missions. He writes, whenever the call
of God is realized, there is the feeling I am called to be
a missionary. It’s a universal feeling. because
the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts,
and God so loved the world.” What he’s saying is this, that
if God only loved America, would he not then give his servants
the desire to only preach in America? But no, God loves the
world, and so when the call comes, we don’t care where we preach,
we just want to preach wherever God would have us to be. He says this, we make a blunder
when we fix on the particular location for our service and
say, God has called me there. When God shifts the location,
the battle comes. Will I remain consistent to what
I have said I’m going to do or be true to the insurgent call
of God and let him locate me where he likes? We see that this author’s thinking
was in accordance with the Apostle Paul’s mindset. I refer to Acts
13 again, where Paul and Barnabas are sent out by God. They’re
not told where to go. They were sent out and out they
went. They were surely using wisdom
and were practical in their thinking. They weren’t acting independently
from God, but they also knew that God no longer leads with
a glory cloud. They knew that his mode of operation
was different in their day, in our day, than in the days of
Jonah and all the other Old Testament prophets. They went where they
willed to go until, and they had their minds engaged, until
where they willed to go was hindered by God. Remember how they were
going to go to Asia, but the Holy Spirit hindered them? Had Paul imagined that God had
told him to go to Asia, he would likely have attributed this work
of the Holy Spirit to the devil, right? He might have stubbornly gone
on, only to run into greater trouble and vain results. But
rather, Paul was mindful of the sovereignty of God in all things,
and he waited for an open door, an open door which did then come.
We see the same thing in other parts of the first century church
there. When God wanted his word to go forth from Jerusalem, what
did he do? He brought persecution, right?
That’s how he worked. And then his people scattered,
and they spread the word with wherever they went. We shouldn’t be focused on God’s
secret will for us, something most of us young men fall into.
What does God want me to do? Where does he want me to go?
And we don’t get off of that. It’s a secret for a reason. Our focus should be on being
faithful to his revealed will as written in his word, as we
have it in the scriptures. Yes, we should plan and move
prayerfully But we should pursue knowing wisdom rather than God’s
secret will. In hindsight then, we can see
how God moved us by providence and by giving us desires according
to his will. Our duty is to be obedient, to
act with wisdom, and he will take us where he wants us. We
also need to be quick to surrender our will when he brings things
into our life that interferes with our plans. So we’re not
like Jonah. Direct revelation, go to Nineveh.
Things are a little different in our day. But Jonah, having
been given that command, went to the province of Nineveh. But
he noticed that it wasn’t just to the province that he went
to. He went to the people. He could have wandered around
the edge of the city, proclaiming what God had told him to say.
He could have kept himself distanced from the people. preached his
message to whoever might be leaving town. He could have done this
and said, OK, God, I came to Nineveh. I proclaimed your message. I’m out of here. But, you know,
Jonah had learned a little bit about what rebellion brings and
so that rebellious streak in him had diminished a bit. Jonah
not only went to the province, but he went to the people. Look
at the rest of verse three. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly
great city, a three days walk. Then Jonah began to go through
the city, one day’s walk. There’s much debate about how
big Nineveh was. It was obviously a big city.
Was this a three days walk around the city? Three days walk straight
through the city? Does that include time to stop
and rest? I’m not so interested in all
that. I think, I believe what the point here is, is that he
went to the people. He went where the people were.
They’re usually found in the heart of the city. So that’s
where he went. We should follow this principle.
A friend of mine who planted a church told me that when choosing
where to plant the church, he went to where sinners were. We
should do likewise. We should go to where the people
are. Notice I made that synonymous, people and sinners. Now in this,
I would also like to add that I’m not a supporter of targeting
certain groups of people, certain types of sinners. We’re talking
about evangelism here. A common group that is targeted
is the LGBTQ community, right? Do they need to hear the word
of God? Absolutely. But so does every other sinner.
Is their sin appalling to me? Yes, it is. Only I’m not convinced
that this approach to evangelism is wise. This is one of the last
groups that are open to hearing the Word of God. What was Paul’s
example? Did he not preach in the synagogues
where the Jews were until they rejected him? He did. But then
he didn’t stand outside yelling at them until they killed him. No, he moved on to find some
who were open to hearing the gospel. I don’t see anything
good coming out of continuing to preach directly to a group
that is not open to hearing it. I believe we should, in evangelism,
just go where the people are, all kinds of people, and we should preach to them.
The message we preach should be relatable to all sinners,
all kinds of sinners. As God told Isaiah, render the
hearts of this people insensitive, their ears are dull and their
eyes dim. That’s what we do. We hope it
doesn’t get to that, but we preach until we get to that point and
then we move on. Jesus also did this. He taught
clearly for all to understand until The Jews or the Pharisees
had reached a certain level of hardness of heart, and then he
taught in parables to hide the meaning from them. And he didn’t
go to those who were unwilling to hear him. He preached to the
crowds who were open to hearing him and his enemies were pursuing. We preach the word to the people. We go where the people are. We
preach it where it is accepted and tolerated, without focusing
on one or two types of sins, as heinous as they may be. Now,
more could be said about the going forth, but I wanted to
get through the very reason for going forth, and that is to speak
forth. The commissioned one goes forth
that he might speak forth. And as we saw last week, he must
speak the Word of God. But there’s much in God’s word.
What portion shall we then proclaim? We can learn from Jonah. What
was the substance of Jonah’s message? The substance we see
in the rest of verse four. And he cried out and said, yet
40 days and none of it will be overthrown. Jonah preached a message of judgment.
to a people who God was angry with and about to destroy. And
so should we to such people. But who is God angry with? Who
is God angry with? Doesn’t God love everyone? I’ll
come back to that. Failure to deal properly with
this question has only brought harm. God is angry with the wicked
every day, the scripture says. Listen to Psalm 7. God is a righteous
judge and a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not
repent, he will sharpen his sword. He has bent his bow and made
it ready. He has also prepared for himself
deadly weapons. He makes his arrows fiery shafts. You see the image he gives there
that God is preparing for war. He’s not happy with his enemies.
God is angry and deadly serious. And those who are not safely
immersed into Christ are in immense peril. God’s angry with the wicked every
day. Yet, in spite of His anger, and here’s how God loves everybody, even the unconverted. We see
this in the end of Matthew 5. He gives rain, sunshine. And I’ll give further examples,
children, clothing, housing. He gives that to the just and
the unjust alike. He loves people in this way.
This is how God loves everybody, in the same way. But he does
not love everybody in the way that he loves his own people. And those acts of love toward
the unbeliever, they will come to an abrupt end one day. We
don’t know when that day is for each one of us. The unrepentant sinner will come
face to face with the flaming arrows of the Almighty, as it
were. You already know that the Ninevites repented and God had
mercy on them. We can only imagine a different
outcome if Jonah had gone to Nineveh and told them only about
the love of God, right? If Jonah had not confronted the
sin, they would never have repented. But we should also note that
either Jonah mentioned to some degree the forgiving nature of
God, or they had some knowledge of this beforehand, that the
God of Israel was a God who forgives sin. Otherwise, they would not
have taken this into consideration. We know they considered the possibility.
In verse 9, the king says, Who knows? God may turn and relent
and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish. They
considered the possibility. They must have known this about
the God of Israel, whom most of the nations knew to some degree
about him. Well, my guess is that the nations
knew about the merciful attribute of God apart from someone other
than Jonah, because Jonah got upset when God showed them mercy. My point here is that communicating
the gospel is absolutely essential. Don’t hear me say otherwise.
What I’m saying is that we must understand that conviction of
sin must be brought forth or repentance will not come. And
this is where the law of God comes in. Specifically, those
commandments that God has also placed on our conscience, each
one of us. The help of the conscience is fundamental. This is important
for every one of us who have friends, family, co-workers who
want to see them come to Christ. The conscience within that individual
is fundamentally important that you appeal to that conscience.
God has given, as it were, there’s someone on our side in the enemy
camp. That’s the conscience within
the sinner. The righteousness of God, as revealed in the law,
presented to the conscience, is the only way the sinner comes
to repentance. Therefore, we shall not avoid
offending them, but we should do so in love. The gospel is
offensive enough, we don’t need to add to that, but we shouldn’t
try avoiding it either. We should do so in love. After
the first six months of me going out to the public square with
the gospel, I took a break. I took about a year or two off
because I realized that I don’t love people as I should. I found myself more concerned
about winning an argument Then I was concerned about the
glory of God and the conversion of sinners. Notice the order in which I stated
that. The glory of God, then the salvation of sinners. We
should keep our priorities in that way, in that order. Why do we want sinners to be
converted to Christ It is that they might be treated well by
God, yes. But that’s not the primary thing
we should be fixed upon. The main goal here is that they
come worship the God who deserves that worship. As I was saying, I took a break
because I lacked love. And I recognized that I needed
to work on my own heart and character. before I bring dishonor to Christ. We must preach Him in love. Will we love people enough to
tell them that they are at enmity with God? They’re at war with
Him. That God’s wrath abides upon them. And if they do not
turn from their sin and follow Christ, they remain under that
wrath. If we want to be faithful to
the Lord, we need to do that. If we want God to be worshiped
by them, we need to do that. If we want to see sinners reconciled
to God, we need to do that. We need to convince them of the
reality of their condition. The reality of their condition.
If we want to see the results that Jonah’s message had, we
need to do that. What followed Jonah’s message?
The sequel to Jonah’s message was faith and forgiveness. Look
at verse 5 where we see their faith. Then the people of Nineveh
believed in God. They believed Him. Why did they believe in God now
but not before? The answer is simple and important
for each one of us to remember. In Romans 10 we’re told that
faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Faith does not come apart from
hearing. The hearing that is mentioned
here in Romans 10 is an attentive hearing with comprehension. If
you’re a parent, you know that there’s a couple different kinds
of hearing, right? It’s hearing with understanding, and this
understanding is given by God. This hearing, the psalmist, he
cries out to God, give me ears to hear. How does the hearing come? By
the Word of Christ. Not by philosophies of men. Faith comes from hearing, and
hearing comes by the Word of Christ. This is why we must communicate
the Word of God. We cannot manipulate or urge
people to make a decision for Jesus. As I told a brother recently,
if it depended upon man, To make a decision for Jesus, I would
hang it up. I wouldn’t go out. But we know that God has promised
to work in His own timing. We know not when or whom. The
Holy Spirit goes where He wills. But when we communicate the Word,
God takes that Word and uses it as He pleases. That’s how
He brings sinners to life, is by the proclamation of His Word.
the Holy Spirit taking that Word and bringing sinners to life,
bringing from death to life. Faith will not come unless we
share the Word of God. Now, some say that the Ninevites’
repentance here was not unto the salvation of their soul.
That’s what some say, but I know what God said. He said they believed. They believed Him. And their
faith was manifest clearly here. That they had faith is made evident.
And all who have faith in God have their sins forgiven. We
see the manifestation of their faith from this point down through
verse 9. Their faith was manifest in penitence,
It was manifest in putting principles in place. It was manifest in
petitioning. It was manifest in a pursuit
of purity. And it was manifest in their
profession. Look at their penitence in the rest of verse 5 there.
And they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest
to the least of them. The citizens of Nineveh were
filled with remorse for their sin. And they expressed this
by temporarily setting aside the pleasures of food and by
dressing in a way that expressed humility. It wasn’t only the
poor peasants among them that showed this remorse, but it says
that it was from the greatest to the least of them. And God also worked in the hearts
of the royal household. Look at verse 6. When the word
reached the king of Nineveh, He arose from his throne, laid
aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat
in ashes. The king himself heard and believed the word of God.
Can you imagine if our president heard the word of God and believed?
This is what we pray for. But remember how I was saying
we must do it in love. Don’t hear me wrong. We must
do it in love, but Whether we do it in love is not the deciding
factor here. Jonah did not preach in love.
I don’t think he did. He didn’t love these people. Yet God converted
them all. This shows that God does what
he wills with his word. The power is not in us. The power
is in the word of God by the Holy Spirit, taking that and
quickening dead sinners. The king, he was converted. His
faith was made evident by the fact that he humbled himself.
He did so by expressing this in the cultural practice of wearing
sackcloth and sitting in ashes. We’re not required to put on
sackcloth and ashes as they did. But if we have faith, it will
manifest itself in a brokenness over sin. Our faith will manifest
itself in us humbling ourselves, just as they demonstrated with
their sackcloth and ashes. And those with authority, having
heard and believed, showed their faith also by putting principles
in place. Verse 7, He issued a proclamation,
and it said, In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles,
do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not
let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be
covered with sackcloth. The message was in essence this,
people, there’s a crisis at hand. The party’s over. The party’s
over, guys. Set aside, they command, all
the pleasures, all these temporal pleasures, set them aside and
come, humble yourself with us. When those in authority have
faith, it manifests itself. by the principles they put in
place, whether parents or presidents or any in between. By the principles
that are put in place, we see evidence of faith or lack thereof. We shouldn’t be looking for this
exact decree to put on sackcloth and ashes. That was a cultural
way of expressing humility and brokenness. The faith of the
authorities, it continued to bear fruit. They instructed that
men should call on God earnestly. Pray to God for mercy, they say.
Now, had Jonah come and told them only about the love of God,
if he had come and told them that God loves them and has a
wonderful plan for their life, they would never have reached
this place. But because Jonah came and told
them accurately the judgment and destruction that awaited
them, They believed this and called upon the judge for mercy.
You see, when we tell an unrepentant sinner that Jesus loves them,
this, what we’re saying, is true in a particular sense. And I
gave that earlier. The problem lies in the fact
that it’s misunderstood. that they’re given the wrong
impression. What’s usually understood by
the unconverted sinner when we tell them that Jesus loves you,
is that Jesus loves me because I’m lovable. And bad Christian
teachers, and this gets my blood heated up, bad Christian teachers
will tell people, God loves you because you are worthy of his
love. This is a lie from the pit of
hell. To be worthy is to be deserving. Do we deserve God’s love? Absolutely
not. We deserve hell. That’s what
we deserve. Yet. Yet. He hasn’t destroyed us. In spite of what we deserve.
In spite of it. He has provided a way of escape. He has done this at the highest
possible cost to himself. At the highest possible cost
to himself to rescue his enemies from the condemnation we deserved. Therein, my friend, is the love
of God revealed. Now, is that not much deeper?
Is that not a true love? Now, if you’re a father, and
I’m not, so I hear much about how much a father loves his son,
so fathers should be able to comprehend this better than I
can. I have a friend who, some years back, was telling me about
some man who had wronged financial injustice to their family. And
I was trying to help this friend forgive him. I told him, my friend has a son,
I told him, now, Just trying to show you the love of God here.
Imagine that your friend who, if the accusation is right, deserves
prison. That’s what he deserves. And
that’s a very light thing compared to hell, which I’m using this
as an analogy of. Friend, this guy deserves prison. Now, if you want to show him
the love of God, Take your son, your oldest son
whom you love dearly and place the punishment upon him and release,
forgive the man who really offended you. That’s love, my friends. God does not love us because
we’re lovable. He does not love us because we are worthy. That’s
the last thing we’re worthy of. Now the Christian faith also
desires purity. Their faith here was manifest
in a pursuit of purity. Look at the rest of verse 8.
That each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which
is in his hands. They understood exactly what
the reason was for God’s wrath against them. God doesn’t condemn
anybody who doesn’t also understand their condemnation is just. No
one is going to hell with the understanding that I don’t deserve
this. Everyone will know. This is not confirmation of that
statement, but it’s affirmation. I have a friend who was telling
me of his conversion story. He was dying of COVID. He was
on his deathbed. He knew he was about to die.
And he was not in Christ. And he recognized that when he
dies, he’s going to hell. And he knew God was justified
in doing that. Well, the good news is that he
called out to God for mercy. And he went and vomited immediately
after that. And it was gone. The disease
was gone, or the illness was gone. And a few days later, they
were watching, what is the name of that movie Ray Comfort put
out? The American Gospel, I think it is. And he and his family
were converted there. So he knew that he’s going to
hell in the condition he was, and that God was justified in
sending him. So did the Ninevites. They knew that they had done
wicked acts. They understood why God was angry
with them. And they repented. They repented.
They changed their minds completely about the lifestyle they wanted
to live. They were now in pursuit of purity. Their faith was also manifest
in their profession. That is, the profession that
their future was in God’s hands. Verse 9, who knows, says the
king, who knows God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning
anger so that we will not perish. You see, the Christian faith
acknowledges that God is God, that our future lies in his hands,
the hands of the king of the universe, and he will do as he
pleases. We also know that our only hope
is in him having mercy on us. They didn’t put up any defenses. They knew that any effort they
would put in to save themselves would be for naught. And such
is the Christian faith. We don’t try to defend ourselves. We understand we’re at the mercy
of God, and we plead for that mercy. But just as your faith
probably began with the recognition that God has promised to destroy
the wicked, So their faith also began by
believing God’s promise in destruction to them. Of course, on this side
of the cross, we know that God will forgive those who forsake
their sin and who submit to the Lordship of Christ. Our initial
faith is more likely to be more informed than theirs was. Yet,
faith in God is faith in God. And it always results in the
same thing. Forgiveness. And that’s what we see in verse
10. When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked
way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he declared
he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. God forgave
them. Now, as I mentioned earlier,
God has promised destruction to the wicked. That is hell.
In Jesus’ words when describing hell, He said, it is the place
where the worm will not die and the flame will not be quenched.
I can’t comprehend that. If I could comprehend the reality
of that, I could not stand here and even tell you about it. God has said that this place
was created for the devil and his angels and that all his enemies
would go there. God’s enemies would go there
for all eternity. But who are God’s enemies? It’s
important that we know. It’s written in Revelation 21
that the cowardly and the unbelieving and abominable and murderers
and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars,
their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
And in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul writes these words. He gives
another list. He says, Do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of heaven? Do not
be deceived. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. This is what God has
promised. God has promised and He cannot
lie. Do you believe Him? Are you one who is told a lie?
It doesn’t matter how long ago. Everything must be accounted
for. Have you ever taken something that didn’t belong to you? We
call that stealing. And he said thieves will not
inherit the kingdom of heaven. Are you sexually immoral? Are you a drunkard or caught
up in some other mind-altering drug in which you try to escape
reality, in which you try to find comfort in these idols?
Such will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Do you believe God when He says
this? If you do, and I hope you do,
I also want to tell you of another promise He made, what we call
the gospel. The promise is found throughout
scriptures, and it’s stated in these words in Romans 8. There
is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. A few chapters later, this is
in chapter 10, Paul writes, For there is no distinction between
Jew and Greek, which means everybody, all people groups, no distinction. For the same Lord is Lord of
all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. Whoever
will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you have not up to this hour
called upon the God of heaven for mercy, If you have not turned
from your sin and turned to the true and living God, called out
to Him for mercy, do so now. Do so now. Your age doesn’t matter. If you turn from your sin and
submit to the Lordship of Christ, you have God’s promise that He
will forgive you. Submit to the Lordship of Christ.
Another term that I hear much in evangelism today is make Jesus
Lord. Friends, Jesus is already Lord. You and I can’t do anything about
that reality. The question is, will we submit
to him? He forgave the sin of the Ninevites. He forgave sinners like the Apostle
Paul. He forgave sinners like me. He’s willing to forgive you if
you will only repent. Most of you have. Most of you
have. So I want to apply. Let me just make a closing statement
to you as well here. What just looking back over the
past three weeks and what we’re really talking about here is
the Great Commission. If you’re already in Christ,
You are a part of his body. Your sins are forgiven. And he
has commissioned his people to make a joint effort in communicating
his word to the world. Some as parents, co-workers,
neighbors, others as preachers. There’s a large variety of roles
in this joint effort of evangelism. He has commissioned us by his
word And we must communicate his word. We must comply with this commission.
Are we willing to continue? Because we are to some degree
already. Are we willing to continue in
that? complying to this commission and even increase our efforts
as a church to comply with God’s commission. Because this is the
only way in which faith and forgiveness come. This is the only way in
which worshipers are brought to worship the God who deserves
our worship. Would you join me in prayer to
him?