SPEAKER_00: We are in Jonah chapter 3, and I have not been up here in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I want to kind of recap where we're at in Jonah, and really where we're at in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's a goal of mine to help us as a church and even remind myself of this that scripture isn't about you and me.
SPEAKER_00: It's the revealed word of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is God revealing to us who He is.
SPEAKER_00: So when we read Scripture, we look for God in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We don't look at mankind and say, man, I want to model my life after that person.
SPEAKER_00: We look past the person in the story to God.
SPEAKER_00: So for instance, we don't look at David versus Goliath and say, David was very courageous.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be like David.
SPEAKER_00: We look past David.
SPEAKER_00: And while, yes, David was courageous, we look past him and we see that there was a powerful God behind that that was pushing his plan along, and he used David to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And the same in the book of Jonah, we don't get fixated on Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: We don't look at Jonah and say, man, Jonah got swallowed by a big old fish.
SPEAKER_00: And then then he stayed alive in the fish, and then he got up in the middle of puke and everything, and he just went on about preaching God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We look past Jonah to see the God that orchestrated all of that.
SPEAKER_00: That is my goal, really, as I stand up here and preach once every five weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And if this is your first time with us this morning, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: You drew the short straw.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the paid guy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just here once every five weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So you luck, I'm sorry about your luck, but that's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we look past Jonah and we look for the God that has designed all of this.
SPEAKER_00: So to catch us up, we're in Jonah chapter 3, verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: And uh let's recap the book of Jonah up to that point.
SPEAKER_00: In Jonah 1, we looked at God's call to Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Arise and go to Nineveh and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
SPEAKER_00: And then we saw Jonah's flight from God.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah heard that that call and he turned and went in the opposite direction to Tarshus.
SPEAKER_00: But God is a God that loves mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And in God's mercy, he sent a storm that caused the mariners of the boat that Jonah was on to wonder who did what to bring this storm about.
SPEAKER_00: This is a different kind of storm.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody has done something.
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah said, It's me, I've done it.
SPEAKER_00: Throw me overboard because God is after me.
SPEAKER_00: And the mariners, they tried hard to row through the storm, but they they couldn't overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: So they said, Okay, we're gonna throw the guy overboard.
SPEAKER_00: And they throw him overboard, and Jonah sinks, and God told a fish to go swallow Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: And all of this caused us and probably caused the mariners on that boat to ask this question: Who is this God?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this God that controls storms and controls fish and yet shows patience and mercy to disobedient, arrogant mankind?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this God that is willing to use a broken man to tell broken and violent people that they need to repent of their sins so that he can bestow mercy on them?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this God?
SPEAKER_00: And we read a little bit about who this God is in 1 Chronicles 16, verses 23 through 31.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read that to remind us who this God is that we come and we gather to worship.
SPEAKER_00: It says this Sing to the Lord, all the earth, proclaim his salvation day after day, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among the all peoples.
SPEAKER_00: For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise.
SPEAKER_00: He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens, splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy are in his dwelling place.
SPEAKER_00: Ascribe to the Lord all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory do his name.
SPEAKER_00: Bring an offering and come before him, worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness, tremble before him, all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.
SPEAKER_00: Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let them say among the nations, the Lord reigns.
SPEAKER_00: That's who that God is that we worship.
SPEAKER_00: And then in Jonah chapter 2, we saw that Jonah finally prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And God heard Jonah's prayer from the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And we saw that Jonah didn't deserve to be delivered, and the Ninevites didn't deserve to be rescued from their sin.
SPEAKER_00: But in Jonah chapter 2, verse 9, it says that salvation belongs to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then we made our way to chapter 3, where in the first five verses we see that, yes, God is a God of second chances, but he has also been in control the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: He has given us second chances and third chances and thousandth chances.
SPEAKER_00: And that Jonah came to the Ninevites, but the Ninevites believed God.
SPEAKER_00: They believed the message of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: And that on this side of the cross, we see now, we see a better Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: We see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We see that he has drank the cup of God's wrath, so that those who believe will know nothing of his wrath to come, because he has drunk that cup to the last drop, and we know nothing of his wrath.
SPEAKER_00: So what I see as we come to Jonah chapter 3, verse 6 through 10, what I see is that, and in all of this, is that it's God's words that matter.
SPEAKER_00: What he has to say is what actually matters.
SPEAKER_00: What he has planned and what he has set forth is what actually matters.
SPEAKER_00: He's in charge.
SPEAKER_00: It's his words that carry the weight.
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to Jonah chapter 3, verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah is in the city, he's in Nineveh, he's preaching God's wrath, and he's saying that this place is going to be destroyed in 40 days if you don't repent.
SPEAKER_00: He's preaching the message that God told him to.
SPEAKER_00: He is saying what God said, preaching God's words.
SPEAKER_00: He's just passing along the words of God's uh the words of God.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what happens in verse number six through ten of Jonah chapter three.
SPEAKER_00: It says, The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat and ashes.
SPEAKER_00: And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.
SPEAKER_00: Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let every one turn from his evil way, and from the violence it that is in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: God may turn and relent, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.
SPEAKER_00: When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
SPEAKER_00: So in this text, the word reached the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: God's word moved in a way that it reached the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is very effective when it moves.
SPEAKER_00: It's always moving.
SPEAKER_00: If you have ever, if you've ever owned a business or been involved with marketing, you know that getting people to hear about your business is it's hugely important.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of what you think about.
SPEAKER_00: If you're the owner of the business or if you're in marketing, you're thinking, how do I get people to hear about my business?
SPEAKER_00: How are they going to receive it well when they do hear about it?
SPEAKER_00: Do I get a billboard to let people know what we're doing here?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I gotta I gotta post on social media more so people know that we're here.
SPEAKER_00: Do I take an ad out in the newspaper?
SPEAKER_00: Is the newspaper still a thing?
SPEAKER_00: Are people still buying the newspaper?
SPEAKER_00: All of this is is has consumed your mind because you want customers to know where you are, what you're doing, what you're about.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to figure out the best form of advertising and how that is going to pay off to get you the most results.
SPEAKER_00: And we want those results to result in more sales.
SPEAKER_00: You want the word of your business to reach everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here in Jonah, uh we have Jonah going into Nineveh and saying, yet 40 days and God will destroy Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a great marketing strategy from a worldly standpoint.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, not a real appealing message to say, repent or God's going to destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: But the word of that reaches the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: And it's those words, the words of God, not the words of Jonah, the words of God that carry the weight.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 55, 10 through 11 says this.
SPEAKER_00: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
SPEAKER_00: When God's word goes out, we never have to wonder, is this is this really gonna pay off?
SPEAKER_00: If you share the gospel with someone, you never are you never have to wonder, did it was that really worth it?
SPEAKER_00: Did I say it the way that I should have said it?
SPEAKER_00: Are they gonna receive it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, every time God's word goes out, it does exactly what God has purposed it to do.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the rain, Isaiah just mentioned in Isaiah 55, just like that rain, not all of the rain that comes down makes plants grow.
SPEAKER_00: Some of it does other things, but it all accomplishes exactly what God sent it to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're if you're a bubbly, happy, slightly annoying person, share God's word.
SPEAKER_00: It will go out and accomplish exactly what God has for it at that time.
SPEAKER_00: That could be salvation, that could be repentance, it could be faith for the person that hears it.
SPEAKER_00: That could be a pebble in their shoe, and they can't stop thinking about that pebble in their shoe, and they eventually it leads to someone else telling them, and eventually that person comes to know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It could be that that is the time that they hear the gospel and it leaves them without excuse before God because you have shared the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it accomplishes its person, its purpose.
SPEAKER_00: If you're kind of grumpy, but you love the Lord, don't wait to get happy before you share God's message.
SPEAKER_00: If you ain't happy Jesus saved you, you ain't ever gonna be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Share God's word anyway.
SPEAKER_00: If you think, man, God's word's never gonna reach that person, share it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage us to stop acting like it's our words that actually matter.
SPEAKER_00: It is God's words.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 4.12 says, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and morrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: We can't claim to follow Jesus and then think that this book that we're gathering around is just another book with just more words.
SPEAKER_00: It's living, it is discerning our thoughts and our intentions.
SPEAKER_00: What else does that?
SPEAKER_00: What else are we even gonna share with people?
SPEAKER_00: If we're rejected in that, that's not on us.
SPEAKER_00: Share it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: With all of your annoying and grumpy and hyper, lethargic, technical, reckless, whatever you are, with all of yourself, share God's word.
SPEAKER_00: It is what has the power to bring people from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Look what happens here in the book of Jonah when God just says, Share my word.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to send my word to the people of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: It says, The word reached the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: What did the king of Nineveh do when he heard the message that God sent through a grumpy racist?
SPEAKER_00: Really, that's who Jonah is.
SPEAKER_00: He sends it through Jonah, and what what happens?
SPEAKER_00: It says that, and he arose, the king of Nineveh, arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself in sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, and he issued a proclamation and published it through Nineveh by decree of the king and his nobles.
SPEAKER_00: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.
SPEAKER_00: Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let everyone turn from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.
SPEAKER_00: The king of Nineveh got up from his place of authority and removed his robe, stripped himself of his authority, and exchanged his royalty for the clothing and symbol of ruin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you would put on sackcloth and cover yourself in ashes as a sign that you were ruined by your sin, and you are repenting and turning from that sin.
SPEAKER_00: And the king of Nineveh heard God's words and repented.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened when the word made it to the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when Jonah ran from God, he he tried to go to Tarshus.
SPEAKER_00: He gets on the boat, he's thrown overboard, he spent, spends a few nights in the belly of a fish, he's puked up onto shore, and he was told to get up and carry on and take the word that I have for you to Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed impossible that God's mission was going to be accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: That the words that that God told Jonah to tell the people of Nineveh were actually going to be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: That's it, seemed like it would never happen.
SPEAKER_00: If you were with Jonah, how many times would you have said, yeah, this ain't happening?
SPEAKER_00: The words aren't getting to Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would I would have been looking at God like, I know, God, that you had plans for Nineveh, and I'm sorry about that, but this isn't how this is over.
SPEAKER_00: The guy just got on a boat and went in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't happening.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see God send a storm and you're like, okay, like the guy just got thrown overboard, God.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh's not happening.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see a whale come up and swallow him, and you're like, yeah, there's no way now, God.
SPEAKER_00: He just got eight.
SPEAKER_00: The man just got ate.
SPEAKER_00: He's dead.
SPEAKER_00: The word is not happening.
SPEAKER_00: Your words are not being fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00: I know you had a plan for Nineveh and all, but it's not happening.
SPEAKER_00: But yet, here we are in Jonah chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: After rebellion, after impossible circumstances, after storms and sickness, after a fish swallowed a person, God's mission is being accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: His words are standing.
SPEAKER_00: What he said is coming to pass is actually coming to pass.
SPEAKER_00: The king of Nineveh is repenting.
SPEAKER_00: And I really would like this to encourage us.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of us in here are still in the midst of a time where we are waiting on God's word to accomplish something.
SPEAKER_00: And it feels like the mission that God has sent out his words and promised and said, This is, you know, he says in his words, he's gonna take care of us, he's gonna do this or that.
SPEAKER_00: That feels like it failed.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way, like we're thinking, there's no way God is going to reconcile this.
SPEAKER_00: It's been years, and it just feels like it's too much of a mess.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way that God can accomplish something through me.
SPEAKER_00: I've been too far gone for too long.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way he will save my son or my daughter or my mother or my father.
SPEAKER_00: They're too cold, they're too hateful, they're too evil, they're too religious.
SPEAKER_00: May we look to the book of Jonah and see the words of God, living and active words, and be reminded that it looked impossible for the people of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: The person with the message wasn't even cooperating.
SPEAKER_00: He made a huge mess of things.
SPEAKER_00: The people that he was going to were evil.
SPEAKER_00: They loved wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: And in God's time and on his terms, the word reached the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: And the king of Nineveh took off his robe, covered himself in sackcloth and ashes, and was ruined by his sin.
SPEAKER_00: No one, no one is too far gone.
SPEAKER_00: No one is so stubborn or stupid that God can't use them to spread the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: No one is so much of a great, uh so great of a sinner that they have outsinned God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 5.20 says, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
SPEAKER_00: No one is so arrogant, no one is so tough that they can resist the call of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I love in these situations to think about even my own spiritual heritage.
SPEAKER_00: My dad was that guy.
SPEAKER_00: He was the guy that you're like, yeah, God's word is never getting through to him.
SPEAKER_00: Not that guy.
SPEAKER_00: He drinks too much, he cusses too much, he's too mad all the time, and he wants to fight everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this isn't gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: Not that guy.
SPEAKER_00: And besides, the guy that's sharing the gospel with them isn't that good at sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of terrible at it.
SPEAKER_00: He's just sharing a verse here and there at work.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of a shift in a factory, at lunch break, he's sharing God's word with them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys know what normal conversation is like at factory, at a factory during lunch break, but typically it's not discussing the finer points of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It just, that's not how it works.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't Russell's words that convicted my dad of his sin.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Russell's words that prompted my dad to confess his need for a savior and to repent of his sins.
SPEAKER_00: It was God's words.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter if they were in a factory, it didn't matter if there was all sorts of profanity and every imaginable conversation going on around him because God's words are what penetrated.
SPEAKER_00: So repentant was the king of Nineveh that he issued a proclamation that everyone needed to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe that was a little overzealous, but he wanted, like, and this, it's so he wanted animals to repent.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's like, cover the animals in ashes, put sackcloth on the animals.
SPEAKER_00: I think I see all a bull out there unnecessarily goring another bull.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably sin.
SPEAKER_00: He needs to repent, cover him up.
SPEAKER_00: He wants everybody in on the repenting, he wants other people in on the repenting.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is how affected he is by God's word.
SPEAKER_00: I like how in chapter one, when the the sailors were facing the big storm and they were afraid, it says in verse five that the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse six, the captain tells Jonah to arise and call out to your God, lowercase G God.
SPEAKER_00: And now we have the Ninevehite captain, so to speak, the Nineveh king, in chapter three, he hears the actual words of God and he tells his people to call out mightily to God.
SPEAKER_00: Not a God, to the God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about feeding your animals, don't worry about getting lunch or dinner.
SPEAKER_00: Turn from your evil way and call out to God.
SPEAKER_00: This God that he's talking about is worthy of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: This God is to be feared and to be worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: And I just, as we're down here, we come to verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to touch on verse 10 real quick.
SPEAKER_00: When God, it says, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
SPEAKER_00: This this isn't God lying or uh not following through on what he said he was going to do.
SPEAKER_00: When God sent a prophet in with a message, there was always a way out for the people.
SPEAKER_00: So Jonah's proclamation about Nineveh being destroyed would come with a clause, that if they turn from their evil, God would not do what he said he was going to do if they did not turn from their evil.
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't God changing his mind when it says that he said that he uh the last part, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
SPEAKER_00: God said, if you don't turn from your evil, I'm gonna destroy this place.
SPEAKER_00: And they repented of their evil.
SPEAKER_00: So this is just again God's mercy on display.
SPEAKER_00: So God's God's word came to Jonah in chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, here at the end of chapter three, the people of Nineveh are reached with God's word, and they repent.
SPEAKER_00: God's word accomplished what God set it out to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I like would like to bring it to us.
SPEAKER_00: If you got like five more, ten more minutes, five-ish minutes of attention left.
SPEAKER_00: I look at the people of Nineveh here in this chapter and I notice something about what they did.
SPEAKER_00: It says the the king of N or the king told them to stop feeding the cattle.
SPEAKER_00: Stop eating and cover yourselves in sackcloth and ashes and repent.
SPEAKER_00: And I know to us that this sounds crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Like go put on a burlap sack and sit down and cover yourself in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something, there is something here for us.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Ninevites were so serious about God's word that they dropped everything.
SPEAKER_00: They literally stopped their daily routines.
SPEAKER_00: This feeding cattle and eating your own self, that's stuff that you do every single day.
SPEAKER_00: They just quit doing it and they turn their focus solely onto God.
SPEAKER_00: God said, This is what we need to do, and we will drop everything and make sure that we are taking this seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And when I think about that, I really fear for us, especially us here in the good old USA.
SPEAKER_00: I fear that we are too distracted to repent.
SPEAKER_00: We're too distracted to take God's word, the words that He has, this seriously, where we are willing to drop everything in our daily routines and repent.
SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid that we have packed our days so tight and set up our time in a way that for us to repent and turn from evil, for us to get right with God, to even know what God's Word actually is commanding us to do would require us to give up more than we are willing to give up.
SPEAKER_00: We have oriented our lives around our schedule too much.
SPEAKER_00: We are too distracted by what our day-to-day has to offer that we often miss the sin that is right in front of our face.
SPEAKER_00: We miss the commands laid out in God's word because we don't have time to listen to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: May we not desensitize ourselves of evil.
SPEAKER_00: May we not let it creep in and get comfortable with sin.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that it begins to choke the life out of us and we don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: Repent, turn from your sin.
SPEAKER_00: May we not pack our days so full that we fool ourselves into thinking that we're too busy.
SPEAKER_00: We're too busy for time in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Or we're too busy to spend time in God's word with our spouse.
SPEAKER_00: We're too busy to spend time in God's word with our kids.
SPEAKER_00: We're too busy to carve out time alone to sit with God and know what his words actually are.
SPEAKER_00: We are not too busy, we are too distracted.
SPEAKER_00: Look to the book of Jonah and see how seriously the Ninevites took the words of God and allow that to help you prioritize it in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: Prioritize knowing this book so that you can better share these words with others.
SPEAKER_00: You can share the gospel confidently because you see it all over these pages.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings me to this very last point.
SPEAKER_00: I see the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And then even in these, in Jonah chapter 3, verses 6 through 10, I can see the gospel in this text.
SPEAKER_00: Look where it says, we see the king of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: What's he do?
SPEAKER_00: He takes off his robe of royalty and he puts on the clothes of repentance and he sits in ruin as he asks God to forgive him and his people of their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: I see Jesus in that.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus is a much better version of that, but I see Jesus in that because I see the King of the universe, Jesus, took off his robe of royalty and put on the clothes of a man, and he would go to the cross and be crushed by the Father, so that he would be able to forgive his people of their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: In closing, if you are here without Christ, if you are far from Jesus, if you have made a mess of things, maybe you're that guy or you're that girl that people are, you think that people are saying, yeah, preach all you want, but that person is never turning from their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Look to the words of Jonah and repent.
SPEAKER_00: Look to the better Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Place your faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Turn from your wickedness and repent.
SPEAKER_00: God's word has gone out today.
SPEAKER_00: We have shared God's word today.
SPEAKER_00: It has gone out for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that that purpose is so that you will hear it.
SPEAKER_00: You will repent of your sins and believe the gospel and be saved today.
SPEAKER_00: Think about when Jonah, or I'm sorry, when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming, he sees Jesus and he's coming up to John to be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately John the Baptist says, repent and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We are to repent and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: That was Jesus' words.
SPEAKER_00: Repent and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That is my prayer for you today.
SPEAKER_00: As you have heard this word go out, you heard the word, I pray that you would repent and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: God's word will accomplish what it has set out to do.
SPEAKER_00: It will either pull your heart closer to him or it will harden your heart and you will stand before him judged for that.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that it softens your heart and you repent and believe the gospel and be saved today.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: God, I just uh come before you this morning and we just pray that it is your words that stick with us today, that as we read scripture, as we uh spend time in prayer and in your word, that it will be your words that convict people of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that what I say today only pushes people to you through what your word has said.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that we would remember the Ninevehes and we would remember Jonah and see how powerful your word is, and that we would trust more in it, that it would push believers to be more bold and more confident to share the gospel, that it would convict non-believers of their sins and that they would repent today and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would move in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would uh help us remove the scales, help us to see you for who you are.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, we thank you for what you've done on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I just pray that your word would stick with us today.
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.