You were wondering if that was the end of the song, weren't you? Because you really do want to clap for that song, don't you? Go ahead and clap. Every once in a while, Pastor Steve kind of fools you. It's like, oh, that's a fake ending, and I was clapping already. Now I'm embarrassed. Well, that wasn't a fake ending. That was the real deal. Thank you, Chase. Great job. Hey, turning your Bible to Jonah chapter 3 with me. for those of you who maybe haven't been here for our series so far and those of you that maybe haven't remembered the things that we've talked about. We've been studying this book, acknowledging the fact that God uses his word in situations that have occurred in the past in order for his people to learn things that he wants them to know today. So make sure that you understand that. You don't look at the story of Jonah, or even other stories in the Bible, and go, oh yeah, great story, that's like Little Red Robin Hood, or The Three Little Pigs, it's like one of those stories. That's not one of those stories. This is a story that God has placed in His Word in order that you and I can learn by it, and apply it to the modern day opportunity that we have. I'll even say the modern day version. of application that we need to apply it through. So this guy named Jonah is called by God to be a prophet. A prophet is supposed to be a messenger for God. And here are the standards for a prophet. You don't have to like the message. You don't even have to agree with the message. You simply have to share the message. That's what prophets did. The problem was, in Jonah's case, he didn't like the message and he didn't like the people that he was supposed to go share it with. So Jonah doesn't only not do what God says. Jonah flees from God. He's supposed to go northeast to Nineveh to preach to the people of Nineveh because God is fed up with their evil. And so he's supposed to go tell them that. Instead, he goes southwest and heads to Tarshish. He pays a boat to take him there. And while on the sea, God pursues him. And God creates a storm that causes the sea to stir and the boat to start falling apart. And the sailors on that boat, they've never seen a storm like this before. They have no solution to it. So they realize something fishy is happening here. Sorry for the pun. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize to every service. So it comes out every time, too. So they say something fishy is going on here. And they say someone must be not in alignment with what God wants to have happen. So they do something that's called cast lots, and all these lots point to Jonah. So they go to Jonah and they go, okay, what's your story? And Jonah says, yes, guilty as charged, I am a Hebrew, I worship Yahweh, and I am running from him right now. And so they're like, okay, so what do we do to fix this? And he says, you have to throw me off the boat. And so they're like, oh, we hope this is the right thing. Because if you worship that God, we're going to be in trouble if we do something that evil, that cruel to a God follower. And he's like, that's the only solution you got. So they throw him off the boat. The storm stills for the sailors, but not for Jonah. In fact, he goes from a bad situation to a much worse situation. He's no longer on a stormy sea while safe on a boat. Now he's in the stormy sea. And along comes a whale, and the whale swallows him. What big fish, the Bible says. And so Jonah finds himself in chapter 2 in the belly of this whale. And we talked about this last week. What do you do when you're in the belly of a whale? There's not really much that you can do, right? I mean, it's very, very dark. It's very, very smelly. It's very, very uncomfortable. There's acid in there that's eating at your skin. And we talked about that. And so what does Jonah do? Jonah begins to pray. But one of the remarkable things that we see happen with Jonah is while he's praying, his attitude and his perspective changes. And Jonah starts believing in far more positive things that he believed in before he went into the belly of a whale. And so Jonah's kind of like, you know what, God, I'm seeing things in a different light now, and I'm hoping things in a different way, and I'm believing in things that I used to believe that I stopped believing, but now I'm believing them again. And we see at the end of chapter 2 where Jonah's like, you know what, I'm a new person now. This is what he says in verses 9 and 10. He says, but I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the Lord. And so because he agrees to be the prophet of God that God called him to be, Now that God has his full attention, he's like, yeah, I'm going to do what you want me to do. This is what God does according to verse 10. And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. So we said this in our series so far. In chapter 1, Jonah flees from God. In chapter 2, in the belly of a whale while he's praying, Jonah finds God. Today, in chapter 3, we're going to see how Jonah follows God. He's following the will of God. At the end of chapter 2, Jonah obviously acknowledges the fact that he knows God's direction. He knows God's decree. He's just denied it. He doesn't want to participate in it. Now he's like, OK, I get it. This is what you called me to do. I will do it. And what you say is good, even though I don't necessarily want to do it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to Nineveh and I'm going to say, salvation comes from the Lord. And he already believes, before he's out of the belly of the whale, he believes God's going to lead him to do that. Why? Because God said that he would. God said he's going to use him in that way. He was the chosen prophet to go do this. So he's like, I get this now. This is all happening because you're trying to get my attention so that when I'm freed from the belly of this whale, he's still in there, but when I get free, now I will go do what you told me to do. I understand. You've got my full attention. Go ahead and spit me out. Honestly, I prefer the whale spitting him out rather than vomiting him out or barfing him out. You know, it's a little less messy. And I hope that Jonah does this. Again, Scripture doesn't tell us this. But before he follows through with God's plan, I hope Jonah cleans himself up, right? He's probably not smelling too good or looking too good. But this is what the Bible tells us in chapter 3 that Jonah does next. And actually what God does next in verses 1 and 2. Here's what it says. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you. Some people use that particular verse to suggest that God is the God of second chances. And when they say that, you've heard that, there's t-shirts that read it, there are signs that say, God, my God is the God of second chances. And they go right to this particular passage because it says here that he goes to him a second time. And I'm just going to tell you from my own personal experience, I'm grateful that God is not only the God of second chances. Right? Because there have been multiple times in my life that I was really in need of God's grace. and God's mercy, and God's forgiveness, and God's guidance. I'm no different from you. There are times, even just this last week, where I'm struggling with decisions, and I'm struggling with obedience, and I'm struggling with relationships, and I'm going back and forth. God, I know what you tell me to do, but I really don't feel like doing it. I don't even know that I feel empowered to do it, even though your word says that I am. And I come to a point where I'm going, all right, am I going to do what God tells me to do, or am I not going to do what God is telling me to do? And one of the things that I've learned through all of that is there are consequences suffered when we fail to do what God's leading us to do. Sometimes we think, well, you know, we're living in this time of grace and there are no consequences. And folks, I'm here to tell you right now, I know this firsthand. Not only because God's Word tells us that that's true, I have endured some of the ridiculous decisions that I've made in my life that go against the will of God. And so I know that's true of us. And I know that this happens. And why does God do that? He disciplines those that He loves. And if he wants us to do one thing, and we want to do another, and we go ahead and do what we want rather than what he wants, we're failing to achieve what God says is best, and the purpose and plan that he has for our lives. What you want to do may not be terrible, it's just not what's best, because what God wants is always best. His ways are above our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. And so, part of being a believer is seeking him. and asking Him, how do you want to use me? What do you want me to say? How do you want me to behave? Who do you want me to reach? I'm yours. I belong to you. Therefore, I need to serve you. And the temptation for me and for you is to go ahead and live our lives the way that we choose to because we're saved, we're destined for heaven, but we don't necessarily have to do anything until we get there, right? And the point is, you don't have to do anything to be saved. You do have to serve the Lord if you belong to Him. You do have to obey Him, and He will do what it takes to get our attention. Praise God for that. The fascinating thing about all this is sometimes we want to take undue credit for following the Lord. And I don't know if you're like this, I am. Every once in a while I'm like, you know, I'm doing pretty good right now. I'm reading every day. I'm studying. I'm praying. I'm, you know, being kind to people. That's not so particularly true for me all the time. But anyway, I'm being kind to people and I'm, you know, I'm saying nice things and all that. And we want to take credit for that. The amazing thing about those kind of thoughts is that none of us do good ever without the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. None of us. It may look good to the world. We may be able to look good on the outside. But honestly, what God sees is what's going on on the inside. And so what God really cares about is where our heart is. And not just our willingness to oblige, but our desire to make Him known through our words and through our actions. That's His desire. So the sincerity by which we do those things are incredibly important to God. We know how to behave well. We really do know what we're supposed to say and what we're not supposed to say. And so every once in a while we get pretty good at that. But God wants to transform us on the inside so that what happens on the outside is of Him and by Him and not just kind of obligatory, I'm going to behave well because I'm supposed to. It is actually transformation at work, becoming more like Jesus Christ. So that's what's going on in Jonah right now. Jonah has to have this major transformation to happen, not just to go do what the Lord wants him to do, but want what the Lord wants to have happen. And that's the difference between where Jonah is and where he's not. And again, none of us are even able to begin that process of change unless the Father draws us to Him. You know, this is something, again, that we sometimes want to go, made a good decision by believing in Jesus today. You didn't actually start the process. You know that no one comes to know Christ unless the Father is drawing you to know Him. We read that in John 6, 44. Jesus is speaking these words when he says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them and I will raise them up at the last day. So it's kind of like Jesus is saying, you really can't take any credit for believing in me because it was the father pursuing you in the beginning that led you to know me. And now that you know me, the way that you will be known as mine is at the end, I'm going to raise you up. You'll, you'll, everyone will know who you believe in because one day you're going to, you're going to be risen and to walk with me and live with me forever. So this is kind of the thing that God wants us all to know. God calls us to believe in Jesus. Jesus saves us. And then the Holy Spirit transforms us. He changes us. He makes us to be His and for Him to be known through our lives. So the Bible says that God loves us and He keeps pursuing us even when we're wayward, even when we're not doing the things that He is leading us to do. And we need to be grateful for that. Again, I don't think it's once and done. I don't even think it's twice as done. I know in my own life, God has given me multiple opportunities to follow His will because He keeps guiding me and drawing me and pulling me toward what He wants me to do. So if you feel that way in your own personal life and you're following along on your outline, then bullet point number one is this. Can you agree with this? Our God is the God of many chances. Not just second chances. Praise God, He's given me multiple opportunities to follow Him according to His will and His plan and His way in my life. I'm so grateful for that today. I'm so grateful that He is that grace-filled that when we mess up, He goes, let's try that again. When we do the wrong thing, or say the wrong thing, or think the wrong thing, God says, no, you know, I've got this giant erase board, let's clear that out and let's start over again. Who am I? Who are you? How do we work together through this process? Right, yeah, let's try this another time. but I will warn you about this because I I know that we have a tendency and I think maybe this is what the church is done is that we kind of kick back and we go you know what since God is a God of grace I'm living in the age of grace it really doesn't matter what I do so I'm just going to do whatever I want to do because when I die I'm going to go to heaven as a safe person and I will warn you the Bible clearly indicate Again, as I said earlier, that there will be consequences when we go against the will of God. Praise God for that, because He's really re-inviting us to follow Him. But when we go our own way, there will be consequences for that. In fact, the Bible says sometimes God just goes, all right, go be you, and find out where it leads you. It's not going to be a good place. And at some point, you're either going to fall prey to that forever, or you're going to desperately Ask for me to forgive you and come back. We read about that in Romans chapter 1. Look at verses 28 and 32 with me real quick. This is what Paul is teaching. He says, furthermore, just as they did not think it's worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. You see, when God's people agree with dark things, they get a darkened heart, or they potentially get a darkened heart. God can let our heart become darkened. What a terrible place to be when we no longer see evil as being evil. Or wicked as being wicked. Or sin as being sin. Because God's no longer shining His light on that through our lives and in our lives, in our hearts, saying, no, this is not of God. This is bad. This is evil. This is wicked. This is sin, right? If He no longer does that, He leaves us over. to our deprived monster in our darkened hearts. And I'm just telling you, that's a terrible place to be. People who struggle with that live in darkness. And God's plan is for us to live in His light. So, when all of that happens, we have to understand that God's ultimate plan is for us to not only know Him, but to follow Him. and to seek Him, and to do the things that He's leading us to do, even when they're unconventional or uncomfortable. There are things that God leads His people to do. And that's Jonah's case. Praise God, Jonah doesn't need a third chance. He may not have gotten it. But in this particular case, he only needs two, because we read in verses 3 and 4, Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city proclaiming 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now, I don't think, this is my personal opinion, and theologians differ on this, I don't think that's the only thing that Jonah was saying. I don't think Jonah was walking through the city begrudgingly going, hey, 40 more days, and you guys are toast. Because that's not what he said in chapter 2, verse 9, right? He says, when I get there, I will proclaim the salvation of Jesus Christ. I'll proclaim your salvation. So here's what I think. I think when Jonah was going through, he's like, listen, God has sent me to you. And God says that if you do not repent of your wicked ways and turn from them, God is going to destroy the city in 40 days. And God's offering you salvation. He's offering you a second chance. That's what I think. I can't say that for certain because that's not what scripture says, but in two different verses, it certainly suggests that that's parts of the story and the message that he is sharing. So He's telling you, hey, you've got 40 days to repent and turn away from your evil ways, or God's gonna... deal with you. So if you're already familiar with the story, let me just ask you this question. What would you place the odds being for these people to do what Jonah's telling them to do, right? I mean, it is the most atrocious people that exist on the planet at that particular time. I shared this with you the first week, the terrible, horrific things that they did to people back then. This nation, who by the way is a dominating nation, it's a far advanced nation, Nineveh is among the greatest cities that exist. So they're very, very wealthy, they're again very, very powerful, but they're incredibly evil and incredibly cruel to people, uncaring to people. So what would you say the odds are that when Jonah speaks these words, the people of Nineveh go, oh, we need to change our ways. We need to repent and follow God. Not very good, right? So think about the next four words that we read in verse 5. Think about the chances of this happening and then when it actually happens. Because verse 5, the very first part, the first four words say this, the Ninevites believed God. The Ninevites, the most evil people on the planet, believed what Jonah said God was going to do. Is that not incredible? I mean, I would not have thought that was going to happen. Jonah seemed to think it's why he didn't want to tell them. Why did Jonah believe that this was going to happen? Because Jonah knew the power. And Jonah knew the power of His Word. And Jonah says, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to say these words. We're going to look at this next week. I told you this was going to happen. I'm going to share this. They're going to repent. You're going to forgive them. And they're not going to get their just due. Do you know how evil these people have been? So Jonah doesn't want this to happen, but he knows that it will. I don't know that you and I agree. Do you know someone that you think you can preach to that person all day long, you can get out scripture, you can thump them over the head with it, you can put it on their t-shirt, you can put a sign in front of them and say, this is what the Word of God says, and they're not going to listen. Obviously that's not so. Obviously God's Word is powerful. The Bible says it doesn't return void. It can change people's hearts. And if a heart is changed, a life can be changed. And Jonah believes this. He knows that this is a possibility. Well, look how the people respond. Verses 5 through 9, the second part of 5. It says, "...a fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth." When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. This is the king! This is the proclamation he issued to Nineveh. By the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. What a response! And it looks like, according to Scripture that we read in verse 5, all of them did it. All of them is the words that we see in the Word of God. Not some of them, not most of them. The people of Nineveh who are the most cruel, ruthless, far from God people that existed on the planet at that time. hear the Word of God from Jonah, and they repent and they turn to Him. And their lives are changed. And they begin doing things, not doing things that they're not supposed to do, and doing things that they're supposed to do. That's why God sent Jonah to preach to these evil people. And the sackcloth thing, you may go, what's the deal with sackcloth? Sackcloth is like a burlap sack that you would put on. Think about how scratchy and itchy that would be. And they would do that kind of as a personal abasement. They would sit in dust because it's dirty and it's uncomfortable. And the whole idea is, now's not the time to be comfortable. Now's not the time for me to want to be served or to to be comfortable, now is the time for me to say, God, I'm just throwing all of that away, and I'm crying out to you. It's a place where they would both grieve, but it's also a way that they would repent. and ask God to hear that because they're turning away from their own cravings and comfort and they're giving themselves over to the Lord's power and will. So they don't do this in just kind of a, well, let's give it a try. Maybe we need to say, OK, God, you're right. We'll start doing that. Notice this. This is your second fill in the blank if you're following along the bulletin. Nineveh. urgently called to God and turned from their evil ways. They didn't just give it a try. In fact, here's what Nineveh didn't do. Nineveh didn't go, okay, we got 40 days. 39 of those days, let's just keep doing what we're doing. But on that 40th day, we better listen to God because it sounds like he's being real with us and this is really going to happen. No. Immediately. The Word of God is spoken. Immediately, Nineveh repents and pleads to God for forgiveness. And immediately, urgently, Nineveh is crying out to God. And they fasted. Why? Why did they do that? I'll tell you why. They feared perishing. They believed God. And they said, I think God means it. And we're toast in 40 days if we don't repent and turn to him. And look at God's response in verse 10. What a blessing. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened. Is that not remarkable? What an incredible transformation. God says, if you keep doing that, I'm going to destroy you. They stop doing that. They turn over a new leaf, and they follow God. And God warned them, and they listened. They immediately repented. What a blessing. Now, I will say this. This was not the first time that God was about to destroy a nation. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? God says to Abraham, hey, I'm wiping out that city. And Abraham's like, oh, my nephew Lot is over there. Can you send someone to warn him? So the Lord sends a couple of angels there. But this area, Sodom and Gomorrah, these two cities, are so depraved. They want to do ungodly things, even to the angels. And so the angels go, Lot, you need to get out of here. And Lot says to his family, hey, we've been given a warning. We need to get out. And so they head out of town. Now, unfortunately, you know the story. Lot's wife turns and looks back. And really, the suggestion is that she didn't look back and say, oh, what's going to happen? She looks back and goes, I'm not so sure I want to go. You know, I'm not sure I want to try something new. I kind of liked it back there. And what does the Bible tell us? She becomes the emblem for Morton Salt, right? She's the woman on the Morton Salt can with the umbrella. Did you know that? That's Lot's wife. I'm just kidding. It's not. Some of you have never heard of that. You're like, what? What is Morton Salt? But some of us more mature people know what that means. But that's not Lot's wife. Don't take that and say, Pastor Rick said. She didn't have umbrellas back then, at least that I know of. The point being, she becomes a pillar of salt, right? Why? Because God says you can't look back. Again, you need to obey me the way that I'm telling you to obey me. You can't, like, kind of obey me. You can't go, oh I'll run, but let's just take a peek. No, can't do that. Gotta get out of town because I'm about to destroy that city. And that's what he does. He destroys two complete cities to nothing but rubble and ruin by a fiery furnace that he sends there. So, you know, God doesn't always warn us. God doesn't always give a nation a warning, but he does give this warning to Nineveh. And the reason that I think that this is such an lesson for us to learn is this. It appears that according to scripture that when a city or a nation grows in its evil ways and violence becomes incredibly rampant, that it appears to me according to scripture that their days are numbered. that God deals with nations like that. Now, let me say this to you, and I believe this to be true. You may not. Look at some of the facts and tell me if this is not true. I think we're becoming, as a nation, more and more like Nineveh and Sodom and Gomorrah. The stuff I'm reading, and the stuff I'm seeing, and the stuff I'm hearing, I'm thinking it's exactly what those people were doing. In fact, let me give you a few statistics. During the pandemic, when we were on lockdown a good portion of that time, between 2019 and 2020, did you know that the rate of homicide, murder, in our nation increased 25%? That was the biggest jump that our nation has ever experienced in homicide since 1960. 2019, 2019, 2020 was the biggest jump we'd ever had, 25%. This year, in Atlanta alone, the increase in homicides has gone up 60% from last year. We're not a quarter anymore, we're well over. twice, three times as much as the largest jump was last year. That's in our city. That's right here in Hotlanta. That's what's happening. And the way that people are killing people today is far more evil and far more deliberate and far more heinous than it used to be. The Fulton County Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Karen Sullivan, she reports that years ago, when we would respond to a homicide, There would usually be one gunshot wound, sometimes two wounds, seldom three. She said this year, it's not surprising to find 10 to 12 gunshots. They're not just killing them, they're making sure these people are dead. You see, evil is rampant. where we live right now. It is far worse than it has ever been in our city and I would argue that it's far worse than it's ever been in our nation as well. So when you think about these statistics and we think about the careless way that we treat one another and the devaluation of the life that God has given his people, the people that he's formed in fashion in his image. The signs of the times indicate that we are heading for a disaster if we do not heed God's warning from his word and urgently cry out to him and repent of our evil ways. Now I know some of you are thinking, I've never murdered anybody. I've never even thought about murdering anybody. Well, neither did some of the Ninevites. But all of Nineveh was going to be destroyed. I'm sure there were some in Sodom and Gomorrah that didn't want to do the terrible atrocities. that the others were engaging in. But God destroyed all of Sodom and Gomorrah. Who does God use to lead a revival and a change in the way that people treat one another and respond to God? Who does God use? He uses his children. He uses his people. He uses his church to make that change. So church, we must repent. of our lackluster way of reaching out to others, and the way that we're living that may look a little bit more like the world than it does the Word of God. And we need to repent of that, and we need to turn back to the ways of God. People say, well, they had Jonah. Jonah walked through the street and told them. You know, the amazing thing is, if it takes three days to get through Nineveh, and Jonah only walked a day according to Scripture, the people of God, the people that were turning their hearts over to God must have spread the Word. Jonah only goes a day. It takes three days to get across. Who is spreading the word? The people that we're hearing. The people who are hearing need to spread the word. So you and I have a prophet who's spoken what we should do. His name is Ezra. And I know it's Old Testament, but I'm going to tell you, it is so in alignment with what we're seeing in our world today. You know the passage, 2 Chronicles 7, 14. This is what Ezra tells God's people, if my people, my people, the people who are who are called by my name, John 644, you've been drawn by my Father to know me and to believe me and follow me, will do this, humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear them. That's a promise from God. If my people, the people who believe in me and trust in me, if they will do these things... I will hear them, and I will heal their land. This is so much like what we do today. This is so true in the world that we live in today. If we do this, God will answer our prayers. Listen, there are consequences if we don't. Let's review what we just read with some of the consequences. Those who are called by God must humble themselves, or they will be humbled by God. Those who are called by God must pray and seek the Lord's face for forgiveness, or they will face the Lord's wrath. Those who are called by my name must turn from their wicked ways or they will suffer the consequences of God's punishment. That's what I believe the message to America is right here in 2021. And I want to say this to you because you are the church that God, I believe, is speaking this message to. If we don't change what we're doing right now, it's going to be too late. and God is going to judge this area. And we know that there's a time that God is gonna judge all of us when Jesus comes back, but there are also times when God judges nations, and we've cited two of them today. We need to not only come and hear the message of God in church, we must live the message of God in the church. We must participate with God in the things that he would have us to do. A lot of you are fans of different, preachers. I used to be enamored by the effectiveness of many different preachers. I thought all I got to do is follow their way and I could be like them. And one of the guys I used to study is Charles Spurgeon. Are you familiar with Charles Spurgeon? Probably many of you know. So Charles Spurgeon, he gets saved when he's 15 years old. He's preaching within a year. And Spurgeon actually later leads the first megachurch. It's like, I forget, 10 to 8 to 10,000 people, which is huge. In fact, no one had a church as big as Spurgeon's. So I'm like, I got this. Here's what I'm going to do. All I got to do is preach his messages. So I started listening to Spurgeon's messages. The funny thing is, he often repeated himself. Now, he didn't do the same thing all the time. But he often would preach the three R's. If you're a student of Spurgeon, here's what he would preach. Ruin, redemption, and regeneration. Ruin is what you face apart from God. You will be ruined if you do not know God. Redemption is what God offers through Christ for forgiveness so that you can follow God. Redemption is a good thing. Regeneration, and this is one of your fill in the blanks, regeneration is the gift of new life through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's an opportunity that God gives those who trust in Jesus as Savior and desire to follow Him as Lord. He gives you the power to do so. He gives you the directions. He guides you. He changes you to desire the things that He desires. So people who once said, ah, sin's not that bad, everybody does it, now go, oh no, sin is terrible. And they no longer crave sin, they crave righteousness. The people of God who are truly being regenerated by God desire the divine, righteous things of God. And they turn their backs on the things of the world because they don't want to be part of those things any longer. Here are some examples of that in verses that we read. Paul teaches in 2 Corinthians 5.17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. A new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. Peter teaches in 1 Peter 1.23 of how long-lasting this is, this change. He says in 1 Peter 1.23, For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, not of something that just gets planted and goes away, right, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring, Word of God. When the Word of God gets inside, it changes us. And it makes us become more like Christ, desiring the things that He desired for us. Regeneration is something that Spurgeon always expected to see when he spoke. He had a friend, there's a story about a friend who was very downtrodden, and he'd been preaching for three months. He never saw anyone say, hey, this message changed my life, and I'm going to go a different direction. And he didn't see any salvation. Then he went to Spurgeon, and he's like, what is the problem? And Spurgeon says, let me ask you a question. Do you expect lives to be changed every time you share the gospel message? And the guy goes, not every time, of course not. And Spurgeon says, that's your problem. See, you don't believe in the power of the Word of God. You believe in your ability to deliver it well or not well. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with what the Word of God does when it gets into the heart of a person. And that's what Spurgeon believed. He believed that every time he preached, people's lives would be changed. You hear me say this often. I don't believe that if we have an encounter with God today, you can remain the same person that you were when you came in. Because that's the power of God at work within us. And that's what I've been praying for. Regeneration is something that God does, not something that we do. It's just an opportunity that we avail ourselves to God to be changed. And so here's what we learn about that moving forward together today. I think we need more of that kind of attitude. In fact, I would say we should be attempting great things for God and believing and expecting great things from God. I think when you and I do the things that God leads us to do, we should expect life to be changed rather than not expect it and not even believe it, just going through the motions. History tells us that a generation of people who are changed are often changed in great awakenings. And great awakenings have happened many times in our nation, way back in the 1700s, just before our nation was converting to becoming us and not England. there was a lot of turmoil about what the church should do. And of course, they came from Puritan background. So the churches in the New England colonies are like, you need to back off. You need to relax. We're not going to be like the churches are in England. And so they were kind of saying, you know, let's kind of water this down. Let's not worry about the things we used to worry about when we were over there. Until two guys, a guy named George Whitfield and another guy named Jonathan Edwards said, oh, no, no, no. The Bible is the same in England as it is in the United States. We need to heed God's warnings. We need to follow His direction. So Whitfield and Edwards, they preached repentance. They said that evil people need to repent of their sins and turn their lives over to God. And in a span of time between 1740 and 1750, somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 people, I know that's a broad span, but I couldn't find the exact number. I saw 25 and I saw 50. I'm going to say somewhere between the two. gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Now that may not sound like a lot of people, but the funny thing is there were only 300,000 people in the colonies at that time. One-sixth of a soon-to-be nation turned their lives over to Christ when the Word of God was spoken and people repented. And those people flocked to their churches in droves back then. The Second Great Awakening occurs later than that, 1790 to about 1840. A guy named Charles Finney began calling people to turn from their sin. during the expansion to the Wild West. Some of you remember some of the stories of that expansion. We like the movies and the shows about that. But let me just tell you, crime was rampant. People, there weren't enough sheriffs to keep track of people. The population was so sparse because it was going so far out. So what they would do is they would go and they would set up tents and they would have things called camp meetings. Now, some of you are familiar with camp meetings, because we still have them today. But they would set up a tent, and people from outlying areas would actually ride horseback and do whatever transportation they could to get there. 15,000 people at a meeting would go. In fact, a tall, lanky, young guy named Abraham Lincoln attended a camp meeting, gave his life to Christ, and began to lead this nation because of the inspiration that he learned there. But thousands of people, thousands of frontiersmen, turned from their wicked ways and gave their lives to Christ and followed Him, even during one of the most evil periods of time in our history. A third great awakening occurred in 1857, somewhere between 57 and 59, when a guy by the name of Jeremiah Lampierre, just an average guy, not a pastor, he says, I feel like the Lord is leading me to pray. and so he calls a prayer meeting in a room and not many people show up and not many people show up for a long time and yet he keeps persistent in his prayer slowly but surely people start showing up and then the prayer meetings expand in New York City on Fulton Street and they start meeting in different places and then it becomes more expansive and then the economy falls and drops and thousands of people are without work and without income and there's great panic but not among the people that are praying. Statistics say that about 10,000 people a day were meeting in halls and buildings that were emptied now with no business. They were meeting in there to pray. And God responded in such an incredible way that 50,000 people came to Christ in that one city between March and May of the year that the economy collapsed. And they not only gave their lives to Christ, they went to church, they got involved and engaged in the things that the church was doing back then. Churches began to fill again. Tens of thousands of people are joining churches weekly. More than one million people were converted in our nation. And many historians look back to that prayer meeting in Fulton Street and say this was the beginning of revival. Finally, many of you are familiar, 1910 to about 1970, evangelists like Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, they began to preach in coliseums. And they offered a very simple gospel message accompanied by some great worship, praise and worship music. And then they would invite people to come and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. And tens of thousands of people gave their lives to Jesus Christ at those crusades. Uncertainty about the future seems to be the common denominator, because in that particular time, they were coming through World War I, World War II, a president being assassinated, the threat of a Cuban Missile Crisis being imminent, the Vietnam War appearing to be never-ending. They were in great turmoil, so they turned to Christ and asked him to guide and lead them. When we look at the history of revival, it does appear that when nations are at their worst, they are primed for revival to come into the hearts of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ. And when rough times occur, people who have turned away from Christ turn back and return to Him, and God moves in their hearts. The last revival occurred somewhere around 50 years. That's about the time frame. where revivals reoccur. I think we're primed for it. There probably hasn't been a worse time, crime-wise, in our nation than there is right now. And my prayer is that there's a great desire and a hunger and thirst for God to come and intervene in that. So this is my last suggestion to you. I think we have a choice. We can have revival. Rebuke is what God does or what God will do if we fail to turn from our evil ways, if we don't wake up from our slumber and reach out to our community and our friends and show them the way everlasting. Revival is something God does for us. We can't make revival. You and I can't create it. We can't function it up. God reveals. towards revival. We can't organize it, but we can ask and we can agonize for it. Revival is really a supernatural invasion of God's spirit, God's power, and God's presence in his people. And we can beg God for that. We can beg him with urgency that we need a refreshing presence to guide us to do the things that he would have us to do in his tumultuous times. As the Church, do we recognize the urgent need that we have right now for God's people to respond? Do we sense that? Are we aware that the statistics prove that now is the time to call out to God? Do you believe that God could send another Great Awakening? Do you believe that He could do that? Because the virgin says that if you don't believe it, and without faith, it's probably not going to happen. Are you willing to beg and ask him to start with you? Not to start with the people that you're sitting around, not even to start with your neighborhood or your family or friends. to start with me, God, start with me. I'm going to share with you a passage in Psalms that I've been praying and invite you to pray as well. It's Psalm 85, verse 6, where the psalmist says, will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Do you want that? Do you crave that? Do you believe that now is the time for the church to do that? It's up to us. Revival can start right here. in Wildwood Baptist Church in Ackworth, Georgia, and it can spread worldwide if we believe in it. So I'm going to close with this prayer, and I'm going to suggest to you that we all know someone that we think is beyond help. And I want you to think about this. Who do you know that is a sinner with a capital S? This is the person that you say will never turn their life over to Christ. And I'm telling you today, that's the person who's out with heavy goods. Who is the person that's struggling the most? They're in this spiritual warfare, this battle. You know that they're going through it. They may not be aware of what it is, but you do. You recognize it. And are you willing to stand in the gap and plead with God? to speak His Word into his heart, into their hearts, so that they can be changed. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to say to God first, fix me? May your desires be my desires. May your wants and wishes be my wishes. Take me and mold me and shape me to be who you want me to be today. So I will pray for the people of Israel. Are you willing to do that? Because this is nothing but an hour and 15 minutes of your time. We do something with this. Father, I'm asking you to do exactly what I've seen described in Scripture, what you've done in the past, and what you did with Jonah. Make us the Jonah's of this world. Lead us to share the message of Jesus Christ with those that you're leading us to share. Lead us to invite them to this place where they'll be surrounded by dozens of believers who have trusted in you, who desire to be changed by you. And God, I'm asking you to do this personally. I believe that I'm doing this corporately for many people. Start with me. Change my heart. God, I pray that I will no longer be satisfied. the people I'm surrounded by who will die in the flesh if they do not trust in Jesus. May I not be okay with that. And may we as a church not be okay with that. As you lead us from this place, May your light and your life and your word come from within us to those who you would have us to speak to and may they be changed forever by it. In the name of Jesus Christ.