Jonah. The subject right now is repentance. Repentance. We know that Jonah was killed after he was thrown overboard and he drowned and then a great supernatural fish swaddled him. But he was conscious all the time in chill and that He was talking to God, even in his, even God was castigating him, he was punishing him. And unto death, the book of James says a man can sin, a sin unto death. Well Jonah, you know, God told him strictly what to do and he wouldn't do it. He just said absolutely the opposite and he was a prophet of God and one of the greatest prophets of all time. But he just wouldn't do what God wanted him to do. And then when he did it, he still wasn't happy. He repented. He told God that I will always look toward your holy mountains, toward heaven, and your holy Kadesh HaKadoshim, the holy of holies, there where you are. And then, he doesn't always act like that. The Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul thought he was doing God's will 100% in his life. He was on the road to go to Damascus to kill Christians and imprison them there and to destroy churches and God struck him down. And that man repented instantly and dramatically and supernaturally right there. He never turned and went back to Judaism again. He even stood up for the Christians against Judaism, the Judaizers. See the book of James written by Jesus' half-brother? He was a pastor of the Jerusalem church. He talked so much about works, works, works, works, works for salvation, you know, so somewhat. It was a different idea than what the book of Ephesians and Galatians and Romans is at all. He was the one that put the restrictions on the Christians that they couldn't eat anything that was strangled or with blood in it. And yet God had done away with the law. And the Apostle Paul kind of did away with that also. He made that indictment there, we see in the book of Acts. But it was never followed out in the, basically, really to the letter in the Gentile Christian churches. Peter repented many times, like we do. followed the Lord. He was always making mistakes. He always was too outspoken. And he put his foot in his mouth too many times. He went up on the Mount, at the time of His Recreation, and said, let me build tents for Moses, and Elijah, and you, and us, and let us be happy up here. And God the Father said, Peter, quiet, listen, just listen. Peter there in the Matthew 16th, 18th chapter, he tells Peter, you're a little stone, but upon this gigantic foundation stone, me, I'll be building my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her or wrestle her down. Just before that, Jesus had asked him, the whole church was there, And he asked him, who do you say that I am? And then Peter said, well, I say that you're the son of the living God, et cetera, et cetera. And he said, you didn't learn that in the synagogue or up in the temple area. You learned it from God the Father, revealed it to you. And then he told him, get behind me Satan. Also, he needed to repent again. There at the night that Jesus was on trial at Caiaphas House, Peter stood out there, he wanted to be close, but he stood out there and he denied three times that he even knew Jesus. And he told Jesus before that, I'll never deny you, even unto death. And Jesus said, denied before the cock crowed three times, you're going to deny me. Or twice, you're going to deny me three times. Oh no, not me. He did. Then Jesus there at the seashores of Galilee, as he was sitting there talking to Peter and they were having fish dinner, He said, ìPeter, do you love me?î And Peter said, ìLord, you know that I like you.î And they said, ìPeter, do you love me?î And he said, ìLord, you know that I like you.î He wouldnít say he loved him. Then finally he said, ìPeter, do you even like me?î Now thatís in the original language. Youíre not going to get it in the translations. And Peter was very distressed. And then he told him, he said, ìWhen I am converted, strengthen your brethren.î When you really get down to it Peter, when you lay everything aside in this world, then strengthen your brethren. Now repentance is something, it is metanoia in the Greek language. It means to change your whole mind, cross mind. It means a cross mind. Thank God if He convicts you of sin, righteousness and judgment to come. Thank God for that. Every person in the world, the Lord tries to call to repentance. Some come, some won't. Some fight. You sit down and you think about what God forgave you for so many times. And it just is a constant repentance. It's a constant sorrow for it. Because you know you're forgiven. Paul many times talks about repentance and belief. In Ephesians, the second chapter, he said we were once, even in the first chapter, he told us we were absolute palms of Satan, controlled by Satan in the world. And yet, through God, through his mercy, has called us unto repentance and to faith. You repent and you believe. Repent and believe. For in grace you are having been saved through faith and that not of yourself is the gift of God. Repentance is a gift of God. God grants you repentance, God grants you faith. And now God is going to grant Nineveh repentance and faith. Repentance and faith. Let's look at this again in the Amplified Bible and then we'll go back into the original Hebrew language. I'm going to read all the way from verse number one in the third chapter. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, go to Nineveh, the great city, and declare to it the message which I am going to tell you. He said, I'm going to inspire you to do this. So Jonah went to Nineveh in accordance with the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh is an exceedingly great city. Three days walk, about 60 miles in circumference. That's a pretty great city. 60 miles. Three days walk, 60 miles. So that's about 20 miles a day. Then on the first day of the walk Jonah began to go through the city and he called out and said, 40 days more remain and then Nineveh will be overthrown. Now we know that Nineveh was lost in history. Later on, after God had used her, Nineveh was completely destroyed, no foundations of the city, nothing could be found for many, many decades, many millennia, centuries. The people of Nineveh believed and trusted in God. And they proclaimed the fast. They put on sackcloth and penitent mourning. They were repenting from the greatest even to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh of Jonah's message from God, he rose from his throne. He didn't fight God. Now he is going to, this man, his heart is prepared. God is granting him repentance and faith. And he rose from his home and took off his, what we might call, kingly robes, his clothes. He covered himself with cyclops, in other words, cheapest coarse clothing. And he sat in the dust in repentance. In repentance. He issued a proclamation. And he said, in Nineveh, by the decree of the king, and his nobles, no man or animal or herd or flock is to taste anything. He even cut the animals off from eating and drinking. They are not to eat or drink water. Both man and animal must be covered with sackcloth. Everyone is to call upon God earnestly and forcefully that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows God may turn His compassion and relent and withdraw His burning anger and judgment so that we may not perish. Repentance. Let's go back and look at this now from the original language. Beautiful verses. Beautiful verses now from Hebrew. Levoh, Ba'er, Mohalaf, Yon, Ehad, Wayikra, Wayomer, Ode, Arbaim, Ya'im, Winenaba, Neh, Pa'Keith. And he began to castigate, to profane Jonah Y. Yatchel, third person master of the synagogue, Y. Yatchel, consecutive and perfect. It comes from Yatchel, 320 and 319, of course it's got a conjunction on the front of it, that little with there, 253, and then Jonah. You can look that one up, page 402 in Brown, Ryber, Briggs, and it means dove. It means gentleness. And Jonah wasn't being gentle here. Levo. Levo means to enter, and we have a cal infinitive construct, that lament on the front of that, is it turns it into an infinitive here. To enter. And the air, bathed on the front of that, it's a preposition, page 88, and the city is 592. Air. Mahalak, a day's journey, a journey, a day, Yom, one, and he kept on crying out, Yikra, third person, master, senior, Kalwa, consecutive, imperfect, comes from Kalra, 894, 1128, and he said and kept on saying, Yomer, Third person, Master, Senior, Cow, Wild, Consecutive, we're perfect. And it's also got a conjunction on the front of that. Yet. Still. Little word there, old. Arbaim 40. Now, here we have 40. It comes from Arbae, which means Arba and Arbaim means 40 days. Had to get a drink of water here. Forty days. Forty is a very common number in the Old Testament. God does things in forty days. Forty years, forty days, forty months, whatever. Hamdenova, she calls herself to be overthrown. You know, wicked people sometimes call themselves to be killed. Their mouth calls for bones. And Nineveh, she shall cause herself to be overthrown. Feminine scene or Nephel participle. She shall cause herself to be overthrown. She shall cause it. Because of her wicked deeds, it's going to cause that. Now in verse number 5. Please excuse my coughing. Wayaminin, Wayaminu, Wayaminu, Hansi, Nirva, Be Elahim, Wayekriu, Son, Wayelbishu, Sadeem, Mekadalam, Weod, Get. Ta. Nom. Now, let's walk. Have you ever had anybody, when you witness to them, have you ever had them just repent right then? Just start crying and repent? Have you ever done that? I did. Several times in my life, but one time I remember more than at all. Out in my storage container I have a couple of Bibles out there of my Uncle Bill. He was a bad man. And I didn't know anything about these Bibles until after he died. My cousins were leaving California and they went to my mother's house and they gave me a couple of Bibles and a few other things from my Uncle Bill. And my Uncle Bill almost killed me one time when I was very young and he did it viciously and on purpose. He took a double bit axe handle and it was about that wide at the end where you put it in this double bladed axe. And he went down to Wattburgers and he bought this thing and he was coming into the yard and I was sitting out there. I was very young, maybe four years old. And he walked by me and I was so intent on looking at this book that my grandmother had been teaching me how to read and write. And I did that. I could read and write before I went to school. It really bothered me because I had to start printing when I went to school. And I learned cursive to begin with because she didn't know printing. She only went to the third grade only. Not one, two, three, but third grade only. That's when you learned to write. And cursive. Of course now you don't. But anyway, I was reading the book and looking at pictures and everything just engulfed in it. And he walked by and ran back and hit me across the back with that axe handle. Probably as hard as he could hit me, I think. I couldn't breathe. My heart stopped. My neighbor was a nurse. And she ran around there and was cussing Bill, telling him, you've killed that boy, you wicked thing. Anyway, I was laying flat on the ground and couldn't breathe. And she came over there and started breathing into my lungs and got my lungs going and did compressions on my chest. Anyway, I lived. I was black and blue all the way from my shoulder blades all the way down past my butt where he hit me. And he killed several men. One of them I found. One man, he cut his head off over a bottle of wine. Another man, he stabbed through his body. He lived, but he stabbed him with his own knife. He went into this man's house. And he was an alcoholic and he was stealing vanilla and drinking vanilla because it has alcohol in it. And he came out there out of the bedroom and saw Bill standing there and said, what are you doing in the house? And he grabbed a long butcher knife that had about a 20-inch blade on it and ran it all the way through his body. And it took off. The man was so afraid of Bill that he didn't bring any charges against him even though they arrested him shortly. But he didn't die. He lived. Garrett Harwell and I found a man that he had beat to death and left for dead over probably money and wine. And Bill was dying in the hospital. He was a wino all of his life. He had a brother. Both of them, Bill and Bob, were both winos. Bill was a very vicious man all his life. Vicious, vicious, vicious man. Killed. Hurt people. If you got close to him, he'd try to pull your ear off or pull your hair out. Little kid had to stay away from it. He was mean. He had a dog that was half coyote named Tippy. She was a coyote in Airedale, and she was mean as he was. She'd bite you. And they lived in my backyard. One time Gary Hartwell and I were out there playing. We had dug holes, and we were playing Army, and we were throwing dirt clods at each other. And we were saying, fire in the hole. You know, that's when you had a grenade going into your foxhole. We were doing that. Fire in the hole, fire in the hole. Bill come out and said, who called me a wino? And started trying to kill us. Well, later on in life, I was preaching. I didn't think about Bill. I always just looked at him. I said, that man, if anybody had reserved to go to hell, that's the one. I was reserved to go to hell. My heart was damaged from all my life because of that. Anyway, they told me Bill was up at the current general hospital and he was up there dying. And they had to cut his leg off because of diabetes. Because of all that wine he drank. I went up there. And I really relished what I was doing. I really enjoyed it. I went up there and I said, Bill, you're the worst person that I've ever known in my life, number one. You're the worst person I've ever met. I never, I don't know anybody as bad as you. I said, you almost killed me. I said, I found the man that you killed, Gary Harwell, and I found that man that you killed. You got by with all this. You stabbed Clifford Sue with a knife. You cut the man's head off. You beat this other man to death. And I said, you're this bad. And I said, you hurt every little kid that ever come near enough to you to get, where you could get his hands on him. He started crying. Started crying. He was blue-eyed. He was Indian, Chickasaw and probably Chickahominy and Indian. He was mostly Indian. He had a dark complexion. He was bald-headed. And he had these gray eyes. And both of those gray eyes were shedding tears, just shedding tears. I said, Bill, if anybody ever deserves to go to hell, you're the one. I said, if the mouth of hell is open and wide for you now. And I said, here you are. I said, laying up here in the hospital. And then I forgot to tell him all that and he's bawling and going on. I said, well, God has prepared a way for you to get out of hell. I said, if you'll repent of your sins and save what you've done and call upon the Lord to save your soul, I said, you can be saved. And he said, I don't want to go to hell. I want to be saved. And I'm sitting here with my hair standing up almost. I don't want him to say that. I don't like this. Anyway, I prayed with him. And you know, the old man changed. He was close to 80 years old, I think, at that time. He changed. I went by his house. I went to Israel. I brought him back a panoramic view of Israel. And I gave him tapes. He'd listen to me preach. And he gave me a little offering. He stole everything, everything I ever had. My mother had a lot of boyfriends and they'd buy me toys. They'd buy me a bicycle, buy me toy trains and stuff. I had a Lionel, so I had a Lionel train. And he stole them and sold them for wine. He stole everything I had. My, Buck Owens' wife's brother, Billy, gave me a watch. It was a Timex watch. And it quit working and I sent it back. And he intercepted it in the mailbox and stole my watch and sold it. I went and looked in the second-hand store, there it was. Bill sold it to him. Everything I had, he sold me, even my grandfather's rifle one time. My mother threatened to kill him. And he got that back, and I still have it to this day. He was baptized there, not in the church where I was, but where his sister went and his other brothers. And he went to church. I'd come by and see him every now and then, And I'd look at him, and he'd be crying still. And he'd hold my hand. Boy, I never wanted to hold his hand before. He'd love to break your fingers or something, or twist your arm, or whatever he could do to you. And he'd tell me how sorry he was. He repented. He repented. He said how sorry he was. And he'd give me a little offering to put in the church, $2 or $3 or something. The $2 or $3 was a lot of money to him. He didn't have much. And he died. And I know that he's with the Lord today. But I was mad at God for years because he saved that man. But years later, when I was pastoring at Valley Baptist Church, an assistant pastor, volunteer pastor, whatever you want to call it, teaching Greek there, I went by my mother's house and got these Bibles and opened up the Bible in red. And my grandfather, he was a godly man, that's his father, He was born in 1903 and he made a prescription in the Bible to build. I pray for you son, you can't read or write now, but I pray that you'll make a great preacher. I pray that you'll make a great preacher and I pray in all these sermons here, these will make good sermons. And that was in that Bible. I just, I mean chills came all over me. My grandfather's prayers had been answered 50 plus years later. He was saved. He gave him another Bible in 1928. By that time, I think, he had been working in the oil fields of Oklahoma. He ran off with Clark Gable's stepmother. William Gable was married to her. Actually, Clark Gable was named William Gable also. I got the marriage certificate when she was married to William Gable. Then my Uncle Bill ran off with her. That woman was used to diamonds and furs and mink and stoles and all that stuff, and she goes off with my drunken uncle. And she stays with him until she dies. All of this, I see all of this in my life. I read this there, and then in 1928 he said again, these would make good sermons. He wanted that boy to preach. But he killed people. He was a killer of men. But you know, his wishes and prayers went to me, I guess. I was his grandson, great-grandson. My grandmother raised me. My mother gave me away to her when I was a day old. And so, my Uncle Bill's sister raised me, which was my grandmother. I can look back on that now, and I can see the prayers answered. That man repented. I'm going to tell you something, after my saw him, he was still repenting. And I was angry with God until I looked at those Bibles, and when I saw that, I know that I was an instrument in the answer to my great-grandfather's prayers. Look at this. And they believed, 3rd person, ma'shem pu'l-hifel, they believed firmly and for themselves, men, men, men belonging to Nineveh. That means what? The house of the fish god. And be, Elohim, in God. Be in God. They believed in God, not gods now, not the house of the fish god, but God. And they proclaimed, And they preached, third person, masculine, plural, while consecutive and perfect, and they proclaimed fasting. Fasting. You know, back in these days, when you repented or something, you fasted. You didn't want that without eating. You didn't want that without all the luxuries of life. You put on the worst clothes. You threw dust over your head. And they put on, in third person, masculine, plural, callow, while consecutive and perfect, rough clothes, sack clothes. And then it says, Mig gedolam, from the greatest, wiad, and unto, page 73, and then that little conjunction on the front of that, 203, their least, the smallest ones. The diminutive, the common man. From the princes to the paupers repented in the city. Verse number 6, Va'yekah ha'doar elmelech, Nineveh va'yagam mikisol va'ya'aber, Adarto mi'alol va'yakas sak, Va'yeshuv el ha'yavir. and touch and reached, third person Mass in the Senior Cal while consecutive and perfect, and kept on reaching. Now today, we have the internet. We have a very small congregation here, but we preach to the world. And said, and touched, and kept on touching the Word, the Word, the Ha, the Bar, the Message, that Word there, 180 and 210, and 180 in front of Brown Driver, Breach 210, and Coleridge-Wimbley Gardner, and then at Lexington. Unto, a little preposition, 39, unto the King, the Melech, the King of Nineveh. And He arose, and He stood up, third person, Master, Senior, Cow, Wild, Consecutive, Perfect. He stood up and stayed standing. He kept on standing up from His throne, Mik-Kes-So. From His throne. That little preposition there on the front of that, from man. And then the seat of honor, that throne means His seat. He stood up from His seat of honor. The seat of honor. The place of honor. He calls to pass, he calls to pass, their birds and mice at the end of the year fell wild, Kentucky, perfect. His robe, his mantle, from upon himself. He took it all. Everybody used to take their, you know, the king was dressed by people and he was unclothed by people and all that. This, he rips off his royal clothes. Now he rips them off. From himself, mi'alo. A little preposition with a suffix. From himself, it comes from man, and then mi'alo, y'akas. And he caused, third person, masochist, changer, calliope, consecutive, imperfection, and he caused, and he kept on causing, saklo. Saklo. This word is shag. Shag. Shag. Y'shu. And he sat, and kept on setting, third person, masculine, senior, talwab, consecutive, imperfect, from yeshev, and a conjunction on the front of it. Why yeshev? Upon, el, preposition there, page 755, upon ashes. Ashes. Ashes. You know, my great-grandmother and my grandmother, I live with them. I grew up in a little dirt floor shack and my grandmother lived in a little house, well actually in a trailer in front of us. And then she lived in the house later on. Wasn't much. But they would go out and we had a wood fire to cook on and whatever. An old airtight stove. And they would take the ashes out and they'd put them in a long trough and they'd run water down in that trough. They'd catch the water and then they would get lard and they would mix that lard with that soap or with that ashes and they'd make soap out of it. And my grandmother would take in laundry and she'd get out there and she'd have a tub set up on rocks in the yard and build a fire under it and heat the water and wash the clothes and that with soap. And then she would take and rinse them and rinse them. Then she'd iron them with flat irons. Flat iron is the iron that you put on the stove to get hot. It doesn't have electricity in it. She'd iron those clothes. But every time you see sackcloth and ashes in here, ashes is a cleansing factor. Even in the law, they took ashes and water and sprinkled. That's a cleansing. That is an antiseptic, a cleansing factor. And here, they're setting in ashes now because they have repented. And it's a cleansing factor to them, they believe, in setting in those ashes. Then verse number 7, where we'll quit in this message, Wayezeg, Wayomer, B'ed, Nenev'eh, Metone, Hamelech, Ugalaw, Lemur, Ha'adam, Weeha, Behemah, Habagur, Weehasun, El, Yitamu, Meyuma, Al, Yeru, Yom Haim Al Yishtu. And he cried and kept on crying out. That word Y-I-K-U. Third person master saying the Hefei Law consecutive and perfect and then it's got a conjunction a little way on the front of it. He kept on crying out. And he said and kept on saying in Nineveh, by decree, in Nineveh, in preposition, in the study of what is the house of the fish god. Now they don't have a fish god, they got the real god. By decree, by edict, by law, miton. The kings, the ha-melech, the ha, kings and his great ones, This Yugi Low, that's his ambassadors, his assistants, his generals, his legislators. To say, L'amour, that's his present infinitive or cal infinitive construct. To say, the man. Ha Adam, the man. And the beast, we habihama, that means a large beast, it means elephants. This means large beasts of burden, that's what habihama means. Large beasts of burden, camels, all that, big quadrupeds. And the cattle, the large cattle, these great big ones like elephants and camels, and then cattle, this means large cattle, those that can be hooked by boker is what it is, and it means to break up ground. It means to break. To break a day, even comes from this word. We have song. And sheep and goat flocks not let them taste for themselves, third person masculine and feminine, cow, juice, even meaning, whatsoever, me or ma, whatsoever, that comes from ma, and whatsoever not, L here is an adverb of negation, Don't let them pasture. Keep them out of the pasture. I want everything to repent in this whole nation. The whole city is going to repent. Even the animals are going to be acting like humans. Watch them. Don't let them feed. And water, not let them drink. El, Adverb of Indigation, page 39 again. Not let them drink for themselves. Don't let them lead themselves to water. This is repentance in it. True repentance. True repentance. Have you repented like that? Every time I saw my Uncle Bill, I saw repentance in his eyes. I sure didn't see it early in life. Boy, he was a wicked man, but God changed his heart. He changed him because he repented of that. Maybe he had to be old, maybe he had to be 75 years old or so, lose his leg, and have his nephew come and tell him how much he was going to go to hell and how soon it was going to happen. But God saved his soul. He repented, and he repented always. God sends a message of repentance and belief out there to you. Repent and believe. There's no other way. Our Father, we send this message out for your honor and glory. Please use it. Please forgive me where I failed you.