And Job began to enter into the city of Baal-shir-lis, and he cried and said, Yet forty days the Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed the fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. May the Lord be pleased to lend his word to our hearts today. I'd like to share a few thoughts with you on this passage where a whole city was brought to their knees as a result of one person preaching a few words to the Lord. Wouldn't it be wonderful as we've prayed so many times that the Lord would do a wonderful work of grace and redemption in the hearts of the people who live and work in this neighbourhood that many people would be saved and people would be even queuing up to get into the church and have a real appetite and a real interest in the things of God. Sometimes on a Friday during the summer when the weather's nice there's huge numbers of people in the pub next door and only a few people come along to our Friday Fellowship meeting. But wouldn't it be marvellous if it was the other way around, if the pubs were virtually empty and people were concerned about their soul and interested in the things of God? Well, many Christians are interested in the great revivals which have taken place in the past. They love to read about it and many people are inspired to pray for localised revivals in the present. Maybe we could hardly imagine these type of things happening. We're so used to the indifference and the apathy which we come across on a regular basis. But nothing is too hard for the Lord. Back in the late Victorian era, about 80% of the local population in London went along to church on a Sunday. Could you imagine that today? If just 10% of the people who live in Page Street were to come to church on Sunday mornings, we wouldn't have enough room in order to accommodate all the people who would be interested to come along to listen to God's Word. And that's just one little street in this neighbourhood in which we've been placed. But perhaps in Jonah's day, People couldn't imagine in their wildest dreams the people of Nineveh repenting of their sin and crying out to God for mercy. They just couldn't imagine it. You see, Nineveh was a very wicked city. It was wholly given over to evil, wholly given over to violence. It was a terrible place. It was almost like the southern of that day and age. And yet the Lord was able to bring that whole city to their knees in repentance. And the great and glorious God that we worship and serve today is the same God who humbled and subdued the people of Nineveh thousands of years ago. Yes, God is able to humble the stoutest of sinners and the hardest of hearts. Now, some people say, well, could God use somebody like us today? Certainly, he was able to use a marvellous Old Testament prophet like Jonah, but the reality is that Jonah wasn't a fine, obedient prophet like some of the others. Jonah was far from perfect. He was stubborn, he was rebellious, he was disobedient at times. When he was first called to preach to the people of Nineveh Jonah actually ran away, he didn't like what God was asking him to do. And even after the events which we read about in chapter 3, Jonah certainly wasn't happy about the people repenting. In fact, he had a bad attitude. He was very angry and very bitter about the fact that the Ninevites had humbled themselves and repented. It was almost as if Jonah didn't want these people to be forgiven by God, he wanted God's judgement to fall down upon them and he resented God being merciful to these heathen nations. For God is able to do exactly what he wants and the Lord is able to save exactly who he wants. And sometimes the Lord does some of his greatest works through the most unlikeliest of instruments to show that salvation is all of grace and has got absolutely nothing to do with any type of creature merit. While Jonah was in the belly of the whale, he cried out to God and prayed. And he had to acknowledge at the end of chapter 2 that salvation is of the Lord. And this is one of the truths which we love to preach and proclaim that God is completely sovereign in the salvation of souls. The Lord can have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. He can have compassion upon whom he will have compassion. When we do go astray, when we go out of God's will, we can be sure that God will correct us and humble us and bring us back to do God's will once more. You see, Jonah was given another opportunity to preach to the people of Nineveh. But God's word for Jonah didn't change. He had to go to the city and preach exactly the same words which he was given the first time. God's will didn't change, the Lord didn't tone down his will in order to accommodate some of the prejudices in Jonah's heart. And in the same way today we have to submit ourselves to doing the Lord's will. Well, the Lord was certainly with his servant Jonah, and God did a wonderful work through him. And praise God, Jonah went the second time, which shows that we are to learn from the mistakes which we've made in the past, and we are to seek to rectify them in the present. Now we're told that Nineveh was a very big city, an exceedingly large city, and lots of people lived there. It took maybe three days to pass all the way through it. And Jonah entered into the heart of the city, And he said just eight short words. Yet forty days of Nineveh shall be overflown. The number eight in the Bible is the number suggesting new beginning after seven, the perfect number. Just like eight people came out of the ark and so forth. You see a person doesn't have to preach a very lengthy sermon in order to be wonderfully used by the Lord. Jonah just said one sentence, that's all he preached. It wasn't a big long sermon containing all the important doctrines of the Bible. He just quoted six, sorry, eight words which God had placed in his heart and he was wonderfully used by God to bring this whole city to their knees. And just one sentence or one word by us can be wonderfully used by God today. When I first started doing some evangelism in Budapest I was a little nervous about approaching people because of the language difficulties and I didn't really know very many sentences about the gospel and I was wondering about how am I going to respond to people or answer their questions. It's going to be a bit embarrassing, a bit of a struggle. But one man I spoke to, I only said one sentence to him and immediately he wanted to come along to the church and he came along to the Bible study that evening and spent the evening with us. There was one occasion when Spurgeon was alive, he went, I think it was to the Crystal Palace where he was scheduled to preach and he wanted to test the acoustics and there was lots of work from putting up the scaffolding as to where the people would be congregating and he shouted out as loud as he could a verse from the Bible to see how far his voice would carry and there was one man up in the scaffolding making all the necessary arrangements and he heard this verse of scripture And as a result of hearing just one verse from the Bible, this man was wonderfully converted and saved. We don't have to give a person a course in systematic theology before they can repent. Just one word, one sentence can be wonderfully used with power by God to break down the hardest of hearts. You see, what did the heathen, Ninevites, know about God at all? But instead of just dismissing what Jonah had said or looking upon this man, this stranger, this outsider as being some type of fanatic who was beside himself, we read that they believed God. And don't we long that people might believe the message which we preach and proclaim today. I think it was Isaiah who said, Lord, who have believed our report? And we say the same today. How few people there are in London who are open and receptive to embrace the gospel. anyway these people realised that what Jonah was saying was true they were gripped with fear and conviction now Jonah hadn't been preaching to them about the love of God or the goodness of God and there are so many people who only restrict their preaching to messages which are going to leave them popular with others palatable messages, smooth words God warned them about a coming judgement just 40 days and this whole place was going to be destroyed by the Lord such a short period of time And yet God today has called each one of us to be faithful stewards of his precious word. And that includes warning people about the dangers that they're in. Now people don't necessarily like to hear a message about sin, about repentance, about judgement to come, but we have to be honest and acknowledge that there's so much in the Bible about these all important subjects because people need to address them in order to be at peace with God. Some people say, well preaching about sin and repentance, it only puts people off, puts people off coming to church. But this was the message which Jonah preached and it brought the whole city to their knees. You see, it's easy to tell people smooth words, it's easy to be popular with people, just tell them what they want to hear. But if a person wants to be used by God, they must be faithful stewards of the way that they handle God's Word. They have to impart the whole counsel of God and not hold back anything that's profitable. Jesus will say to people on that day, well done thou good and faithful servant and it's required in stewards that a man should be found faithful. anyway they proclaimed a farce and put on sackcloth to show that their repentance was deep their repentance was sincere you see their repentance cost them something we notice from the greatest of them to the least of them they were all affected by what Jonah has said it wasn't just the lower classes who were affected because sometimes the poor people are a little bit more open and receptive to many of the wealthy people we're told that the king was affected and the nobles were affected too And that shows that the message of the gospel is for everybody today. For rich, for poor, for men, for women, for children, for homeless, unemployed, the sick, the wealthy, the healthy, the successful. No matter what position a person is in life, people need to be at peace with God, people need to hear the way of salvation. No matter how hard-hearted, no matter how proud a person might be because of their position in this world, the Lord is able to subdue that hardness and able to soften the hardest of hearts. You see, the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah had said and he was affected too. And when told that he got off his throne, he wasn't so grand anymore, he took off his royal robe and he put on sackcloth and he sat in ashes. How humiliating it must have been for this monarch to be found in such a lowly position. After all, he was a great king, he had tremendous amounts of power. He had an enormous amount of wealth, he probably lived in a lovely town, he had a certain amount of respect from others. But now, suddenly he realised that there was a power far greater than what he was. And when a person comes face to face with a holy God, that there's absolutely no place in their heart anymore for pride. Pride goes out of the window. You see, the king and the pauper are in exactly the same position in the sight of the Holy God. And each person has to take their place in the dust before God. It's pride which will keep many a person out of heaven and cast them into a lost eternity. Now this king didn't think it was beneath his dignity to be found wearing sackcloth and sitting in ashes. He was under deep conviction of sin. He was in charge of this city. He was the ruler of this city. And this city had been wholly given over to wickedness and violence and rebellion against God. And therefore this king must have felt an enormous sense of a burden of guilt and shame about what he had done because he was the leader. And so who much is given, much shall be required. And those who are in positions of leadership are more accountable than those people who are not. Well, from now on, things would be different. This king caused it to be proclaimed throughout the city by the decree of the king and the noble, saying, let neither man nor beast, turd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water, but be covered in sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. They weren't just to say a little prayer and that was the end of it. They were to cry mightily unto God, to put their heart and soul into their prayers. with great earnestness and with great fervency after all it's the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man that availed much after all just in 40 days the whole city was going to be destroyed this was a matter of great urgency and the people had to cry out to God that deliverance would come the lives of themselves, their loved ones and their children were at stake and that's why they had to put their heart and soul into their prayers Well, there was a missionary from America who once went to India. He died about 100 years ago, I think it was this year, and his name was John Hyde. And he used to spend so much time in prayer that they used to call him Prayin' Hyde. And if you go to a Christian bookshop, you'll find books with the title Prayin' Hyde, or you'll see it on the website as well. And this man had such a great burden for souls that he prayed for hours every day. And his attitude was, Lord, give me souls, ere I die. He couldn't bear to live without seeing lots of souls being saved. And he used to be by the side of his bed, upon his knees for hours, interceding with God, praying for people to be saved. And many people were. He was so burdened by the fact that there was multitude of people heading for a lost eternity in hell, he wanted the Lord to intervene and to save them. He didn't say any cold formal prayer, he cried miserly unto God and this missionary was wonderfully used by the Lord and saw many precious souls being saved. Anyway, the King of Nineveh exhorted the people to put their heart and soul into their prayer. Let the Lord see how burdened and exercised you are about this coming judgment and how you want God's mercy to come your way. But that wasn't all. The King of Nineveh also told the people to turn away from their evil way and from the violence which was in their hands. You see, Nineveh wasn't just a nice respectable town, albeit they had little interest in God. No, this city was wholly given over to evil and the place was full of wickedness and violence. It was ripe for judgment. Well, no matter how low a person has sunk in their sin, God's grace is sufficient to rescue them from that awful condition. Yes, the Lord is able the heart to soften the hardest of hearts and he often shows that salvation is all of his grace by choosing the basest and lowliest of sinners through whom to do his greatest work. People like Saul of Tartar, who was the man wholly given over to wickedness, such a character became a trophy of God's grace to show that salvation has got nothing to do with any creature merit. This King of Nineveh, he realised it wouldn't be sufficient for the people to cry mightily unto God while they were still practising their sin. They had to turn away from their evil and turn away from their violence. And this is what repentance is all about. It doesn't just mean confessing our sin, it means forsaking our sin. Let everyone turn away from their evil. You see, if a person continues to practice a life of sin without any type of sorrow, without any type of penitence or grief about it, then that person has never repented at all. Now as Christians, we do fall into sin and temptation, but we feel bad about it afterwards and we've got this constant battle going on between the flesh and the spirit. Repentance is not like confession, where we just carry on as before. True repentance means a complete change of direction in a person's life. When a person once loved and lived for their sin, now they hate the sins they once cherished, and they want to live a holy life, they want to live a godly life, for God's praise and glory. You see, God wouldn't be impressed with the words of this Ninevite. He wanted the people to turn away from their sin too. As it says in Proverbs, that if we cover our sin we will not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy. Turn away from the violence, he says. You cannot keep rebelling against the Lord anymore. And then he says, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? Well the word repent in this passage when it's referred to God doesn't mean turning away from any wrongdoing, it means who can tell if God will turn away from his intention to destroy us all as a result of us repenting and crying out to him for mercy? Now Jonah hadn't mentioned anything in his preaching about them receiving mercy. It was something which Jonah didn't want them to receive at all. Yet they realised that they had to please God and the time was so short, the situation was so urgent, they cried out to God that he would have mercy upon them. Who can tell, he said. Just three little words, who can tell what God can do. And who can tell today what will happen when we speak to somebody about the way of salvation? Just one little conversation with a passer-by, just one card, one phone call, one visit, a person's life can be wonderfully transformed by God's grace. And that's one of the reasons why evangelism today is so exciting, that you never know who you're going to meet and what God is going to do in their life. Now this verse speaks about God's fierce anger. God hates sin and he calls upon all men everywhere to repent. The king and the other inhabitants of Nineveh were crying out, staying in line for mercy. They were humbling themselves in the sight of God. They were turning away from their evil and from their violence. Wouldn't we love to see that taking place today? You see, there's so much easy believism today. where people just quote the sinner's prayer, they put their hands up at a meeting and make a decision. But I'm wondering how many of these people have come under real conviction of sin at all? Do they know and feel in their hearts that by nature they're unclean, unholy and undone, hell-deserving sinners? Or are they just doing what other people expect them to do and copying others? You see, when God saves a person, he shows them the plague of their own heart. They must know the pains of conviction. The Lord brings people low before he lifts people up. These people place themselves in God's hands, they cast themselves upon God's mercy, and then we read that God saw their works, that they had turned from their evil way. He didn't just hear their prayer, he saw what they did. Now we often say that actions speak louder than words, and it's true. If they were just praying, but they continued in their sin, then their prayers would be worthless. If we regarded equity in our hearts, then God will not hear us. God saw their worst. God saw that they turned away from their evil and from their violence. And then the Lord had mercy upon them. Isn't it wonderful how God's grace is able to change people's lives? I mean, there may have been people in Nineveh who have been murderers and rapists and violent criminals, and now they've been wonderfully subdued by the grace of God. And I've known people who, before they were converted, they were thieves, they were muggers, they were burglars, they were liars, they were blasphemers, they were drunkards, they were dishonest. But they're not like that now, by the grace of God, they've been wonderfully changed. And yet I've never come across a person whose life has been wonderfully transformed for the better as a result of embracing atheism. When's the last time you met somebody who says, well I was living a really rotten life and then I suddenly became an atheist and my life was transformed and now I'm spending all my time loving and serving others. It just doesn't happen like that. Anyway, God turned from what he was intending to do unto them and did it not. These people were to be spared. How wonderful it was that the whole city was crying out to God for mercy. Wouldn't we love to see such a thing today? Sadly Jonah wasn't overjoyed by the fact that these people were crying out to God for mercy. Sadly Jonah had a bad attitude about it. He resented the fact that these uncircumcised heathen people had been saved and God had been merciful to them. God wanted them to be destroyed. And no Christian should ever have a hard heart towards others. When we hear about people who've been genuinely saved by the grace of God, it's something that we should rejoice about. After all, if there's rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents, surely we as Christians should share in that joy, and we should praise almighty God for the salvation of just one precious soul. When I was in my old church, we had discussion groups and I remember a lady saying at one time, she says, I don't really want anybody to be saved, I never prayed for anybody to be converted. She said, we've got such a lovely atmosphere in the church at the moment with all the people who come along, we don't want any outsiders coming along and spoiling this nice atmosphere which we have. And she almost resented visitors coming along to the church. And such an attitude was completely right at the mark. Nobody should have such a hard heart towards others. We should rejoice when people are saved. You see, the Christian church is not just like a cozy club for believers to come along, a social club. We're here in the business today to make people aware of what God says in his words, to preach the gospel, and to pray mightily to God that he would be pleased to save many souls. And even if hundreds of people come along and there's not enough room to accommodate them, and it means that our lives are turned upside down and busier than they've ever been in the past. It's something that we should rejoice about. Imagine if all the people in just one block of the Peabody Estate came to the church, more than half the church would be full up with people. What the Lord did in Nineveh in those days, the Lord is able to save many precious souls at the same time today. We also notice from this passage that God's forgiveness is conditional. You know, we meet many people who say, well, God just forgives everybody. After all, they believe in universal salvation. But that's not taught in the Bible. God doesn't forgive everybody. He forgives those who repent of their sin, cry to him for mercy, and accept and receive his dear son as their saviour and sin-bearer. What would have happened if these people hadn't repented of their sins and cried for mercy from God? Well, their city would have been destroyed after 40 days. Well, do we have a real love and a real concern for souls today? Do we pray earnestly for people to be saved? Do we have that same attitude that John Hyde had? Oh Lord, give me souls! We just long that we might see the grace of God at work in people's lives. Do we pray that people would repent? and how we need our own nation to turn away from its sin how we need this great city to turn away from its sin which is surely like Nineveh, it's ripe for judgment it's almost as if the morals of this nation have gone right down into the gutter and it's almost as if only a revival will save us from God's judgment Well, the Lord is very gracious and the Lord is so patient to this nation. Though we've had such a wonderful heritage, we've turned our back upon it, we've trampled underfoot all those wonderful blessings which the Lord has bestowed upon this nation in the past. and it's only the grace of God, it's only the patience of God which has kept back the judgement which we most sorely deserve. But if the Lord was able to use an instrument like Jonah, who was rebellious and disobedient at times, then surely the Lord can use us in our generation and we can make a tremendous difference to people's lives. So let us not be downhearted, let us not be discouraged in these days, We have a great and a glorious God to love, to serve, to please, to praise, and to follow. As the hymn says, revive thy work, O Lord, while here to thee we bow. Descend, O gracious Lord, descend. O come and bless us now. Anybody like to make any comments on a German passage?