Repentance: The Gift of God - Beacon Sunday Service: September 28th, 2025

So if you can stand with me, please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 3, and or just look up on the screen. I'm going to read the first five verses of chapter 3 for you. Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it this very call, which I'm going to speak to you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk. Then Jonah began to go into the city one day's walk, and he called out and said, Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed in God, and they called a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

Let's pray together. Father, on this day we gather to bring you songs of praise, to offer up our prayers and our gifts to you. But most importantly, Lord God, to avail our hearts, to place you again at the center, to recalibrate our lives, to hear your truth, and to bear fruit for your glory. We know that we do not bear fruit apart from the vine. We do not bear fruit from our effort. But fruit is born as your word saturates in our hearts and shows itself in our lives. Teach us your word this morning. Teach us how to listen well and to apply better. And we thank you, God, for just the opportunity to study through your truth, and we pray for a good time of learning together and of growing as we all unite ourselves and knit our hearts together to Christ a little bit more this morning, ultimately for your name's sake and for our delight and joy.

We pray all in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take a seat. So I'm 47, and the first 42 years of my life, uh, I really did not need to go to the hospital. So I visited the hospital for myself probably less than 20 times in the entirety of my life. And I was exceptionally healthy. But in 2020 alone, I went to the hospital more than 50 times and even stayed in a hospital bed for three nights. I was treated for stage three, uh colorectal cancer, so that was a year with a lot of time spent in the hospital. I went through uh six months of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation, and then I had surgery to remove 10 inches of my colon and then half of the rectum. But by the grace of God, I'm at the five-year mark of being cancer free, and I'm in excellent overall health.

So my hospital visits, but they haven't stopped. Over the past five years, though healthy, I've still had to visit the hospital somewhat regularly. But now the purpose for my visits is different. In 2020, I frequented the hospital for treatment, but these past five years I've gone more for monitoring and for prevention. Hospitals are good, right? The hospital is objectively a good place, even though I know that none of us enjoy going to them, right? Now, most people, most normal people don't like going to the hospital. And it's not just because of the needles, but typically it's because I think we don't like to be told things that are wrong with us. We don't want to be told that we're not healthy, that we need to change certain things about our lifestyles.

And there's also the fear of the unknown. Ignorance is bliss until we're actually in a place of great discomfort and unexplainable pain. Then we actually become desperate to know. And it's only when we're feeling unwell and miserable we seek clarity, we seek help, and then we avail ourselves to treatment, even if that treatment brings with it a great deal of discomfort and pain. Most people still don't like it, but we go to the hospital because it represents hope and solution for real needs. Right? The functions of the hospital are many, but the ultimate purpose of every hospital is one and the same, all over the world. It's one and the same health. Hospitals exist for the wholeness of a person, the health of the person, it is for a person's well-being.

So the very function of a physician is in bringing a person's health to a place of healthiness or wholeness. Right? It has often been said by many people over the years that the church is not a museum of saints, but it is a hospital for sinners. How many guys have heard that before? The Pope has said it, Tim Keller said it, uh St. Francis of Assisi has said it. Many people have said it. And there is some truth contained in that statement. The God of the universe cares for the well-being of the soul. And he desires that all people be well to have life and have it in abundance. John chapter 10 10. So God desires all of us to be whole, to be healthy, and he desires to heal and restore man that man doesn't just exist.

That's what we call bias life, but that we would have Zoe, abundant life to truly live. And it's not surprising that God in both the Old Testament and the New Testament refers to himself as the healer of all diseases, and he also calls himself, or he alludes to him being a great physician. He is Jehovah Rapha, the healer of all infirmities, and he came into the world into the lives of mankind in order to heal. Exodus 15, 26, at the end it says, I, Yahweh, am your healer. And then in Luke chapter 5, and you guys are probably familiar with this passage, it reads, Jesus answered and said to them, It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.

So there in Luke's account of the gospel, you're gonna notice that Jesus describes the sick not in physical terms but in spiritual terms. The righteous are the healthy, and the sinners are the sick.

So here in Luke's account, Jesus made it very clear that he didn't come for the righteous, but rather for the sick. But here's a very offensive and a liberating truth. Everyone is sick. There is no one well.

Eternally.

So righteousness, wholeness, shalom are God's desire for every soul. So did you guys know that the Hebrew word for peace is shalom? Right? And that the Jewish people greet each other with shalom. Shalom doesn't mean absence of conflict. It means peace, but doesn't mean an absence of strife. Actually, by definition, shalom means wholeness. So I'm proclaiming wholeness to you, wholeness to you. That's what shalom is. Now the treatment for any disease begins with a diagnosis. Every physician needs to diagnose correctly in order to treat correctly. The treatment has to be specific and exact and accurate for the disease. A doctor would never prescribe Benadryl for cancer. You guys know what Benadryl is, right?

Allergy medicine. He wouldn't sign off on an amputation for the flu. The treatment of every disease begins with a precise diagnosis, or at least we hope, okay. But for all mankind, the diagnosed disease is sin. And the first step in the treatment and the path to recovery from sin is repentance from unrighteousness. So in the Bible, repentance has always preceded forgiveness. Repentance has always preceded healing. So no repentance, no righteousness. No repentance, no forgiveness. No repentance, no healing, no salvation. So the starting point for any soul's restoration to God is the repentance of that soul from his sins. Does that make sense? God takes no pleasure in the diagnosis.

He is a holy, holy, holy God, and though he takes no pleasure in this, God always starts there. Just like no doctor delights in the ailments of his patients, God doesn't take pleasure in delivering the news. God takes no pleasure in the suffering or the death of the sinner. Ezekiel 18, 32 reads, I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares Lord Yahweh. Therefore, turn back and live. So before this passage, he pleads with his people. Why will you die? Why would you choose death? Ezekiel 18, the Lord is pleading with his people. Repent and live. So the great physician desires for the good of all people, and he reasons with them and he implores them and he exhorts them. Repent and live.

Okay, and so the theme of repentance dominates Jonah chapter 3. And we're going to be thinking through the importance of repentance both this week and next. First, Jonah the prophet repents. And then the wicked Ninevehites repent. Jonah's repentance was one of restoration, where the repentance of the Ninevehes was actually one of salvation. So repentance runs through chapter 3. And so Jonah's prayer of repentance is provided for us at the end of chapter 2, verses 7 to 9. It reads, While my soul was fainting within me, I remember Yahweh, and my prayer came to you to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols, forsake their loving kindness, but ask for me.

Salvation belongs to Yahweh. And let me just do a quick review of Jonah's sins. Okay, if you remember, God commanded Jonah to warn the wicked Ninevites of judgment toward their sins. Okay? Jonah had no desire to be the messenger of hope to the Ninevites. He wanted the Ninevites to be destroyed. They were a wicked people. He wanted the wrath and the hatred of God to come upon them. So he traveled south 40 miles to get to the port of Joppa, and then he decided to go completely the other way to Tarshish, which is modern-day Spain. God had called Jonah to a specific ministry, but Jonah refused, and then he ran away. And that's in every children's Bible, right? That was the sin. So God hurled a storm onto the sea, and then later Jonah was hurled into the sea by a group of terrified pagan sailors.

And later he swallowed up by a large fish. I'm gonna just, I might call it a whale, okay? But in this section of the prayer, you see Jonah's turning away from sin, cleaving himself to the loving kindness of God, and then being brought back to a place of shalom through repentance. So Jonah's repentance is not one of salvation. His is the repentance and turning away from sin of one who is already saved. So God heard Jonah's prayers, and it is implied that God accepts Jonah's repentance, and then God commanded the fish to vomit Jonah onto the dry ground, and then in chapter 3, God then recommissioned his prophet, repentant prophet back into the service. So Jonah 2 10 to chapter 3, verse 2. Then Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it this very word for word call, which I'm going to speak to you. So the wording of Jonah 3 1 to 2, it runs almost parallel to the very beginning of the book, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. But this second time, in repentance, Jonah obeyed the command of God to preach a gospel of repentance to the wicked Assyrians. So he basically delivered God's message word for word. So what do we learn from Jonah's the repentance of the sins of this prophet of God? First, we learn that God cannot tolerate any sin. He will not leave any sin, either the sins of his elect people or the sins of hostile sinners, he will not leave them unaddressed.

God will apply the rod of discipline to all of his children to turn them from their sins. And this has always been the case. But for his elect people, his children, the discipline of God is always lovingly corrective. God's discipline for his children is always lovingly corrective. It is never punitive. So if you're a child of God, you can be assured that God's discipline is always for your good and never for your harm. Amen. Now it's always corrective with restoration as the goal. Restoration is the goal. It is never punitive with justice as the goal. You don't want justice. We want his mercy and kindness and loving kind uh and his and his tender mercies, right? So here's an amazing truth.

For the saint of God, the wrath of God towards your sin was exhausted and emptied on the cross of Christ. So for the believer, in standing, there is zero hint, zero trace of sin. The punishment for sin is completely gone. So if you are a believer, in standing, you are not a sinner. You guys follow? In standing, you are perfectly righteous. So this glorious truth is, it's beautifully painted for us in the Psalms 103, 11 to 13. This is one of my favorite psalms. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.

So all of God's righteous wrath towards the sin that the elect people of God commits, he's poured out once for all on the person of Jesus. And as a sim read, as the hymn that there's a verse that goes, For every sin on him was laid here in the death of Christ. What? I stand or I live, right? That means only one act of repentance, you have genuinely confessed with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and you've believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead. And the heart in the Bible is not the place of emotion. The heart is the place of volition. The heart dictates what you choose. The stomach is the emotion. So Jesus had a bowel movement, it says when Jesus had compassion for the people, right?

So the heart is the center of all of my choices. So if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and you believe with the volitional choice that God raised him from the dead, you are saved. Romans 10 9. And it's made permanent. So a saved person can never lose his salvation. One saved, always saved. Amen. But once saved, continually sanctified into the likeness of holy, holy, holy God. God's will for you and for me as a saint of God is that we are sanctified. And that's what we learned in 1 Thessalonians 4 this week, right? For God's will is your sanctification. So then, if I've been permanently saved, why do I need to still repent? Because though we are dead to sin, we are still dying to sin.

After all, crucifixion doesn't, you don't get killed right away. Right? It's a long agonizing death. The residue of sin still remains with us. And the Holy Spirit of God desires us to become perfect as He is perfect. Matthew 5 48, 1 Peter 1 16. So our repentance and our confession as saved people is still necessary for our growth and union with Christ. It is necessary for our enjoyment of the relationship that we have with our God. Let me illustrate. If I sin, my wife's right here. If I sin against my wife, I harm my marriage. I don't harm my marital status. I still have oneness with my wife. But there is now a sin that hinders the full enjoyment of that oneness. So as a wise person, what do I do?

Because 98% of the time is my fault. And the other 2% is just random luck, right? So it's my fault. So when I sin against my wife, I turn from my sin, she forgives me, I grow an understanding of her, and then the relationship is further strengthened. My wife is a very patient person, and I'm not saying that's that as an exaggeration because the sermon is being recorded. I'm saying this as fact. Okay, he's a very, she's a very patient person. But her patience is exponentially limited compared to the patience of our God. Our God never turns his child away who comes to him in repentance. Lip service, he doesn't take. But if you're coming to the Lord in genuine repentance as a child, he always forgives.

Apostle John wrote this in 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins is to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. So the term, the the uh both verbs, forgive and cleanse, are in the air's tense, which means the airest tenses, they're both both completed action that has ongoing ramifications. I get married once, but that marriage has an ongoing ramifications. So he is faithful and righteous to forgive one time, ongoing ramifications. Cleanse one time, ongoing ramifications. And it's in the subjunctive mood, which usually talks about a hypothetical situation. If you sin and you confess, he will forgive, he will cleanse. So God has forgiven once for all, every Christian's every sin, and he's going to forgive every future hypothetical sin that a Christian commits as he confesses his sins in repentance, because God is faithful and just and he forgave Jonah once, and he forgave him again inside the fish.

How do I know that Jonah was a saint and not a hellbound sinner? Well, first, Jonah was a fearer and a worshipper of a worshiper of Yahweh, Jonah 1 9. Yahweh was Jonah's God, chapter 2, verse 1. Jonah's prayers rose to the holy temple of God and reached the ears of his God. God does not hear the prayer of the sinner. Jonah chapter 2, 7. So Jonah was a man who was elect of God, but he rebelled. He disobeyed. So he basically gave God a defiant no. God says, go. No, right? So he was backslidden. This is what means, what black backslidden means. Backslidding doesn't mean I live however I want because one time I said a prayer. Backslidden is I am defying God. This is cosmic treason. So Jonah is not in a good place, but then he repents and then he's restored.

John MacArthur wrote about Jonah. The prophet Jonah is one of the clearest examples in scripture of a wayward sinner who repented and was graciously delivered by God and restored to service. So Jonah was disciplined by the Lord. We call that the he got memed by God. Okay? You got the big old meme. God is not a bad father. He is not a derelict father. He will never leave a rebellious child on discipline. For those who are not his children, Romans chapter 1, verse 24, what does it say?

He gives them over to depravity for self-destruction. Now here's some good and bad news. If you are a child of God, he will not leave you alone. Lord, let me breathe. He will not leave you alone. He will always address your waywardness. You will not be able to get away with a single act of rebellion or defiance. Just like if you guys are parents, you know that sometimes your kid does something and you don't just tell him right away. Sometimes you just kind of be like, I just saw that, but I'm gonna, but you don't let him be. Right. Slight tangent. Someone who always shifts blame to other people. Someone who is always the victim. I usually am pretty quick to conclude that he is not a child of God.

So someone who's always it's someone else's fault, never does a child of God ever do that. Ever. Why? Because the blame shifter and the perpetual victim, they never own their sin. He believes his sin to be justified and just a reaction toward the other person's sin, which is greater. So he believes that he is justified for all of his wrongdoing. And therefore, there is never a confession and no confession. There's no repentance, and there's no turning away from sin. Therefore, no salvation. Repentance always starts with, Lord, forgive me. I am a sinner. So Jonah, after repentance, was recommissioned to the Lord's service. Jonah's repentance and restoration changed nothing in status. And in chapter 4, he's gonna throw another temperatantrum.

Okay, so get ready. Jonah's emotional, okay. But God reset and refocused him for his task. So what is one lesson we can learn from Jonah's sin and repentance? Those who are saved are always saved for commission and for service to the Lord. Always. We have been saved by God. We have been created by God to love God and to serve God. And we have been saved for God and by God to love God and to serve God. Amen. And so when we get sidetracked and we veer off course, he will discipline us. Use our repentance to recommission us back into his service for ministry. And repentance is his gift of love. So an unbeliever could never will himself into repentance. There's too much pride. Our repentance is a sheer demonstration of God's grace.

It is not in our reasonableness. It is God's kindness that leads to repentance. Romans 2 4. Amen. And the Lord in his kindness brought Jonah back and recommissioned him. Chapter 3, verses 1 to 4. Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it this very call, which I'm going to speak to you. So Jonah arose, went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk. It's like about 55 miles. Okay? Then Jonah began to go into the city one day's walk. And he called out and said, Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. It's five words in the Hebrew. But this time, Jonah willingly obeys.

Good news for the Ninevites. Because the Ninevites were greatly in need of repentance. They were one of the wickedest people groups in all of human history. So Nineveh is a capital of the Assyrian Empire. And history tells us that they were some of the cruelest and most violent people who have ever lived. Okay. Most of you actually have not, we're not here for the introduction to the series of In Jonah and Nahum. So I'm going to describe for you again as a refresher the wickedness of the Assyrians. Okay. So this great, exceedingly great city, verse 2, was home to an exceedingly wicked people. Everyone in the Mediterranean world, they wanted the Assyrians to be overthrown. Everybody hated them.

Why? They were powerful. They were skilled in ironware and warfare. And they were cruel. So the last thing you wanted was to be conquered by the Assyrians. This is what they did when they conquered a nation. They would take their male captives and skin them alive. Then, having been skinned, they would bind them, and they would put them on stakes, force their women and their children to watch this. Then, while the men are skinned and flayed and on the stakes, they would take the men's children, their toddlers and their babies, and decapitate them in front of these flayed men. And they would collect their little heads, put them in crates, and then they would send them to enemy villages to let them know that they're coming.

Now, if you were a ruler or a leader of that country or that tribe, you were a little better off, because they would only cut off the nose, the ears, tip of the tongue, all ten fingers, all ten toes, smash the genitals, and then the former leaders and the generals of the country would wander the streets to beg. They can't talk. If they survived the torture. And with the women that they captured, they were stripped naked and paraded around everywhere they went, 100% of the rest of their lives. That's what they did. So if you look at the image on the left, that's coming, that comes from an Assyrian shield. That's where the, do you see the captives hoisted on the stakes? The image on the right is from a wall, okay, and it depicts prisoners being skinned and flayed alive.

So the Assyrian cruelty was written about in great detail. They loved to write about this. It was drawn all over their artwork. So nobody wanted to be conquered by the Assyrians. Does this make sense? So the children's Bibles make them just look silly. And repent. Okay. No. They were a horrible people. Nahum 3, the prophet Nahum describes their great evil. Woe to the city of bloodshed. Completely full of deception and pillage. Her prey never departs. Name it in 3 3. Horsemen charging, swords flaming, spears flashing, many slain, a mass of corpses. There is no end to the dead bodies. We stumble over the dead bodies. There's no way to walk around all the corpses. Chapter 3, verse 10. Yet she became an exile.

She went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her honorable men. All her great men were bound in fetters. And that's a easy, that's a nice way of putting tongue, nose, ears, genitals, fingers, toes, all cut off. They are just cap, they were bound in fetters. And the book of Nahum ends with this question. On whom has not your evil passed continually? So some translations will read Who has not felt your unlimited cruelty? So Jonah is told to preach to them. Barbaric, brutal, murderous soldiers. So you can imagine the Assyrians in Jonah's day do unspeakable and horrible things. But Jonah walks in there, says five words, and his sermon is like the most successful sermon in the history of mankind.

Exceptionally and historically fruitful. Because the entire city repented. Let's review chapter 3, verse 4 to 5. Then Jonah began to go into the city one day's walk, and he called out and said, Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed in God. They called a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. This is incredible. Do you guys know what the word incredible means? Impossible to believe. So literally, this is incredible. So this is the equivalent of someone like me. Just walking one full day into Kabul, Afghanistan, completely untouched, preaching a message of threat and destruction to the citizens of Afghanistan, to the soldiers, to all the leaders.

America's gonna come and destroy you. God's hand is on America. Something like that, right? And then all of them, highest ranking official, including the king, to the lowest peasant, dropping all their weapons, believing my message, putting on mourning clothes, beating their chests, bowing down, praying, not to Allah, but to Jesus. Incredible, right? How did Jonah walk unhindered for an entire day, arrive toward the city completely untouched? That is how absurd, ridiculous, and crazy this story is. It would be almost impossible to believe, except Jesus himself uses them as an example of repentance and implies that every single one in that entire generation are saved and in heaven. That's what is called the sign of Jonah.

Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and they will condemn it. All the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, unbelieving, just Jew commoners. They're gonna condemn it. Because these Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. So one important thing we learn from the repentance of the Ninevites is this. Nobody is beyond the reach of the grace of God. Amen? Nobody is saved by merit. We are saved because of God's free choice and his kindness. So the comforting truth is if God is for us, what's it say in Romans?

Who can be against us? If he who did not spare his own son, who's gonna stand and accuse us for any sin that we've done? If God is for us, who's gonna be against us? God chose to save this entire generation of Ninevites. And remember, they were evil, cruel, hardened people. So how did the in the world that this entire city of rebellious wicked Nineveh's come to repent? How did they come to believe in God with such a short message of doom and gloom? Like I said, it's only five words. That's unbelievable too, right? When's the last time you heard a pastor say five words? My sermon, I counted as 5,422 words. Okay. Five words. Ultimately, the Spirit of God moved miraculously and powerfully to cause them to repent.

Because we know that what's impossible with God? Nothing. He can soften the hardest of hearts. So remember, nobody is beyond saving. Nobody's beyond redeeming. Nobody is beyond hope. So if you have an impossibly hopeless friend or a family member, keep praying for their repentance. He can save the Assyrians, that means he can save anybody. Now, history gives us some helpful explanations as to how Ninevehites came to repentance. And one thing that I'm thankful for for the Assyrians is they wrote down everything. So we have a lot of Assyrian records. It looks like God may have used the Ninevehite prophecies and teachings to scare them into repentance. God can use foreign religions. God can use empty philosophies.

Apostle Paul argues from the vantage point of the philosophers. So God uses even false religion to bring glory to himself. Okay? Now the Assyrians, they believed in many gods. Asher, Ishtar, Anu, Enlil. But one of the gods that they adopted was Dagon. And Dagon was one of their chief deities, and you may have heard of him. He's basically half man, half fish. Sounds like a merman, right? Dagon. You see him mentioned in 1 Samuel 5, Judges 16, 1 Chronicles 10. There are many idol statues that are made of Dagon. So you could just Google it. Dagon was very present for hundreds of years throughout the history of the period of the Old Testament. Could be interpreted as a powerful sign from the spirit world.

I want to show you a map. Okay, take a moment to locate Nineveh with your eyes.

You guys see it? Nineveh is toward the right, the northeast of the Mediterranean Sea, which is an ocean. And there are many, many rivers around Nineveh. But how close is the ocean? Do you guys notice how Nineveh is not anywhere near an ocean? It's actually 375 miles from the ocean. There's no way he could walk from Israel to Nineveh, especially after he got digested by a fish for three days. So if it was a whale, and there are whales in the Mediterranean Sea, something unthinkable had to have happen. A saltwater whale would swim up a river, fresh water onto the banks toward Nineveh. That would shock people.

So imagine with me.

This is just sanctified speculation. But my guess is they were there to witness this. And if that was to be the case, my guess is they were terrified. So they probably left Jonah. Because remember, if you're digested for three days, your skin is going to be pale and bleached. Alright? So just imagine with me. They're gonna leave their post and hastily notify the king. Feasible, right? Well, let's go to the more concrete. There were events in the period of history which make it appear that God was moving things around to get the repentance of Nineveh. 2 Kings 14, 25, the prophet is Jonah is mentioned. He's mentioned in the court of the king Jeroboam II, who reigned from 782 to 753. And King Jeroboam was a successful king.

They call his reign the golden era of Israel because they became wealthy again. Okay. This is at the same time, the reign of King Ashur Dan III of Assyria, who reigned from 773 to 7575. And history tells us that Ashur Dan's reign, during Ashurdan's reign, the Assyrian Empire was involved in some severe conflicts between them and the Aramaeans and the Urartians, U R A R T's. Okay. So the Assyrian Empire was very unstable. At the same time, there were major earthquakes that shook the area. Assyrian records inform us that solar eclipses, earthquakes, famines, they're all divine omens, they were happening during this time. The biggest one on June 15th, which is my birthday, June 15th, 763 BC.

There was a particularly terrifying solar eclipse that darkened the country or the area. Ashur Dan wrote about it in his own records. In the year Bur Sugale of Guzanna revolt in the city of Asur in the month of Simanu, an eclipse of the sun took place. So the timing of that recorded solar eclipse could align with the stuff that's happening in the Book of Jonah. So if that's the case, the people of Nineveh were already afraid of imminent destruction. Assyria had a divided empire, large-scale disasters, and now a solar eclipse, which is a divine omen of destruction. And imagine with me, in that context, a whale swims down a river, vomits a man, and this man starts walking into an already terrified city, preaching.

Yet, 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now, there are a lot of interesting historical things we can speculate about. None of this we can say with absolute certainty. We don't know how Jonah got into Nineveh unharmed. We cannot explain how this wicked people repented and turned to God. But we do know that God has done and continues to do the unexplainable and the absolutely mind-boggling. Okay, just think with me for the past, just even just the past five years. We had a global pandemic that shut down the whole world. You guys remember this? Unthinkable. There's an uptick in wars and rumors of wars. There are famines and earthquakes in tsunamis a plenty. And I don't know if you're paying attention.

In September, this month, September, there was a historic locust swarm that devoured much of Queensland, Australia, really far south, and major parts of North Africa. We just don't hear about it because it's not America. Technological development has now enabled instant communication, connection, updates from all around the world. Just the last couple of weeks, a very polarizing young man named Charlie Kirk was martyred. Most of the first world immediately heard about it, and they all had an opinion. And then most of the first world, friends and foe, they all tuned in to watch his memorial. They already calculated that over a hundred million devices were viewed, streaming the service. So one week ago, one Sunday ago, a hundred million plus all over the world heard multiple iterations of the gospel preached, and they witnessed the widow publicly forgiving the killer.

And people have opinions. But that happened. Just a few days later. We have a South African pastor who says the rapture is going to come. It didn't happen. So congratulations. You guys all been left behind. Alright? For the Lord's real coming. So right now, there's a war of nuclear epic proportions brewing in the Middle East. You know this. You just don't want to think about it. The world feels like it's gone crazy. And guess what? There are many, many, many, many people right now straining to hear the voice of God. Would you agree? There are many confused and distressed souls seeking for life, seeking for truth, not knowing what to believe, because there's so much noise.

Many are feeling the infirmities of the sickness of their disease. And they're flocking to the hospitals spiritually. Right now, as we speak, multitudes are seeking the great physician. So there are things happening right now. The Bible tells us repeatedly, be sober, to be watchful, and not to be afraid. You guys know this. Now, we do not know what next year is gonna bring. In 2019, if someone told me that I was gonna have cancer and survive a global pandemic, I'd be like, that's a that's a that's a pretty big, but now it's like, oh yeah, that may that's truth, right? We don't know how events of our current history are going to unfold.

For all we know, America could soon be enmeshed in a civil war that could last for decades going forward. The last civil war we had in America, there were clear geopolitical lines, and that still took 20 years to finish. So for all we know, this country that is so divided can be enmeshed in a civil war. So I don't know the what, the how, and the where of the details of our world going forward. I don't. You don't. But one thing we know with absolute certainty is the why. God is moving in the details of our history and of our lives to warn, to exhort, and to terrify people into remembering that this is not home. This world is passing away. And he's terrifying people, unsettling people to bring them into repentance.

You guys follow? Because he's a patient God, he's a kind God. It is not the healthy who are in need of a physician, it is the sick, and he is the great physician. And we know that it is his kindness, Romans 2.4 that brings us to repentance. We also know that, verse chapter 2 Peter 3, 9 to 10, the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some consider slowness, but he is patient towards you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Before this verse it says, with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day. You've seen that before, right? Why does God delay? Because he's trying to get more saved. Okay. The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, the elements will destroy with intense heat, the earth and its works will be found out.

Some people think this is going to be nuclear war. Could be.

That's the diagnosis. And the treatment is the cross of Christ. The cure is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ, nothing else. That is why we preach the gospel. Amen. Laws will not eradicate sin from the heart. Not one law. You cannot legislate against racism. You can't legislate against greed. You cannot legislate against lust. They will be there and be strong. You can curb them. But a changed heart is only possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because then God changes the heart of stone and into a heart of tender flesh that beats for Christ alone. The objective of our faithful, loving gospel preaching is always repentance. When we preach the gospel, it's never to boost someone's esteem.

There's a big difference.

Not the feeling better about his life. We go to the hospital, not to be tickled and comforted with lies. We go to be well. So whether you are saved, beloved child of God who hasn't been able to enjoy your relationship with cut because you have sin. Or if you are a soul lost in need of saving, the message has always been the same on this side of eternity. John the Baptist preached this, the Messiah of God preached this, his apostles preached this. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So time is now.

So, but we're gonna take a time of communion. And I'm gonna ask the worship team to come back up. I want us to kind of just sit and reflect and think. Lord, am I living in rebellion? I believe you.

But I am living however I want.

Help me to enjoy the restore relationship that I have with you. You might need to pray that.

Amazing grace, and that sound is sweet. This represents the means. And we take it with joy. We don't take it with guilt. We take it with conviction. We take it with thankfulness and awe. So the communion table is for baptized believers only. So if you're not a baptized believer, then we do ask you to refrain. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold up uh both the bread and the cup, and then uh once we start the communion, you guys can come up and just grab each. And then I'm gonna walk us through a couple passages, and we'll take it together. Okay, so please join me in a time of prayer.

Lord, we know that nothing is impossible with you. And we acknowledge that we would be so far from here if we didn't have Christ. We would be so lost. We would be so desperate. But Lord, we're here because you saved us. Because you love us. And sometimes we want to have you just let go of us for a little bit so we can enjoy our lives, but you're too good a God to let that happen. So in the quietness of our hearts, we thank you. Because the discipline of your hand is an evidence of your love. So we thank you for loving us. We thank you, Lord, for ultimately proving that through the sacrifice of your only begotten Son on the cross. And we acknowledge that through his broken body and his shed blood, we are healed.

So as we partake, bless us. As we partake, fill us with joy and delight that is not manufacturable from within ourselves. Would you fill us with awe and wonder and great joy and great compassion for those who are still in need of the great physician? So as we take of the elements, would you move in your people to knit our hearts towards the same purpose, which is the glorification of Christ and the edification of the body. So we thank you, Lord. And we take this with humility, terror, and great satisfaction, knowing that only you can satisfy.