Blessings friends, Pastor Nick here again. I just wanted to continue our study in the book of Jonah. I pray these things will be a blessing to you. They will encourage and help you gaze upon Jesus, to look unto Him, to ask Him to do a work, a stirring within your heart, within your spirit, that you would hear Him speak to you and shepherd you and you will follow His lead. We don't want to find ourselves in the place that Jonah found himself, where he was so caught up in his own agenda, he was so caught up in lifeless, worthless, things that had no eternal value that God had not given him to be involved in or if God had given him something he had chosen to operate without seeking God first. That's how these things begin to happen in our life. I just love what Jesus taught his disciples. Seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and He'll direct our paths. He will provide what we need. It goes along with Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 when it says, trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not upon your own understanding, but acknowledge him in all thy way, in every aspect of our life. And he'll make the path clear for us. He'll direct our steps and our ways and make that path clear for us to walk upon. We just position ourselves to hear from Him, to believe what He reveals. Faith is really what it boils down to. Faith is seeing and believing and believing. agreeing and acting on what God gives us, what he reports to us, his word to us. It is seeing and agreeing and acting on what he has said. There is life in his news. There is life in God's word and his message. And that quality of life enters into our life when we see, agree, and act on it in faith. And we find in the book of Jonah that Jonah found himself in the deep blue sea, in the belly of a great fish, and that he recognized that God's affliction, this harm that he had to go through, at the hands of God because of his wayward heart of not seeking first the king and his kingdom as a way of life but doing things that he wanted to do rather than what God wanted him to do and God engaged him in that era that he was in engaged him in his backslidden heart He engaged him in his waywardness and just didn't let him go and do what he wanted. And Jonah realized when his soul had fainted, when it was covered up in the affliction that he cried out to God as he sunk deep into that water, deep to the bottom of the sea, deep in the belly of that great fish, he realized and remembered, it was then he remembered the Lord. And when we remember the Lord and rejoice in his salvation, God meets with us. And that's exactly what we see going in the chapter number three, God met again with the Lord. Jonah, he says, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I will tell you. God, when He is at work in us, He is cultivating His life in us. When we take Him at His Word, His Word transfers His life, the quality of His life, eternal life to us. We can meet and be in fellowship and be at peace with Him. and when God uses us it's always He assigns us to a particular place, a particular area that becomes clear to us. Prior to that Jonah was just doing what Jonah wanted to do going where Jonah wanted to go and he wasn't transferring life to anybody but God has a place for us. God has a people for us to reach, He has something for us to proclaim or to share and be a blessing, to be a gift to them. So He's gonna send us to a people in a place to preach and live out the message that we believe and see. God has worked that away. He's always worked at it. We see it in the book of Acts with Peter. I'm gonna read a passage to you out of Acts chapter number five. Acts chapter number five, we find the apostles were in jail and God supernaturally come through and he delivered them. And chapter five, we see that in Just before they were going to go and do something to Peter, the Lord comes to him. And in verse number 20, when he opened up the prison and he opened up the prison doors for him, and he told him these words, listen to this. Now this, this is very similar as with Jonah. Now the, with the exception of Peter was right in the will of God. This was part of what God was doing with his people in that day. And Peter wasn't on the run from the Lord, he was running toward the Lord and God continued to show him great favor. But this is the word in Acts 5 20. He told Peter, go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. Go, stand, speak to the people. all the words of this life." That's what he told Jonah. Go, go to Nineveh, go to the people of Nineveh and go speak what I will tell you. Go speak the words of life, this life. And that's exactly what Jonah went and did. And the word that God gave him to proclaim to that city was that in 40 days, in 40 days, verse number four of Jonah chapter three. And Jodah began to enter into the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and he said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now what God did was give this city a space, a time of repentance. He gave them an opportunity to get right with him. Chapter number one and verse number Two, it says, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. Their wickedness was piling up like a pile of trash. The higher the pile of trash gets, the more trash it has, the greater the aroma, the more gases that it creates, the more rotten foul smell that it produces. And this is that image of their wickedness their wrongness that they were content in, that they enjoyed doing. This was who they were. This is how they lived. This is how they've always lived. This is what they knew as life. This is how they pursued business. This is how they pursued their dreams. This is how they pursued their desires. But God was concerned about them and their soul and well-being, and He engaged them like He did with Jonah and as I shared with you in the previous message that God is more concerned about our position with him than us being happy with a life without Him. He will afflict us. He would bring adversity in our life. He doesn't have to. He doesn't always do it in that order as it is with the Ninevites. He brought a message to them. That message was in 40 days, judgment is going to fall upon this city. And because there was life in that word. Anytime God proclaims a word to you and I, And that word is directed toward us. There is life in that word for us. And the people believe that word. They trusted that word. The scriptures give us indication that they believe the word of God. Jonah is not even highlighted that they believe the word of Jonah or they believe the message of Jonah. No, they believed God. What did they believe of God? That God was going to overthrow them in 40 days and the people trusted what God said. This was a report given to them. This was news broadcasted to them that judgment was coming in 40 days. They believed that news. They trusted what was said and they turned. Trust always precedes turning. You and I, we, this world we live in will never turn to Jesus unless they trust him first. Unless they believe. His news, lest they believe His report. Now the effect of believing and trusting that report is you then turn to Him and when you turn to Him, you turn from the negative way, the wrong way of living and it's not that God doesn't want us to be happy, He wants us to be happy, He just wants us to be happy. in the right things in life. And you and I don't have the authority to determine what is right. That lies within Him and what He reveals to us through His truth, through His ways. That's why we seek Him first. That's why we trust Him and lean not upon our own understanding so that He will reveal to us what is right, what is wrong, and simply the word wicked means wrong and it's wicked because it's wrong and it's wrong because it's not right and there is a difference between what is right and righteous and what is wrong and what is wicked. The word evil means that it is bad, it's no longer good for its intended use. That's the idea of being bad or evil is that it has no eternal good. It has no eternal value to it. And the people of Nineveh were quite content and happy in that which was wrong, that which was not right. But when the right word came, that had life in it, and that God's power was upon it. And that's what we see, just like we see in the book of 1 Thessalonians. Paul said, I know your election, God, by God. I know you have been chosen by him. Why? Because one, how the word of God was revealed to you. Number two, how you received the word as it was and is, that it was the word of God and not a word of man, and how the word was redeeming in your life. the Word affected you within so that you believe that message, you trusted that message and messenger, you turned to Him with trust, and you turned from your ways. And the Bible says, God saw their works and relented from the judgment that He proclaimed was coming. I love what verse number nine of chapter three says, after the people call for a fast, after they put on sackcloth and they dusted themselves, which is just saying they got as low as the dirt. They got as low as they could physically, which was to be a picture of how their heart had bowed before God. They were at his mercy. They were entrusting themselves to Him that whatever He chose to bring, whether He granted them life or whether He judged them for their wickedness, they left that in His hands and they put it in His control, which we all should do daily, submit to His mercy and bow our hearts and knees and lives to Him and His will to be submissive to His ways. And the question is asked, Who can tell, who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away his fierce anger so that we may not perish? Who can tell? Well, if anybody in that day could have told them, it would have been Jonah. Jonah should have jumped up and says, I can tell you. I can tell you, yes, God will relent. God will turn from his fierce anger. God will restore and he will grant you life. Jonah should have said, I know personally, this is what happened to me prior to me coming here and God's been gracious and faithful to me. Jonah could have easily said that I will tell you. You see, I can tell you, I know what to tell you and I will tell you, yes, yes, yes. God will relent. God will turn from His wrath and judgment upon you. And today I stand before you and answer that question for you, for me, is yes, who can tell? I can tell you. God spoke life into me and I believed Him. I trusted Him. I turned to Him for my wicked ways and the wrongness in my life. to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son, to work for His Son, to witness for His Son. I can tell you because I know. I know God is faithful. Can you tell? Can you answer that? Who can tell if God will relent and turn from his fierce anger toward us? Yes, I can tell. Can you tell? And I can tell you why. Because of Jesus. Because of Jesus and Jesus alone. It was because of Jesus that God was able to grant mercy to the Ninevites. It was because of Jesus that God was able to restore Jonah. And it is because of Jesus that God was able to do something in me and for me and through me, to him be the glory. Jesus, my substitute, who took the very wrath of God instead of me, and by his righteous life and sacrifice, God transferred his life to me. And as a result, he took my sin and I received his salvation and his righteousness and God made me. who knew no righteousness, who knew nothing of righteousness, and made me the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Who can tell? I can tell. I know I can tell, and I will tell, and I'm here telling you today that He will relent when you and I repent. Well, we don't repent. without His grace. We don't repent without faith. We don't repent without trusting His message. And His message for you today is that when you believe, when you believe in your heart, Your mouth will confess toward what He's done with inside of you and declare that He's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's your King and He has been merciful to you and He has set you free as well. You see, the Word of God came to Nineveh with power. It was revealed by God. It was received by the people as a word from God, and His word was redemptive. It transformed this group of people, and they cried out for God's mercy, that He can do with them as He chooses, and they trusted themselves to Him. Oh, to God be the glory. I want to tell. Who can tell? I can. I will and I know. Can you? Will you? Do you know? If not, you can today. Trust Him. Trust Jesus. Follow Him. Give your life to Him. Entrust your sin to Him. Entrust today to Him. Entrust everything you have. Just give it to Him and follow His lead. God bless you. Talk with you soon.