IS THERE HOPE FOR THIS GENERATION
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Last month, we spent sometime praying for the US, today we just prayed for the Philippines. The Pastors I’m with prays on a weekly basis for nations of the world, on a monthly basis I call on Pastors I know from Israel, Dubai, New Zealand, Thailand and together with pastors from different states, we gather on line, we honor the Lord with worship songs and pray for each nation represented, for the word of the Lord said,
21 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: 22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. 24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” 25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. 26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.
19 I will perform a sign among them. And I will send those who survive to be messengers to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (who are famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to all the lands beyond the sea that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. There they will declare my glory to the nations. 20 They will bring the remnant of your people back from every nation. They will bring them to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord. They will ride on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the Lord.
And they shall declare my glory among the nations.
And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD.
Though we keep on going with our everyday lives, still around us we see the civil unrest, we see the chaos, we still see the sickness caused by the virus, that it continues to infect and affect the lives of all people. Everything that is happening around us is here to stay, now don’t get me wrong, I’m not sowing fear, the simple reality is that we live in a godless world. Of course, I don’t mean that there isn’t a God, or that the true and living God is not active in our world. I mean that the natural state of every person is wickedness, godlessness, and evil. It has always been this way, and it always will be this way. How do I know this?
5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.
I have entitled the message for today:
IS THERE HOPE FOR THIS GENERATION
IS THERE HOPE FOR THIS GENERATION
Let me pray for a second.
We can read from John 16 verse 16 and following, Jesus began telling the disciples about His impending death and His resurrection, so you could just imagine, all knew that Jesus is on the “wanted” list so to speak, the disciples did not only “hear” what He was saying, they FELT it! Just think about, they were with Jesus day in and day out, eating together, walking together, gathering together, hearing the good news, seeing and witnessing all the healings, miracles, signs and wonders!! It’s like they are in “cloud 9” ! Then all of a sudden Jesus is saying goodbye! Imagine what they felt! But Jesus said:
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
33 I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”
29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.
So gathering from this, let’s check out what happened during the time of Jonah
So, in a nutshell, the book of Jonah
“gives the account of Jonah’s experiences after he disobeyed a command of the Lord directing him to preach to the people of Nineveh”
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Jonah, Book Of. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 1205). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
I’d like to propose 3 truths that we can gather from our study today;
Situation, Warning, Response
Situation, Warning, Response
I believe in the course of our lives these three truth also exists.
We are always presented with a situation - personal, in our work, a situation that will measure how we react to to that given situation. And sometimes, we take heed of the warnings, from those warnings we gather what might be the result of our reaction, what will be our response, and this is closely tied together with the warning.
So let’s check on the:
SITUATION
SITUATION
1 The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”
1. The Lord gave a message
2. Send Jonah to Nineveh - description - Great City!!
3. Judgment of the Lord
4. Wicked
Now why Jonah, why not anybody else?
I kept researching and I can’t find the exact reason. The nearest one is because, the call of the Lord is personal! Jonah was a real person who lived in a real city just like you and me, and God called him for a special task.
The Bible says, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittal.” It was a personal call. It was “to Jonah.” God did not call Habakkuk nor Amos nor Obadiah, nor any of the other prophets to go to Nineveh.
It’s the same as the Lord telling Bro. Eldie to bring HIS WORD to this business! Our Lord is personal, and He will talk to us, inspire us and impress upon our hearts His mandate.
This was not the word of man; it was the “word of the Lord.” Men do not call us; it is God who calls us. Jonah had a God who spoke to him. That’s what verse one says in other translations:
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:
Another part of the situation is, Jonah was specifically sent to Nineveh. Why Nineveh?
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Nineveh (Nineve), Ninevite
Nineveh (Nineve), Ninevite. One of the capitals of the Assyrian empire and at the height of that empire one of the great cities of the world. Nineveh was situated in what is now northern Iraq and is represented today by the mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus to the east of the Tigris River and opposite the main part of the city of Mosul.
I came across this article, though I never saw this particular TV series, but let me read it:
“This is the city.” The popular 1960s television crime drama Dragnet began every episode with these words. The city—in this case, Los Angeles—embodied the best and worst of human life: the mundane, dramatic, and tragic.”
So it has always been. Cities are morally ambivalent places that hold out the promise of excitement and the threat of danger, at once sites of corruption and of great human achievements.”
Nineveh is one of the most prominent foreign cities in the Hebrew Bible. Its portrayal is a complex blend of historical reality, symbolic force, and legendary embellishment.
Nineveh is described as huge—taking three days to walk across—and thoroughly evil. But Jonah gives no specifics about the city’s evil beyond the king’s command that citizens turn away “from the violence that is in their hands” (Jonah 3:8).
8 People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.
So let’s see some other outside biblical resources:
Outside of the Bible, Nineveh was known for having been a great, lawless, and ruined city. Greek literary giants like Herodotus and Aristotle catalog its sinfulness, describing Sardanapalus, its legendary last king, in unflattering (and problematic) terms. Diodorus of Sicily (first century B.C.E) describes Sardanapalus’ violations of the rigid gender boundaries of Greco-Roman antiquity. According to legend, his subjects rebelled against his taboo behaviors, whereupon the king piled his wealth into a mountain, climbed atop it with his eunuchs and concubines, and torched it all with a fire that burned his palace to the ground.
This is Nineveh!!!
So this very situation brings our minds as to why God’s judgement is upon Nineveh, WICKEDNESS!!!
And within these convoluted reality, this brings us to our 2nd truth: there is a:
WARNING
WARNING
The first time God spoke to Jonah to deliver His message, he did not listen, and there are repercussions, and that is in itself a different message, we’ll talk about that next time.
So what was the warning?
1 Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.” 3 This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. 4 On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”
In forty days, God will destroy Nineveh!!!
Why 40? Why not 20, 15, or immediately?
- Eugene Peterson, a christian writer said, and I quote:
“Forty is a stock biblical word that has hope at its core. Forty days is a period for testing the reality of one's life - examining it for truth and for authenticity. The forty days in Noah's ark was used to cleanse centuries of moral pollution. The forty years in the wilderness was used to train the Israelites to live by faith in the promises of God. The forty days of Jesus' temptation was used to explore his calling and test his commitment. The forty days of Jesus' appearances after his death, was used to verify his resurrection and characterize the new life of God's kingdom."
So here, I believe the 40 days in Jonah’s warning will also give the people in Nineveh a time to repent, to turn from their wicked ways.
During the old testament, that kind of warning, there is no second chances, once the judgement of the Lord has been given, it will happen!!! And I want everyone to see later, the difference now, as we live our lives because we are now inside the period of grace.
So, the Lord have given them a stern warning. Now the:
RESPONSE
RESPONSE
4 On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” 5 The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow. 6 When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. 7 Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. 8 People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.
A response can be done in several ways, you heard a problem you can respond not act and get involve, like you just shrug it off OR you respond and you make a decision about that problem.
6 When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes.
At this point Jonah heard the Lord for the second time and wants him to deliver a message to Nineveh.
5 The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.
The whole Nineveh believed God’s message. It also says “from the greatest to the least”!!! Imagine that, ALL OF THEM did not just took time to listen to what Jonah was prophesying THEY ALSO DECLARED A FAST and put on a burlap to show their sorrow.
The word DECLARED here is not just like “saying it (show hands from mouth) just for others to hear, in the original translation it has the idea of ACCOSTING A PERSON. And accosting means to confront, to stop. Like a police accosting a person on a street. They were “accosting” themselves, they welcomed the prophesy, allowed it to accost them, to stop them from their evil ways. And I’d like us to take a look also, it was not just the common people who were convicted, the bible says “ from the greatest...”
6 When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. 7 Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all.
THE KING HIMSELF AND THE NOBLES believed the prophesy and SENT OUT A DECREE throughout the city.
Check this out: Normally a King would just sit in his throne, listen to his noble counsellors and most of the time shrugs off any unrelated news that does not concern his kingdom. But look what just happened, HE STEPPED DOWN FROM HIS THRONE AND TOOK OF HIS ROYAL ROBES!!!
You know what this means, we did not read anywhere if the King was a believer, right, but do you know, the way the original text was constructed, it shows that the King expressed genuine belief- he BELIEVED AND HE TRUSTED GOD!
And he did not just believed, but he acted out that belief,
Evangelical Commentary on the Bible C. The Ninevites’ Response (3:5–9)The king (governor) gives royal approval and publishes a proclamation. This involves a fast, an act of humility, and an exhortation for everyone to “call urgently on God” (v. 8). The people are exhorted to turn from their evil ways and violence.
And in the latter part of the chapter it says:
10 When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.
SITUATION, WARNING, RESPONSE
In e very given situation there is always a warning, there will always be an opportunity for us to think how will we respond to that dilemma.
The world will never change, evil is all around. Wickedness is everywhere, but the challenge today is will we be swayed by this, we see the situation, we heard the warning, what is our response. The people of Nineveh did not just heard the warning....
they acted and responded accordingly