September 24, 2024 3:00 am
They say the best form of advertising is word of mouth. When one person tells another about his experience, it’s very persuasive. Well, that form of expression was around long before Madison Avenue brought it to radio and TV. The Lord invited us to tell others what He’s done for us. And today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie shows us what we can learn on this issue from the prophet who ran from God—Jonah. We’ll see, when Jonah finally turned around, so did an entire city!
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A New Beginning is the daily half-hour program hosted by Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. For over 30 years, Pastor Greg and Harvest Ministries have endeavored to know God and make Him known through media and large-scale evangelism. This podcast is supported by the generosity of our Harvest Partners.
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Greg, Lori, and Harvest Ministries would like to send you the movie Unsung Hero, the back story of the music group for King and Country. It's a story of a mom and a dad and their seven kids putting their faith into action. You're going to be deeply moved by this story of the amazing small-bone family that have gone on to impact so many through their music, and we are offering this film to you for your gift of any size.
Get the DVD and digital download of Unsung Hero at harvest.org. Here's what people are looking for that don't know the Lord. They're looking for someone who is real. You don't need a Ph.D. to share Christ effectively. Pastor Greg Lori says if you follow Christ, you can show someone else how to follow Christ. If you're just religious and pious and holier than thou, you're not going to reach anyone. But if you can be real and authentic and you just seek to be the best follower of Jesus you possibly can be, you will reach people. They say the best form of advertising is word of mouth. When one person tells another about his experience, it's very persuasive.
Well, that form of expression was around long before Madison Avenue brought it to radio and TV. The Lord invited us to tell others what He's done for us. And today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Lori shows us what we can learn on this issue from the prophet who ran from God, Jonah.
Well, see, when Jonah finally turned around, so did an entire city. It was a beautiful day at the beach in Nineveh I suppose. People were laying in the sun catching some rays, living large.
A couple kids building a sandcastle. A few people splashing around in the ocean. They didn't have a care in the world. Financially they lived in a city that was extremely prosperous.
Militarily without peer. And they lived wicked sinful lives and they flaunted it. They seemed to be living in an impregnable fortress.
They didn't have a care in the world. So they are kicking back at the beach and this large object starts moving toward them in the water. Someone thought, is that a boat?
What is that thing? It is moving so quickly. And it gets closer and it is a massive sea creature that comes up to the beach, opens its mouth, and belches out what looks like a human being.
Out pops Jonah. Covered in seaweed. Skin probably bleached from the gastric juices.
Steam coming off of him. I am sure some flies came over very quickly. And he stood up and said, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
Talk about an entrance. And that is where our story begins here in the book of Jonah. Jonah chapter 2 verse 10 says, the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah unto dry land.
So we all know the story in case you don't know what leads up to this point. Of course he was called to go preach to the Ninevites. He flat out refused because they were the enemies of Israel. And he was afraid that God would spare them. And he was hoping God instead would judge and destroy them. So instead of going to Nineveh he got in a boat going in the opposite direction.
The storm came that was sent by the Lord. And then he was swallowed by this beast. Now we say a whale. It may have been a whale. It could have been a sperm whale.
It is large enough to swallow a human. Giant squid have been found on the stomachs of sperm whales. But it may have been a creature that is now extinct. It may have been a custom designed watercraft for the moment.
It really doesn't matter. As I have said before there is only three verses in the book of Jonah about the fish. But that is what everyone seems to focus on. The story of Jonah is not the story of a guy who got swallowed by a fish as much as it is a story of a man that God used to bring a revival to a city of around a million people. In fact that fish, that whale, whatever the heck it was, really saved his life. Because if he would have stayed in that storm out on the water he would have surely died. And by the way he is not the first guy what is life saved by a sea creature. I just read this article.
I don't know how I had not come across this before. It was the year 2000. A young man named Kevin Hines 19 years old was so despondent he decided to take his life. He was on a bus crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And Kevin Hines ran to the side of the bridge and jumped over falling to the water below. A free fall reaching 75 miles per hour. And he hit on impact. And that was 240 feet in four seconds. You get a sense of how high the Golden Gate Bridge is.
Now people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge on a fairly regular basis and nobody survives it. But this guy hits the water and he is still alive. And he said in an article, when I resurfaced I was trying to stay afloat but he had lost the use of his legs. And he thought I am going to drown. And he says as I am bobbing down on the water I was saying to God I don't want to die.
I have made a mistake. Sounds a little bit like Jonah. Because it was in the belly of the beast, the aquatic creature that Jonah cried out to God. And it was in the cold waters of the ocean that Kevin Hines called out to God.
And what happened next is absolutely amazing. He saw some kind of a creature circling below him going around and around. And he thought it was a shark.
He thought if things aren't bad enough now I have got a shark. And he is literally punching at this creature. And the creature bumped him up a little bit. And it went around in a circle and bumped him up again and kept bumping him keeping him on the surface. And that creature was a sea lion. So the sea lion came through for Kevin Hines. And then a rescue boat came and he got pulled into the boat and he survived it. And now he is telling the story.
And thankful to God I am sure that he is still alive. So hey Jonah and the whale. Kevin and the sea lion. You never know what the Lord will use right. So Jonah encountered God in the belly of that creature. And now it was time to take care of some unfinished business which was to go to Nineveh and warn them of the impending judgment.
So Jonah 3 verse 1 says, 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 tell you. And as I already said what resulted was the largest revival in biblical history. Speaking of the Golden Gate Bridge it is a part of San Francisco. The population of San Francisco is around a million people. So to give you a sense of scale back in these days they didn't have cities of this size generally.
This was an anomaly. So it would be as though the entire population of San Francisco repented of all of their sins and turned to God. That is what happened here in Nineveh. So I want to talk a little bit about the message that Jonah preached. In Jonah chapter 3 starting in verse 3. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message that I give you. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city.
It took three days to go through it. And Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city crying out 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now I want you to notice this was a very specific message entrusted to him by God. And if we were honest we would say initially it seemed like kind of a hopeless message.
Right? Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Forty days and you guys are dead meat. But actually that was not really what the message was about.
It was a warning. You have 40 days to get it together. You have 40 days to turn to God.
You have 40 days to change your ways and to repent. There is a promise given by God that we have quoted many times that can result in revival. And it is 2 Chronicles 7.14 where God says of My people which are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways. I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
Well these people as we will see in a moment ultimately turned from their wicked ways and God forgave them. So this is point number one if you are taking notes about the message He was bringing. Number one our message must be delivered with urgency. Our message must be delivered with urgency. You know there are some messages that are not urgent.
And there are other messages that are. If your child is going into the street and the car is approaching and you yell stop. You yell with urgency because their life depends on it.
We can think of other things that would have an urgency to them as well. Verse 4 of Jonah 3 says he cried out. He cried out. He cried it out. Not just hey dudes 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
No it is like 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. By the way that is not the first time he cried. He also cried in the belly of the fish.
Jonah 2 says Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish's belly and he said I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction and he answered me out of the belly of hell I cried and you heard my voice. Listen when you are going through times of affliction the best thing you can do is cry out to the Lord. And sometimes we don't even know what to say. We get bad news. Someone or something is a threat to us.
Something is alarming us. And sometimes the best thing to do is to say oh Jesus. Jesus. Jesus help me.
And that is what he did. He cried out to the Lord. Jeremiah 33. God says call out to me and I will answer you.
I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know. So he took this same desperation. He fell in the belly of this fish where God forgave him and gave him a second chance and he carried it with him as he spoke to these people. This was a man who had been transformed. Jonah was a resurrection man.
He should have been dead. No way should you survive sitting in the gut of some whale or fish for three days and three nights. And actually Jesus used the story of Jonah to illustrate his own death. He says as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish so will the Son of Man, speaking of himself, be three days and three nights on the heart of the earth.
And so first he is validating the story of Jonah by the way. And then secondly he is using it to talk about resurrection. His own resurrection. That he would rise again from the dead. Jonah was a resurrection man and people knew it.
He should have been dead but instead he was alive. And you know what? If you have encountered Jesus Christ you too are a resurrection person. And you know here is what people are looking for that don't know the Lord. They are looking for someone who is real. If you are just religious and pious and holier than thou you are not going to reach anyone.
But if you can be real and authentic and when you make a mistake you admit you made a mistake and you just seek to be the best follower of Jesus you possibly can be you will reach people. It was A. W. Tozer a great author from days gone by who made this statement and I quote, the world is waiting to hear an authentic voice. A voice from God.
Not an echo of what others are doing and saying but an authentic voice end quote. Jonah was an authentic voice. He was a resurrection man.
He was a man who should have been dead who was alive again and wasn't afraid to talk about it and people could see it in him. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We love to hear stories of how lives have been changed through the teaching of God's word like this one. Pastor Greg you were one of the first pastors I listened to when I gave my life to the Lord. I'll never forget that night at Calvary Chapel when you made the altar call and I accepted the Lord. I continue listening to you and your sermons are always spot on convicting and full of the spirit. God bless you abundantly Pastor Greg. It's a blessing to know that listeners are hearing these messages and God is using his word to touch hearts. How have Pastor Greg studies impacted your life?
Would you let him know? Send an email to Greg at harvest dot org. Well Pastor Greg is talking today about how authentic Jonah was after his encounter with the great fish. Authentic and passionate about reaching people with God's message. We're learning some important lessons about that today. Number two our message must be clear and definite. Anyone could understand this message.
Forty days in Nineveh will be overthrown. A child can understand this message. I've had pastors say to me before who have been to our crusades and they'll say afterwards I'm kind of surprised people responded and I'll say oh really why. Your message was so simple. Exactly.
That was intentional. Did you know it actually takes more work to prepare a simple understandable message than it does to prepare one that is complex and over the heads of people. And what good is that by the way? You've got to go to where people are and share things that people can understand. And I work extra hard on those messages because I want it to be so streamlined. So simple. If someone chooses to reject it it is not because they didn't understand it. It is because they chose to not believe it. It is not simplistic but it is simple.
And after all did not Jesus say that if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven you must become as a little child. Number three. Our message should be authoritative. Jonah brought an authoritative message. No apologies. Just proclamation. This is the truth. I am not apologizing for the truth. I am not candy coating the truth. I am not editing the truth.
I am not adding on to nor am I taking away from the truth. Here it is. This is the message God gave me.
40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. I've got to deliver that message. So we have a real simple message too by the way.
It is not for us to add to it or to take away from it. There is actually explosive power in the simple message of the gospel. Paul even says it is the power of God unto salvation to the person who believes. Our message is simply there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved except through Jesus Christ. That is the message we need to proclaim just like Jonah proclaimed. And I want you to notice he gave an authoritative message and he had a wonderful response.
Look at what it says here. In Jonah 3 5 they believed his message. It doesn't say they believed Jonah. They believed his message.
They believed the message that God gave to him. Why? Because there is power in the message that we bring. There is no power in my personal message. There is no power in my horrible jokes.
Don't laugh because that was an affirmation. They are horrible. No. There is no power in my illustrations. There is no power in anything I bring but there is power in the Word of God. And that is why we always open up the Word of God. Otherwise why would I want to waste your time?
No. We believe the power is in God's Word. He promises it will not return void. It will prosper in the place that He sends it. Ok so Jonah brought his message. Covered in vomit.
Flies following him everywhere I think. He gives it faithfully. The people here how did it go over?
I would say pretty well. Look at Jonah 3 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. And when the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying he stepped down from his throne, took off his royal robes, and dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. And then the king sent nobles with a decree to the city saying not one person, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. 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 the violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change His mind and hold back His fierce anger from destroying us.
Now look at this. When God saw what they had done. How they put a stop to their evil ways.
He changed His mind and did not carry out the destruction He had threatened. If God could bring a mighty revival in Nineveh with no better representative than Jonah and no more gospel than He preached in their streets surely God can do the same thing for America. I mean if God could use a knucklehead like this with a message like that to have such an impact surely He can use you. And surely He can use me with a life changing message of the gospel.
We throw that word around a lot. Gospel, gospel, gospel. What is the gospel?
Definition. Good news. Before I can fully appreciate the good news I need to know the bad news. The bad news is I am a sinner. I have broken God's commandments. I fall short of God's standards. I could never live a good enough life to get to heaven. But the good news is 2,000 years ago God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross in my place and pay for all of my sins. And if I will turn from that sin and put my faith in Jesus I can be forgiven.
Isn't that a great thing to know? And we need to share this because you can be a resurrection man. And you can be a resurrection woman. You have a story to tell just like Jonah did. God raised you from the dead. Now some of us live more crazy lives than others. Right? Some of us were into things that well it is kind of embarrassing to talk about some of the things we are into but we were.
Others not as bad. But the bottom line is we were all sinners. And we were all spiritually dead. And we all needed Jesus.
Right? And Jesus saved us. So that is your message. So be that resurrection man. Be that resurrection woman and go into your world.
Go into your sphere of influence and tell them let a Jonah get right with God and the entire city of Nineveh get saved. How about your city? How about your family? How about your neighborhood? How about your campus?
How about your work site? How about your world? You can go into that world and you can make a difference like you have never imagined before. But let me just close by saying this.
That this message that we are proclaiming is here for anybody who wants to believe it here. Because there might be some of you that have never asked God to forgive you of your sin. Maybe you like Jonah have been running from God. You think God is out to ruin your life. You think if you become a real Christian you will never have fun again. It is just going to be boredom layered upon boredom with a little more boredom measured in.
No no. Nothing can be further from the truth. The deepest greatest most fulfilling life there is is a life where one has a relationship with God.
Don't settle for the devil's cheap substitutes. God has the real thing you have been looking for all along. Jesus Christ died on that cross for you.
He rose again from the dead. And He is here with us right now standing at the door of our life and He is knocking and He is saying if you will hear His voice and open the door He will come in. So I ask you in closing have you asked Him to come into your life?
And if not would you like to? We are going to pray in a moment and I am going to extend an invitation for anybody here that does not yet know God in a personal way. If you are not sure that you will go to heaven when you die that can change for you tonight. He is just a prayer away. He is ready to forgive you of any sin you have ever committed. So if you need to get right with God or if you are a prodigal son or daughter and you need to come back to the Lord again here is an opportunity to do it. Let's all bow our heads and pray. Father speak to every heart now of every person here and every person who is watching.
If they do not know you yet Lord help us be the moment they believe and come to you. And I ask this now in Jesus name. Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer today here on A New Beginning. And if you would like to make a change in your relationship with God Pastor Greg would like to help you with that in just a moment so please stay tuned. And then thank you for partnering with us to help these daily studies continue.
Your investments have eternal benefits. Why not make this a part of your personal ministry to partner in an effort that's making a real difference with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your prayers and for prayerfully considering how God might lead you to help tangibly. Online you'll find us at harvest.org and there you'll see the way we'd like to thank you for your donation right now.
That's harvest.org or write us at A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside California 92514 or call us at 1-800-821-3300. We're here around the clock to take your call again at 1-800-821-3300. Well Pastor Greg a few moments ago you spoke of the need to get our hearts right with God. Could you help someone who wants to do that right now?
Yes I'd be delighted to. This can be the moment where you change your eternal address literally from hell to heaven. I'll pray a simple prayer and I would just ask you to pray this prayer out loud if you like after me just pray these words. Lord Jesus I know that I'm a sinner but I know that you're the savior who died on the cross for me and rose again from the dead. Jesus I choose to follow you from this moment forward in your name I pray amen.
I know it's such a simple short prayer but you just called on the name of the Lord and you know what he heard that prayer and if you meant that prayer in your heart he answered that prayer. Now let me help you to get started on the right foot in your new life in Jesus Christ. The greatest adventure awaits you the life of walking with God. I want to send you what we call a New Believers Growth Pack.
What is that? Well first of all it's a copy of the new New Believers Bible and by that I mean we have redone this from ground level up I've rewritten the notes and it's a new living translation with a lot of notes on how to grow spiritually woven through this unique edition of scripture. So I'll send you the New Believers Pack that includes the New Believers Bible and a whole lot more and let me be the first to say to you congratulations and welcome to the family of God. Yeah and to get that free New Believers Bible along with the other items in our Growth Pack just let us know you prayed along with Pastor Greg to receive Christ today. We'll be glad to send our New Believers Growth Pack your way.
Call us at 1-800-821-3300. Call anytime 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org and click Know God. Well next time Pastor Greg moves into the final message of his Jonah series. We'll see why Pastor Greg considers him the prodigal prophet. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-09-24 05:44:40 / 2024-09-24 05:54:22 / 10