Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

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Welcome to the Truth Network Podcast. Let me finish verse five. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

That was every person. Do you find it amazing that he went in and literally preached a very hard message and an entire heathen city responded to it? That ought to show us something nowadays folks. The gospel is not out of style. Preaching is not out of style. All this little different experience in church.

Listen everybody has different preferences but look at me. Preaching God's word, knocking on doors, letting folks know about the gospel still works. The reason it doesn't work nowadays is we're not doing it. Verse six. For the 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 noble saying. Listen to this. Let neither man nor beast heard nor flock taste anything.

Let them not feed nor drink water. I want you to notice in verse eight and maybe next the sinners cry. The sinners cry. The entire city believed what Jonah had said. And they all feared because Jonah told them the truth.

40 days from now you will be destroyed if you don't repent and turn to God. And they believed God and that produced an immediate result. They began to be humbled. They began to repent. They began to fast.

They began to sit in ashes. They began to beg and plead for the mercy. Look at verse eight. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God.

Now listen to me. What you notice about this was this. They responded a whole bunch quicker than Jonah did. Here's a bunch of heathens had nothing to do with God. And as soon as they heard the truth of God's word, they responded. And here's a man of God who'd been saved, you know, we would call it and who'd already been serving God, already been preaching the word of God and God comes and asks him to go to Nineveh and he runs. Here's a bunch of heathens responding quicker to God than a Christian. Than a man of God. And you know what I have found over the years?

It's a whole lot easier to get some person that is down in the bottom. I mean I'm telling you something, they've done ruined their life with alcohol, drugs, whatever. And they come find out that God loves them. They can't wait to give their heart to Christ. They will respond to God's word. But you get up and preach to a bunch of people that have been saved for 50 years.

You can't get a grunt out of them. Let me tell you something, Brother Scott texted me earlier this year. And I believe he and Sheila had both gone. Brother Scott speaks down at the Durham Rescue Mission usually about once a year or something like that.

Is that about right, Brother Scott? And he had texted me and he said, you wouldn't believe the service we had. He said, you walk in and here's all these guys, obviously many of them former drunks, some of them are drunks now. And some of them, you just come in to the rescue mission, some have been in there for a while, whatever, and you come in and he said, man, they're all just singing and they're just happy. And he said, when you get up and preach, they're just listening to God's word. You know why? Because their life had already gone down to a point that they were about as low as they could go. And they're excited about turning to the Lord. And Scott said, man, it's just great. And you know what?

And I'm not trying to criticize because I would be the same way, I'm sure. But you let us get saved for a little while and our clothes are nice and God's been good to us. And he's dumped some blessings on us and we've gotten used to it and accustomed to it. And now it's like if the pastor goes over past noon I find that these heathens responded to God immediately.

But the man of God didn't. I notice how they responded. They responded with fasting, with humility. The Bible says they turned, if you'll notice in these verses that I read they turned from evil and they turned from violence.

Now let me go through this process with you and I'll go to the next point but you've got to get this. The Bible says that God told Jonah you preach what I tell you to preach. Jonah showed up and preached what God said to preach and the people believed God and when they believed God it produced an immediate response and change in their lives. So what's going wrong today? Let me tell you what's going wrong today. People don't believe God's Word.

That's it. You see when you believe God and you know what God has to say then you immediately want to respond and get that right. But people nowadays they don't really believe. Oh there's a hell?

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Oh you say you're God's love but He's going to send all these people to hell. You get these bunch of idiots on CNN and these little funny programs these little comedians and they get up and they make fun of God and rip God apart make fun of Christianity and talk about how stupid we are and how dumb we are and how much sense that really makes and look at Christians and they just roll their eyes oh yeah those bunch of people and you go through all that and you go on and do all that but let me tell you something the day's going to come they're going to be sorry for that. And the reason they're not responding to God now isn't because God isn't right and it isn't because God isn't true it's because they don't believe it.

But when you believe God it changes everything. And oh dear friend if we could just pray for our nation that once again they would believe God. Now listen to me we need to get the Bible out more and the gospel out more I know that but when we get it out and they don't believe it it doesn't do anything. There's got to come a point that they have to believe it. Now you say well when's that going to happen preacher? Now you look at me when that trumpet sounds and you take a few million people off this planet that quick they'll believe then. That'll be too late. See preacher I just don't think that's going to happen. You can think all you want to. You can think Abraham Lincoln never existed.

It doesn't change the fact that he did. The sinners cry. Now notice this I want you to notice before I go on to the next thing and I'm almost done. The Bible says in verse 8 that they cried mightily unto God. What does that word mightily change in this phrase?

It literally changes everything. It proves that there was a level of sincerity to their cry. And dear friend look at me you and I can fake it all we want to but God knows when we mean business. God knows when we just feel bad we got caught or when we feel bad for what we did. God knows the difference. I want you to notice fifthly I think this is very interesting look at verse 8 but let a man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Look at verse 9 this is what their leader says to them.

Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. Now before I go any further that sounds really familiar to me and I know some of you got to know this passage of scripture. The Bible talks about a gentleman named David who is a man after God's own heart. And David went and slept with a woman while her husband was in battle where the king should have been.

We all know the story. He gets her pregnant then he brings the man home and tries to tell him to go spend the night at his house so that everybody would think that that was his child not David's and nobody would know but he didn't even go into the house to his wife he sat outside David's door and guarded him all night long because he was a good soldier. And now that meant David had to come up with some other plan and David purposely put him in the front of the battlefields and had him killed. And when he did that the Bible says that the man of God came to him and he said David you're going to restore that four fold.

And we find one thing after another that happened. Amnon raped his own half-sister then Absalom, David's older son got mad that his brother had raped his sister and his brother had him killed and then Absalom was riding through the trees and his hair got caught up in an oak and then he got killed and then now David had just gotten word in II Samuel now he had just gotten word that the baby that was going to be born to the woman that he had gotten pregnant Bathsheba was going to die. And the Bible says that David after all this had happened and he had done wrong and he knew he had done wrong and boy had he paid the price. And while they were waiting to find out if this baby would survive the Bible says David ripped off all his clothes and sackcloth and ashes as the Bible says and he went up into a private place to pray and when the servants came afterwards they said David the child is dead and then the servants asked and they said David why did you go up there and pray? Let me read you the verse. II Samuel 12 22 and David said while the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live. Here we are in Nineveh a wicked city and they realized because they believed God that judgment was coming. And they all turned from their wicked way they all turned from their violence they had all had been had had humility into their life they had all been humbled and now they come and they say we're going to pray and cry out mightily to God.

Why? God already said He was going to judge you because who can tell what God might do. Listen to me dear friend you and I have got to realize prayer works.

And you and I have got to get to the point in our life that just because we think so and so is going to happen. You and I need to cry out to God and we need to be sincere before God because you and I have no idea what God might do. I want you to notice this verse nine a small chance who can tell who can tell look at verse nine if God will turn and repent you see all they had was this small chance that maybe their repenting and turning to God would stop His judgment. That's the only chance they had look at me dear friend that was the only chance you had too. It's the only chance any of us have. The only chance you have to avoid the judgment of God and the only chance I have to avoid the judgment of God is through the blood of Jesus Christ. It's the only chance. You might think well you don't know all I've done preacher it's a small chance but I would take my chances. You give your heart to Christ today.

You come to Him repenting of your sin and you believe that He died on the cross for your sins and receive Him into your life ask Him to come in and live in your life and be your personal Savior. A small chance. It was their only chance. Do you know that it was Jonah's only chance too? While Jonah was in that fish the only chance he had for to survive or to do anything was when he cried out to God the only chance he had was if God would turn and repent of what He was going to do to Jonah. And dear friend the only chance America has from what I know God is ready to do to America is if America turns to God.

It's the only chance we have and we all know that. Lastly I want you to see this a spiritual change. Now this is very important I want you to get this look at verse 10. And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them and He did it not. All God's people said right there.

Now it's time before we close for me to kind of get rid of a myth. And the myth is this that you know our works don't mean anything. Bible says out of the heart are the issues of life. The Bible says that man looks on the outside and God sees the heart. The Bible also does in Matthew chapter 5 it says this let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works.

Look at me dear friend I want you to get this. We don't believe in a works based salvation. We don't believe you get saved because you start doing a whole bunch of good things and those works get you salvation. And we don't believe that anything like that but you look at me the way God knew that they were sincere in their repentance is He saw their works. The Bible says faith without works is what? The Bible says that once we get saved we're always saved right? So faith without works never was alive.

Dear friend look at me the proof is in the pudding. You can't sit here and say that I'm a follower of Christ and not see something that's different in your life. We didn't make things different so that we could be a child of God. We want to make things different because now we are a child of God. One of the sure signs of repentance is a change on the outside.

It says when God saw their works it didn't say that they cried mightily unto God and then He turned and repented it said when He saw their works He repented. Dear friend it is important how you live. And it is important the testimony you give to others.

That's not popular nowadays. But I'm trying that God bid me to preach. And you can choose whether to believe God or not.

But it really has nothing to do with me. That's what's great about preaching God's word in its entirety. You can choose to believe Him or not but I'm out of the picture.

I've done my job. Dear friend, Carwin Baptist Church I want you to know something. God can tell if we're serious about serving Him. He saw their works. Chapter 4 is a very very different chapter.

But I don't know about you Chapter 3 I believe is the work chapter. If we're going to do a work for God we've got to know how things go. And God does the work. We do the obeying. He does the bidding. We do the obeying.

Then He does the work. Thank you for listening today. God bless you. God bless you.