Response of God to Repentance of Ninevites

Introduction: Review of Ninevite Repentance and Introduction to God's Response

0:04 Will you turn with me, please, to the book of the prophecy of Jonah as we come this evening to the ninth in our series of studies in this book in which the Lord speaks in a very unique way to his people, a book in which the message is not so much in the sermons of the prophet but in the dealings of God with this strange man whose heart is narrow but whose narrow heart cannot restrict the largeness of God's heart to prove himself to be the God of the whole earth.

0:47 In our previous study, we examined chapter 3, verses 5 through 9, in which there is given to us a record of the repentance and conversion of the Ninevites, and we noted the three essential elements of that repentance. First of all, there was the...

1:08 The believing reception of the message of God, verse 5, the people of Nineveh believed God, they saw beyond the messenger, they saw beyond the human instrument, and they took to heart as from the living God himself this frightening pronouncement that forty days in their city would be overthrown. Following and flowing out of that believing reception of the message, there was this thorough dealing with their sins against God. And we have various strands of the record indicating both the genuineness and the thoroughness of that dealing with sin.

1:49 And then thirdly, there was a hopeful pleading for mercy from God. Who knoweth whether the Lord will repent and turn from his fierce anger? And just with that little glimmer of hope, based upon the content of the message and the condition of the messenger...

2:08 They cry mightily to God and break off their sins. And over all of the record of this section of the book of Jonah, we need to put the words of our Lord Jesus as recorded in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 12, and verse 41, the men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment and condemn this generation, for they repented at the preaching of Jonas and the Lord. Verse 41. Verse 41.

2:37 Verse 41. Verse 41. Verse 41. Verse 41.

2:38 Verse 41. Verse 41. Verse 41. behold a greater than Jonah is here. Well, tonight we want to consider together verse

2:45 10 of this chapter, a verse in which there is set before us what we may properly call the response of God to the repentance of the Ninevites. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them, and he did it not. Now, the response of God to this repentance of the Ninevites

God Saw Their Works: A Peculiar Look of Favor

3:18 is succinctly stated in terms of the three verbs. Notice, God saw, God repented, God did it not. And it will be my purpose, first of all, briefly, to open up the significance of those words which contain the essence of the response of God to this repentance of the Ninevites, and then we shall concentrate upon examining three profound and very vital lessons which are contained in this account of God's response to their repentance. First of all, then, let us examine the word,

4:03 and God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. Now, does this indicate that God's omniscience was intensified with respect to their repentance? Why, obviously not. The Scriptures teach, whenever they speak concerning the knowledge of God, that God's knowledge is infinite. In the language of Scripture, the eyes of the Lord are in infinite

4:33 course and Brad Pitt is not told that God is only through faith, but through the things of the Word of God, or by Jesus Christ himself, and the glory of God or how his name is mentioned in the Gospel of John. Now, the Bible tells the Bible that God knows every place beholding the evil and the good. God knows all there is to know about all things in all places for all time, and he knows all It will bring you to the borders of feeling that you cannot contain such thoughts. And that's precisely where it brought David when he just tried to contemplate that thought in the 139th Psalm.

5:13 Such things are too wonderful for me. This knowledge is high, I cannot attain to it. What then does it mean when it says God saw their works as though there were other things that he did not see? Well, it simply means, speaking in the language of men, that God in a peculiar way looked upon this response to the message of Jonah, this repentance rooted in the believing reception of the message manifested in this turning from sin and expressed in this crying to God for mercy.

5:50 God looked upon it with a peculiar look of favor and complacency.

5:58 And so we may say, in a peculiar way, God's eye is upon men's actions and attitudes with respect to the issues which determine their destinies. For remember what had happened. This city has received a frightening message. Forty days and the city shall be overthrown.

6:20 Involved in that message is the profound declaration that every man is accountable. That the God of heaven takes condescence of the sins of all of his creatures. That this God is angry with the sins of his creatures. And that this God will bring the sinning creature into an account for those sins even with frightening judgments.

6:45 And in a very special way, whenever God announces those issues upon which the destinies of his creatures hinge, He looks with a very special look. He looks with peculiar solicitude. He looks with peculiar eagerness to see man's response to those things which are not commonplace. Those things which are not temporal in their implications.

7:12 Those things that are fraught with frightening implications, not alone for time, but even for eternity. And I believe that is the sense of the passage. That God saw. Saw their works.

7:28 God, as it were, was looking to see what will their response be to my message. Having brought my messenger through this strange ordeal of a symbolic death and resurrection from the belly of the great fish. Having recommissioned him and brought him to the walls and gates of this city. What will the response of this city be?

7:50 Having taken such pains to bring to Nineveh the message of my judgment. And my wrath. Having taken such pains to underscore the message which conscience has already brought to them concerning my wrath against sin. Now articulating that message in the verbal proclamation of my prophet.

8:12 What will their response be? Will they mock the message and thereby mock me? Will they turn it aside as an idle tale and bring upon themselves swift destruction? Or can it be that they will listen?

8:25 That they will heed? That they will regard as true this message and break off their sins? God saw. You get something of the feeling of the passage.

8:35 The eagerness with which God looks upon their response to that message. And as God sees their works, notice that that which he sees with peculiar, a peculiar sense is that they turned from their eagerness. To the evil way. God beheld them in the evidences of true repentance.

9:03 There is no record that he was too much impressed with their fasting. With their sackcloth. With this unusual manifestation of mourning and self-denial that came even upon the beast. That which caught God's eye and called to itself his most eager attention.

9:24 Was this true. this deep, this pervasive repentance. God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And if we interpret the phrase turn from their evil way in the light of the context, we know this was a turning in faith.

9:45 This was a turning with a hope for mercy. This was a turning with a commitment to universal renovation of life and of character. This was no surface turning. This was no sham turning.

Application: God's Attentive Eye on Our Response to His Message

9:58 This was a turning in all the richness of the description of the passage which was expounded in your hearing last Lord's Day evening. Before we pass on to look at the next phrase, let me just pause to press this issue upon your conscience. As then, so now. As the message of God comes to you and comes to me, a message which, like the message of Jonah, underscores what your own conscience tells you, that you are God's creature, that you're accountable to God, that He marks your sins, that He will call you to a reckoning for your sins, as that message has been brought

10:41 by the living God to your conscience in the many ways in which it's been brought to you, not the least of which is the public preaching of the Word. May I say there's a sense in which the eye of God is far more attentive to what goes on in your life. What goes on in this building in response to that message than what goes on in the halls of the U.S. Congress,

11:03 than what goes on in the business rooms of the United Nations in New York City. He's not indifferent to those things. He's Lord over all the decisions and activities of the so-called great ones of the earth. But if God's eye is riveted with peculiar attention upon anything, it is not upon pompous man-making, upon pompous pronouncements, upon pompous words, upon their own pompous notions.

11:30 It's when humble servants of God bring the Word of God close to the conscience of God's creatures and call upon them to reckon with the fact that they are creatures of the living God. They are creatures accountable to God, that their sins will surely bring them to judgment if they do not repent. And my friend, based on this text, I say God's eye is turned with keen attention to this very building tonight. Not because there is something ornate in the physical structure, not because there is something special in the people or the preacher, but because in mercy He has brought to bear upon the consciences of this people

12:13 the same great issues which were brought to bear upon the conscience of the Ninevites. What does God see in this place? Does He see our works, that they reflect deep and thorough repentance based upon a, believing response of the message, standing before God with no reservation and acknowledging that we are His creatures, that we have sinned against Him, that we are liable to His just judgment, that we deserve nothing but wrath from His hand, and with full purpose of heart turning from the sins that have provoked His anger, and with earnestness of heart

12:56 crying mightily to God that He would, for the sake of, Christ, be merciful to us? What does God see as He looks upon this place? His eye is not impressed with anything other than the kind of response which is recorded of the Ninevites. Well, we hurry on to see the second thing in God's response.

God Repented of the Evil: Understanding God's Change of Mind

13:18 Look at the text. And God repented of the evil which He said He would do unto them. Now, what was the evil which God said He would do unto them? Well, it's given to us right in the chapter, the latter part of verse 4.

13:34 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That was the evil, evil in the sense of calamity, for the word is sometimes used in that sense. I, the Lord, create evil. That is, I create calamity.

13:50 God does not create moral evil. Certain teachers notwithstanding, God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man with evil. You say, well, where did evil come from? Well, that's something God hasn't been pleased to reveal to me, and so it's none of my business.

14:07 But the evil which God had said He would do was the evil of bringing judgment upon Nineveh. Now the text says, the same God who saw their repentance is the God who repented of the evil which He said He would do to them. Now, what does that mean? Well, it simply means what it obviously means.

14:32 That in the realm of the visible interaction of the living God with men, God does that which has all the appearance of a change of mind with regard to His creatures. Where He promised forty days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. The indication of the entire passage, the immediate context and following is that the forty days came and went. And there was no overthrow of Nineveh.

15:08 Now then, immediately all kinds of questions arise in our minds. Did God change His mind? Is God fickle? Was God playing games?

15:18 How do we square this with the decrees of God? How does this...

15:22 Well, the simplest answer to that series of questions is an understanding of what God says in Jeremiah chapter 18. This is the inspired commentary. On Jonah 3 and verse 10. Jeremiah chapter 18.

15:42 Jeremiah 18 beginning with verse 5.

15:50 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter saith the Lord? Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hands, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning Israel? And concerning Israel?

16:11 And concerning Israel? And concerning Israel? And concerning Israel? And concerning Israel?

16:11 To pluck up and to break down and to destroy it. If that nation concerning which I have spoken turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it. If they do that which is evil in my sight that they obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good of Israel.

16:41 Then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now do you see the simple teaching? God says if I come with a message which declares that in this state of sin and impenitence in which this people find themselves, judgment will come. God says if the condition which provoked the message of impending judgment is changed, I will change in my promised action to them.

17:09 If the condition that drew forth my judgment no longer exists, my judgment will not fall willy-nilly simply to preserve an impression of consistency on my part. As the moral governor of the universe, it is sin that provokes my judgment. If sin is put away, then my judgment will be abated. Likewise, he said, I may pronounce great blessings upon a people, pronouncing that blessing because of their obedience to my law.

17:40 However, if they turn from the obedience, they cannot hold me to a promise of blessing. No, no. When their moral condition draws forth judgment, I'll repent of the good that I promised and I will bring evil and judgment upon them. And so the simple and obvious significance of the words of Jonah are plain, I trust, to all of us.

18:03 That as God beholds that repentance, God, as it were, says, I will not bring the judgment, which I promised. And in the language of the text, God repented of the evil. Now let God tell us this simple fact in this language and wicked men will immediately twist his word to their own destruction, as Peter says they were wont to do in his day. Those who deny the wonderful biblical doctrine of the decrees of God, that is the biblical teaching that God is a God, whose designs and purposes are fixed from eternity.

18:47 The God of whom the scripture speaks, saying he is not man, that he should repent, nor the son of man, that he should in any way change his mind. Why, when they find a passage like this, they say, aha, aha, see, God changed his mind. Man influenced God to change his mind. And they use that which God has given as a reflection of what we shall see, he subsequently is a profound moral principle of his government in the world and they use it to overthrow the absolute government of God in his world.

19:24 And they have the notion that man by his actions can actually manipulate God. Well, on the other hand, you have people who are so fastidious to protect the throne rights of God that when they read a verse like this, they do a double take, blink three times, and hope maybe that they had some dirt on their glasses. And after rubbing their glasses and blowing upon them and getting down a new translation, they find out it still reads the same way. God repented!

19:53 Well, then they begin a big long explanation. Well, that seems to say that, but however and whereas and in the light of, and then they end up absolutely believing the passage of its obvious significance. They feel they've got to protect God's throne rights by explaining away his word. Well, may we have heartbreak hearts, simple and trusting enough to take the passage at its plain sense.

20:20 God speaking in the language patterns of men says that when this people whose sin drew forth the pronouncement of judgment no longer stand in the condition which drew forth the pronouncement, the pronouncement is rescinded. And in that sense, and in that sense alone, God has said, to repent of the evil. Notice, it is not a commentary on his secret purposes and his eternal designs. It is a comment upon his action in his living interaction with man the creature.

21:02 God saw their works. He repented of the evil. Now you see, it was the very knowledge of this concept of God that got Jonah in trouble. We're not going to expound it tonight, but just to explain the passage, drop down to chapter 4 when the Lord comes and finds Jonah pouting and he's starting to pray about it.

21:25 He prayed to the Lord, verse 2, and said, I pray thee, O God, was not this my saying when I was in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Jonah was well schooled in the theology of a repenting God. No Israelite who had his eyes half open to God's dealings with Israel could be ignorant of the theology of a repenting God.

22:01 How many times had God pronounced judgment and the nation was brought right to the brink of a severe stroke of God and a king would humble himself and call the people to repentance and what would God do? God would repent. He would repent of the evil that he pronounced upon them. Jonah was well schooled in the theology of a repenting God and God put him in the school and taught him the lessons.

God Did It Not: The Abatement of Judgment

22:30 And so we let the text stand. God saw, God repented, and now the third verb, God, or he, did it not. That is, there was no violent overthrow of Nineveh when apparently the 40-day time limit comes and goes. God does not bring the promised judgment.

22:56 And best we can put together, as best as we can put together the biblical chronology with secular history, there was a period of between on the minimum side 100 years and the maximum side approximately 200 years before the city of Nineveh was overthrown according to the prophecy of Nahum. Now I'm amazed that some commentators use that fact to say that the repentance must not have been genuine. Because 200 years later God overthrew them. Man, that's a lot of generations.

23:25 There have been mighty revivals in our country and 50 years later the very areas visited with revival were nothing but seedbeds of rationalism. And that doesn't negate the fact that there was a mighty visitation of God because God has no grandchildren. Every generation must receive the impulse of divine life or in one generation the desert that blossomed as a rose can be a desert again. And church, church history is a monumental proof of that assertion.

23:55 But that there was this repentance is evident by the fact that judgment did not fall upon that city for at least a number of generations. Well, those are the facts of the text. The text in which we are given the response of God to the repentance of the Ninevites. Now, what are the vital lessons of this text?

Lesson 1: The Fundamental Lesson of God's Moral Government

24:18 Well, may I suggest that there are at least three. And I want to lay them before you for your consideration tonight. The first one is this. The text contains a fundamental lesson of God's moral government.

24:33 A fundamental lesson of God's moral government. In the moral government of the universe God has said from Genesis to Revelation that there is an unbreakable relationship between sin and judgment on the one hand and repentance and mercy on the other hand. This is stamped upon the face of the Bible from the opening chapters of Genesis to the concluding chapters of the book of the Revelation. Sin brings death and judgment.

25:15 Repentance brings the mercy and forgiveness of God. Now, God has established His moral government upon those principles. And He is concerned in bringing the knowledge of Himself to this pagan city of Nineveh that they understand some of the fundamental principles with respect to His moral government. So as Nineveh is found in its state of blatant lawlessness noted for its cruelty, for its warlike ways, for its indifference to the law, for its idolatry,

25:58 that sin, as it were, rises up until the patience, the infinite patience of God is so taxed that He commissions a prophet and says, Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry unto it, for their wickedness is come up before me. I can stand it no longer. They must know that aggravated sin cannot go on forever without bringing upon it fearful judgment. So God is going to underscore that first lesson of His moral government.

26:31 And so the prophet comes within the walls of the city and begins to preach, Forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown. The God to whom your ansible is established in His universe, the wages of sin is death. And it is concretized in a specific prediction concerning a specific overthrow as the result of the judgment of God. But you see, there's another aspect of God's moral government and it is this, that when the sinner repents and seeks mercy in the way of God's appointment, he that forsaketh and confesses his sin

27:14 shall obtain mercy. That in the moral government of the universe, God is committed not only to display His severity, but His goodness. So when Nineveh repents and from the king down to the lowest citizen, there are the evident tokens of humiliation and brokenness for sin and crying to God for mercy. How can God teach this principle of His moral government if He still brought judgment, which He could have done?

27:48 How would they have learned this other basic principle upon which God operates in His moral universe? They would not have learned it. And so God committed to declare that principle the moment there is repentance. God manifest His mercy and His forgiveness.

28:10 To a proud, cruel, impenitent Nineveh, there is to be judgment and only judgment. To a humbled, penitent, prayerful Nineveh, there shall be mercy and only mercy. I am constrained to quote from Hugh Martin, who with an eloquence that is enviable and certainly would sound artificial were I simply to memorize it and quote it and even tell you I was doing so, comments upon this principle. And was there any changeableness in God indicated by His change in this procedure?

28:49 No. This change in His procedure was needful to avert the charge of a change in His character and in the principles of His procedure. If God had not repented of the evil, it would have appeared that something fundamental in His character had changed. He had been revealing from the Garden of Eden onward sin brings judgment, repentance brings in its way mercy and forgiveness.

29:18 Had God not so acted, men would have wondered if He was the same God who had previously revealed Himself in this way. It was wicked, violent, unrighteous, atheistical, proud and luxurious Nineveh which God had threatened to destroy. A city sitting in sackcloth and ashes, humbled in the depths of self-abasement and appealing His lowly suppliants to His mercy. A Nineveh like that, that Nineveh, He had never threatened.

29:48 You see the point? The threatening of overthrow did not come to a Nineveh sitting in sackcloth and ashes, turning every man from the evil in His own hands, crying and praying to God, No, no, that was not the Nineveh. So when the Nineveh that was became this Nineveh, why, God had to repent of the evil which He pronounced so that they might know what God is like. So there is a fundamental lesson of God's moral government in my friend.

30:20 That's our great hope, listeners.

30:24 Your hope is not to be found in a wishful longing that somehow the first one the first pillar of the moral government of the universe will crumble. And that first pillar the wages is death. The soul that sinneth shall die. And there are multitudes who are hoping and they'll make it after all.

30:53 My friend, that is composed of the imperishable self of the nature of the changeless God.

31:07 Thank God there is a second pillar in His moral universe. That is that He is slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and He has promised mercy to the vilest of sinners who will turn from sin and seek forgiveness in the way of His appointment. And that can no more change than God in shame. For that pillar of His moral government is also made of the reinforced confidence of His own eternal nature.

31:47 It is in His nature to be merciful. You remember when Moses said, Show me Thy glory and God passes by and declares His nature and glory to Moses. He does so in this language. I am the God who is abundant in loving kindness.

32:08 Visiting iniquity, yes, but showing mercy to thousands of them that fear me. And keep my commandments. Oh, my friend, listen, listen, listen. Don't have a wispy, baseless notion that everything will turn out because somehow those pillars of the moral universe will either be shaken or erode with time.

32:32 They cannot. They will not. Your hope is to face that first pillar and tremble. I'm a sinner.

32:41 God's committed to punish sin. The wages of sin is death. Sin is death. Face that first pillar like the Ninevites did.

32:49 But then, my friend, cling to that second pillar as the Ninevites did. They had just that little...

32:57 My friend, you do know that God will be merciful for you see etched upon that pillar all, all of the panorama of the life, the death, the doings, the dying, the resurrection of Jesus interspersed between that whole panorama, that whole mural of the person and work of God. The work of Christ are the exceeding great and precious promises etched upon that pillar by the finger of deity dipped in the blood of his own Son.

33:32 I will in no wise cast. Come all ye that labor and I will give you rest. Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. My friend, our hope is in that second pillar of the moral universe that God is merciful to repenting and in it to himself.

33:55 And when you doubt that and say, well, I believe it in the abstract, but can it be so for me? My friend, it's not me, the sinner in the abstract that causes me trouble. It's me, the sinner in the concrete. My conscience smiting me for my sins.

34:12 And for me, the promises are made if I will but embrace them in Christ. For how many soever are the promises of God in him? Is the yea and through him is the amen to the glory of God. So that's the first great lesson of this text, a fundamental lesson concerning God's moral government.

34:36 Do you see it? Do you see it, my friend? Because you're held in the palms of the moral government of God, like it or not. That's where you're at.

34:44 And that's where you'll be forever.

34:47 Either a monument of one of those pillars or a monument of both. That's the difference between the saved and the unborn. He's a monument of both pillars. God is burning in his anger to sin.

35:03 But he is merciful to penitent believing.

Lesson 2: God's Method of Communicating in Human Language

35:08 But a monument to his moral government in its justness you shall be forever. Well, I hurry on now to the second great lesson of the text, and it is this. It contains a fundamental lesson regarding God's method of communicating to his creatures. How does God communicate his mind to us?

35:28 He communicates his mind to us in the language of the man to whom he is communicating. So our text says, God repented of the evil. Because that makes sense to us. We know what it is to frame a purpose in the light of certain circumstances, and when the circumstances change, we change our mind with regard to what we purpose to do.

35:52 Now, God says, I'm doing something that is analogous to what you do. You see, God is not overly fastidious. About communicating his mind to us in the language of the creature. If he did anything else, he'd not be the God of the Bible and the God of the Incarnation.

36:11 The Word became flesh, and our Savior is not the Savior of 99% of Christian art.

36:24 If our Savior were to have appeared in any given assembly of any given group of Palestinian men, there was nothing to set him apart from the others as to his external appearance.

36:36 His hands were as gnarled as any man who spent 12-hour days in the carpenter's shop.

36:42 His clothing absorbed the dirt like any other man that walked dusty roads in Palestine.

36:50 And what is true of the Word incarnate in Jesus Christ is true of the Word in Scripture. God speaks to us in the language patterns and thought patterns of men. Again, I quote from Hugh Martin because he has stated it so much better than I, and I do this not because I'm lazy. I study these men because I'm trying to do my work to make the Word as rich and open and clear to you.

37:15 And when I come to the conclusion after all my study they'll still say it better than I could say it, then I feel I'm obligated to pass the fruits on to you. He says, speaking concerning this matter of God speaking after the manner of men, this does not need to be vindicated. More than a thousand expressions in which God putting on the person of a man speaks to us as from the position and as with the feelings of men in order to make known his own mind and heart clearly to us. We're to guard against assigning human imperfection to God.

37:51 But, we are equally to guard against assigning to him such a character or nature as would render living, intelligible, friendly communication between him and his people impossible. But impossible utterly all such communication must be if I may not speak to God in the same forms and phrases and feelings in which I would speak to my fellow men. And he goes on to illustrate this. Knowing that God is omniscient, is it wrong for the psalmist to pray, Lord, look upon me?

38:25 Knowing that God's never in a hurry or never slow, was it wrong for the psalmist to say, make haste to help me? And then he multiplies quotations from the Psalms in which we find man addressing God in language that is familiar in his dealings with his fellow men. And he says, likewise, when God would speak to his creature, he speaks in the language that communicates to him. And then he goes on to use the illustrations from the word of God, especially as found in the Lord Jesus.

38:57 This man, Christ Jesus, is the brightness of the Father's glory. His tears over Jerusalem while as God he had eternally decreed and foreseen its destruction were no misrepresentation of the love wherewith the Godhead is affected, even handing over the impenitent to everlasting hell.

39:21 You see what he's saying? He must not try to bleed such passages of their God-given intention when God says that Jesus beheld the city over which he had pronounced judgment and he wept over it and he said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered. We need not explain that away to protect the people the biblical doctrine of the fixity of God's decrees and the non-frustratable nature of the decrees of God. God is saying in the person of his Son that even when promised judgment must come because the sin which provokes it is not turned aside.

40:02 God never does it with a kind of sadistic belief because he is still the God of love. So there is a fundamental lesson of God's method of communicating his message mind to us. Don't ever be embarrassed about this. Thank God it's so because you see without this you have the God of the deist and not the Christian's God who feels with us and who expresses the feelings of his heart in the language that communicates to us.

40:35 Grieve not the Holy Spirit. What a tragedy for a man to feel in preaching on that text that he's got to give first of all a 45-minute dissertation to the Bible. And then he's got to on the fact that God does not have passions like men. Well, when you've done that then you've bled the text of all of its significance.

40:51 God is saying you can so conduct yourself as a Christian as to produce in the Holy Spirit something that is akin to the grief you feel when someone you deeply love offends you. So don't grieve the Holy Spirit. And we could multiply examples throughout the Bible. Suffice it to say that's the second great principle of the text and then I could say close with the third.

Lesson 3: God's Most Delightful Activity is Showing Mercy

41:17 This text contains a fundamental lesson with respect. I didn't know what else to call it but this. God's most delightful activity. What is God's most delightful activity?

41:30 Well, you say God finds delight in all that he does. Well, that's true. But I believe we have in this text a wonderful display of God performing that kind of activity which is his greatest delight. Get the picture.

41:46 The sin of Nineveh had been accumulating for years. The forbearance of God is as it were being taxed to its limits until finally as in the days of the flood when God says 120 more years and that's it. I will block them all out. God lays his hand upon Jonah and says send go to Nineveh.

42:06 Go to Nineveh my servant. Tell them their wickedness has come up before me. They've taxed my patience to the limits. Judgment is now to come.

42:17 Get the picture now. Years, decades of sin accumulating, affronting the holiness of God, provoking the anger of God, testing the patience of God, month in, month out, year in, year out. Now the messenger finally comes and he isn't in the city but one day and the whole city's on its face and what does God do? He doesn't say, aha, now let's see.

42:44 Let's take one day of penitence for every year of impenitence. So let's see now. If you'll hang in there for 33 days maybe I might begin to promise a little mercy. And then furthermore no, no, God does nothing.

42:59 Do you get something of the feeling of this passage? The text that we studied last week lends itself to this very strong impression. The moment God sees the first repentance he shows mercy.

43:20 And the accumulated, aggravated guilt of decades God passes over to you. God passes over to you. God passes over to you. God passes over to you.

43:25 God passes over to you. God passes over to you. God passes over to you. God passes over to you.

43:26 God passes over to you. God passes over to you. God passes over to you. Why?

43:29 Because God's greatest delight is not in showing judgment but in displaying mercy. God calls judgment his strange work in Isaiah 28. And now I want you to turn to Ezekiel 33 as a closing commentary upon this third principle that is in the text. Ezekiel chapter 33 the language of verse 10 and 11.

44:06 And thou son of man say unto the house of Israel thus ye speak saying our transgressions and our sins are upon us and we pine away in them. How then can we live?

44:24 You see what they're saying? We're locked into our sinful pattern. We're locked into the bondage of an accusing conscience. The bondage of long established patterns.

44:35 What hope is there? How then shall we live if in the moral government of God sin leads to judgment and judgment is provoked by sin? How then shall we live? And look at the answer.

44:49 Say unto them as I live saith the Lord Jehovah I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but here is the thing that brings me pleasure but that the wicked turn from his way and live. First of all God makes a pronouncement of that which brings him delight. He says I find no delight when the wicked is cut off in his sin even though that first pillar of my moral government demands his judgment and his damnation. I find no delight or pleasure.

45:26 It's like the person who performs many tasks in the course of the day's duty in which he finds no pleasure. He does them dutifully. But now God says there is an activity which brings me delight. And it is that the wicked should turn from his way and live that I might manifest the reality of that second pillar in my moral government and then God turns from teaching to pleading.

Pleading for Repentance and Embracing God's Delight in Mercy

45:52 Oh what a pattern God is for preachers. It's not enough to teach God turns from teaching to entreating. Look at his language. Having taught the great principle now he says for why will ye die?

46:09 Oh! The house of Israel. Now God pleads. Now God entreats.

46:16 And my friend I want and I trust I'm not irreverent in saying it. I want to be like God in the closing of the message tonight. My task as a servant of Christ is to teach, yes. I am to open up the words of God to seek to be honest with the text to open up the significance of those words and that I've attempted to do.

46:40 But my friend, that's not my full task nor is it my great delight left to itself. Having laid open this third fundamental lesson concerning that which is God's great delight may I underscore it in your own conscience. If God sends you to hell which he shall and must do if you continue in impenitence and unbelief it will bring him nowhere near the delight it would bring him if this were to happen. If this were to happen if this were to happen if this were to happen if this were to happen at night you would turn from your sins and embraces.

47:16 I say that on the basis of this text God's heart will be made glad if he can make you an eternal monument of pillar number two in his moral government. Pillar number two which says sinners who repent and believe sinners who come to God in the way appointed God does not hold them at a distance give them so much penance give them as it were a little a leave to come a few feet toward him and if they're good boys and girls after a year come a few more no, no he is like the father in the parable of the prodigal the moment the prodigal is ready to leave the hog pens he'll find the father's open arms

48:00 he'll find the father's full table he has no little shack in the back room for a halfway house now we've got to get the hog pens out of you and if you prove yourself we'll bring you to the table that's not my God the father ran fell upon his neck kissed him says bring the ring bring the robe lost in his house was dead and is alive then what did Jesus say? likewise we often misquote it we say there's joy in the angels or the angels rejoice none of it it was the father who called the household to rejoice it was the woman who found the lost coins that called her friends to rejoice

48:43 it was the shepherd who found the lost sheep who called his friends to rejoice likewise there's joy in the presence of the angels whose joy? God!

48:55 because he's doing that which is his greatest delight receiving prodigals blotting out the sin of a lifetime in a moment of believing response to the gospel blotting out in an instant the mountain of iniquity that has provoked his wrath for decades even as he did with Nineveh oh thank God that we have such a God whose great delight whose great delight is to show mercy isn't that the whole significance of the table? we come in a few minutes as the people of God to this table and what do we say? we say I have found God to be a God who delights in mercy

49:39 mercy to the unworthy mercy to the ill deserving and the thing that breaks the heart and fills the heart of a preacher with confusion and frustration and pain is to look into faces and say when the offer of mercy is made and know that some will despise that offer my friend why?

50:02 why? when almighty God says I will delight in pardoning if you will come no wonder Jesus wept because he felt that pain that pain of unrequited love he would not and my friend if you perish you'll perish not because of some secret decree of God but because of some secret decree of God you'll perish because you loved your sins and would not come

50:42 come to me said Jesus him that cometh I will in no wise cast out you say but Pastor Martin don't you believe in the decree of election and God's bypassing and I believe my commitment to historic Christian theology is quite well known but I also believe what the Holy Ghost is teaching in Jonah 3.10 that God saw their works and repented of the evil my friend that's your hope and that's my hope oh come that this night

51:26 the God who's pronounced judgment upon you and he's already pronounced it you know he's already pronounced it he that believeth not the wrath of God abides upon him God has made the pronouncement he that believeth not shall be damned oh that tonight you would make God repent of the evil that he promised to them you say make God repent yes believing the gospel of his son God will now say of you mercy forgiveness pardon acceptance he that believeth on the son hath life why of course

52:07 we will then come to know and love the great truth that there was no change in the eternal design and purpose of the almighty of course not but my friend you're coming and he's coming to you and he's coming to you and he's receiving are not something in which you as it were are just thoughtlessly and without the motions of your own mind and heart caught up in the vice like jaws of the execution of eternal decrees you'll come as a conscious needy sinner you'll come with a sense of need and you'll come with the wonderful hope of the promise to come in sinners as your hope oh may you come

52:51 and be with me you'll find rest thank God that his moral government is certain sin and judgment are sure but mercy to penitent believing sinners is sure how we should thank God for his method of communicating isn't the Lord's table a reminder of that he says take some bread and some fruit of the vine eat it and drink it if you find it difficult in your present state to fix your mind and heart upon my mercy you can look upon a piece of bread can't you and you say what am I doing holding bread because back two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus said take and eat

53:36 Lord my mind and spirit are dull and my faith is weak but I can feel a piece of bread I can see a piece of bread and there's no rationale for that but that my Savior said this is my body he did go to the cross my holding this bread is the cause of my life I'm a sinner I'm a sinner I'm a sinner I'm a sinner and I'm a sinner and I'm a sinner and I'm a sinner who will throw himself upon his mercy take and eat take the cup and drink oh my friend we should be thankful that God communicates to us not only in the language with which we are familiar but in the common stuff of bread and the fruit of the vine

Closing Prayer and Invitation to the Lord's Table

54:20 why he wants to show us that he's a God of mercy will you grovel in your unbelief will you grovel in your unbelief God has done all of that. Oh, magnify His grace by coming freely and then eating joyfully in remembrance of Him. Let us pray. Oh God, our Heavenly Father, how we thank You for the revelation of Your mind and will in the Scriptures.

54:55 We thank You that You've spoken to us in language that we understand, the language that is the common stuff of our dealings with one another. Oh, gracious Father, as we have sought this night to lay open Your Word and to bring, as it were, to the door room of the mind and the heart, will You not give it entrance? Oh, God, give it entrance. And we pray that impenitent sinners will become believing penitent sinners and doubting, discouraging.

55:31 Courage saints may become rejoicing saints. Seal the Word to our prophet and be glorified in our further time of fellowship with You and Your Son. We ask in His worthy name. Amen.