True Repentance:A Changed Life

[00:00:00] Good morning. I'd like to greet each one of you in Jesus' name this morning. It has been a while. I didn't look at the date exactly, but I know we left for Faith Builders on January 4th, and it was before that. So, it's good to be back. We had a very, I guess I talked about this a little bit before, but we had a very good time at Faith Builders. One of the things that was shared in one of the chapels, John Coblent, I don't know how many of you know him, but he's the campus pastor. [00:00:41] And he was talking about the vanity of life, how many things we pursue that really don't turn out well, or just dumb things we do in life. And he said that when he was a young man before he was married, one of his friends said, asked him, what's life? What's the definition for life? And he said, well, he said, I don't know. He said, it's just one dumb thing after another. [00:01:13] He said, what's the definition for love? And John wasn't sure how to describe that either. He said, that's two dumb things after each other. So, maybe one of the more profound things I learned at Faith Builders. My message this morning is on Jonah. Before that, I would like to share a little bit, if I hadn't been planning on being up here to start with, I would have shared earlier. But we do have a lot to be thankful for. [00:01:44] Monday we were in what could have been a very bad accident. We hit slush, went off the road and hit a telephone pole. and none of us were injured at all and I want to thank the Lord for that. I've been thanking the Lord every day that we are together. It's just something you take for granted or that's easy to take for granted. Okay, Jonah chapter 3, 1 through 10 is going to be my text for this morning. I realized this morning, I've been studying for this message this week [00:02:20] And this morning I went and I read my Sunday school lesson. I hadn't read that yet this week. And found that I am preaching on the very thing that the Sunday school lesson was about. My lesson, my title this morning is True Repentance, A Changed Life. I want to focus a little bit on the Ninevites' response to Jonah's message. And we want to go through the whole chapter. [00:02:51] Jonah 3, 1-10 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey. And he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 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. [00:03:27] For 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 sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. [00:03:59] Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. Verse 1, the word came unto Jonah the second time. How many times does God need to speak to you or me to get us to do what He wants us to do? I shared a little bit in Sunday school about it. We were talking about doing this unto the least of these, my brother. [00:04:35] But how many times when God asks us to do something, or maybe it's the church that asks us, or just anything to do with service to God, how many times do we kind of get, either maybe we say no, we want to say no, we resent that God is asking us to do something. And if we really think about the awesomeness of God, the smallness of man, and the fact that God even gives us a job or even honors us, we should feel honored by God asking us to perform a task for Him. [00:05:10] When I think of the fact that I am a minister, my job is to bring God's message to you. It can kind of overwhelm me sometimes that I am to be the vessel that God speaks through. And yet that's an honor. It's a real honor to think that God has a job. And no matter what our job, we talked about the talents. Different people have different talents. It wasn't the guy that had five or the guy that had two. There is no distinction there. [00:05:41] The one that had one talent and didn't use it was the one that was punished. The one that had two and was faithful in them the same as the one that had five talents, there was no distinction made between them that the one with five talents was better or superior. God honored that they did what they could with what they had. Another thing that I really learned at Faith Builder, I guess through my studying there, There was the, that the Old Testament really is full of God's mercy. [00:06:13] I always thought of the Old Testament as the law, it's a hard book, it's, when God said it, it happened. Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of that. God went in and destroyed them. And even here in Nineveh, when God, when Jonah was sent, God didn't say, repent. Jonah didn't tell them to repent. Jonah just simply told them, in 40 days you're going to be destroyed. But they said, perhaps if we turn, God will spare us. [00:06:45] Another place we see the mercy is when God asked Jonah. He gave him the second chance. God could have left Jonah and the fish or just not sent the fish at all and God could have raised up another prophet to go to Nineveh. God is a merciful God. He gave Jonah a second chance and this time Jonah took it. In verse 2, God says, go to Nineveh, that great city. I really found some conflicting studies on this. Evidently, Nineveh by itself was not all that big. It was about eight miles by four or five miles, which is not nearly a three-day journey. [00:07:22] But there were three other cities, Rehoboth, Keilah, and Rezan. And it seems to be all of these were, those three cities and Nineveh together were just kind of the, they were the capital, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, but those four cities were kind of considered when they talked about that area, they would just call it Nineveh. That area was where Jonah was sent to. So that would explain how it was such a large... [00:07:54] One scholar talked about it being a 60 mile in circumference rather than through it. So I guess I'm not exactly sure how that all plays out. But Nineveh was large and we know at the end it says 120,000 children. So it was a great city. God said, preach unto it the preaching that I bid unto thee. Jonah had a message to give, and he wasn't supposed to give his own message. [00:08:27] He was supposed to give God's message. Whenever we speak to someone, we need to make sure we give the message that God wants us to give, not our own message. You know, this is something I really see in your life you need to change. Is that something that I think you should change or do I really have a message from God? We need to be careful that when we are speaking into someone else's life, that it's not just our opinion. We're judging that person by our opinion. We need to be very careful about that, about having a beam in our own eye when we're trying to talk about the moat in their eye. [00:09:03] So I think we need to be careful that we give the message that is from God. But we also do have the obligation to give the message that is from God. We can't just simply say, well, they'll think I'm judging. If God is asking us to speak to someone, we need to make sure we do that. Verses 3 and 4, So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh. It seems he was still a little bit reluctant. He went into Nineveh one day's journey. [00:09:36] He didn't go all the way through. He kind of like, he went, he said what he had to say, and then left. Almost like, here, I'm going to tell you this quick, but I hope it doesn't, I want you guys to be destroyed. Nineveh was, they were not Jewish, they were not God's people, they were not Jonah's friend. Jonah did not like these people, he wanted them destroyed. They were much larger than his people. The city of Nineveh was much more powerful. [00:10:10] And he had every reason, every human reason, to want these people to be destroyed. And then later on, we'll see in chapter 4, when they weren't destroyed, Jonah said, See, this is why I didn't want to go talk to them. Because I knew you'd give them mercy if they repented. I wanted you to just destroy them. So that, it wasn't so much that Jonah didn't want to serve God, it was that Jonah didn't want to go tell these Mennonites because he didn't want God to spare them. I kind of got the idea of a little boy, maybe dad says, go water the garden. [00:10:50] Well, the boy wants to do something else. So he takes the hose and he goes out and he sprays the water over the garden for half a minute and then goes. He watered the garden. He didn't do it right. He didn't do what Dad wanted him to do. But he went, did what he had to do, and left. Maybe that's kind of the idea with Jonah. He went in, did what he had to do, got out, and he didn't go back home. He went up on a hill to see the destruction of the Lord come down. And that's one thing we have to think about. Usually we think of a minister or a prophet or whatever coming to God's people and preaching repentance. [00:11:27] That's what John the Baptist did. That's what most prophets did when they came to Israel, they preached repentance. This was not Jonah preaching repentance. This was Jonah prophesying that you will be destroyed. So he went up on the hill to watch this. He was going to watch the fireworks, I guess. But then we see later that it didn't happen. Verses 5-8 So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast. [00:12:00] I guess this is the portion I would really like to concentrate on this morning. Do we believe God? God said, I'm going to destroy you, and they believed God. Do we believe that when God says something, He will bring it to pass? When God says that if we do not forgive others, He will not forgive us, do we think that we can somehow hold bitterness in our hearts toward our brother or sister [00:12:31] and yet expect God to overlook it? Do we believe God? God says, if you do not forgive your brother, I will not forgive you. It's plain. And yet somehow we feel like we can forgive most people, but there's that one or two people that we just really don't like I just can't forgive them. God will not forgive us. We must forgive. How about obeying the laws of the land? How careful are we to obey the law? Let's turn to Romans 13. I'd like to read Romans 13, 1-14. [00:13:06] Romans 13, 1-14 I guess I would just like for us to think about ourselves as we read this. Let's not think how this applies to Bob or Joe. How does this apply to me? How do I view the laws? [00:13:37] Let every soul be subject... Oh, I'm sorry. Romans 13, 1-14 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. [00:14:22] Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but do love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [00:15:05] Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. [00:15:40] In verse 2 it says, And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. That's not a very light statement. That's a pretty heavy statement. Do we think what God really means, we know what God says, but what God really means is that we can obey the laws that make sense to us and assume that if a law is a dumb law, Do we evaluate laws and say, well, this law that restricts me in this way makes no sense. [00:16:18] It's just one of those things I don't need to worry about. How about the speed limits? What kind of testimony does our driving leave with others? If we were to ask the police force about the Mennonites and their community, would they say that they are any different from anybody else? How concerned are we that God just might mean what He said? Instead, they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. I guess this is something that's really convicted me in the last several years. Hunting laws are so easy. [00:16:51] There's one or two game wardens within 50 miles or 100 miles. Hunting laws are so easy to violate and you don't have to pay for it. You get away with it. You can shoot extra deer. You can have a gun in the pickup. There's lots of different things you can do that are illegal. You got caught, you'd get fined and get a ticket, get in trouble, but there's very little chance you're going to get caught if you do it. And how concerned are we that if it's the law, we obey the law? What does it mean to be a Christian? A little Christ. [00:17:27] A Christian is someone that follows Christ's teachings, simply. What does it mean to be a Christian? Does it simply mean that you have accepted the gift of eternal life? That's all. I have accepted the Lord and now I'm a Christian, which is true in a sense. Or does it mean that you are really allowing your life to be changed and molded into the image of Christ? Do we accept the gift and see it only as that, a gift? Or do we realize that there are things that are required of us as well? [00:18:00] Do we just accept the Lord, receive that as a gift, and thank you Lord for the gift, and now I can just do what I want? Or do we realize that there are requirements to us? We do need to live a righteous life. To the best of our... And here again, we're doing this by God's grace. We're not doing this on our own. We're not doing it to gain merit or because by our works we are saved. We're not doing it that way. We're doing it out of a love and a respect for God. One of the huge differences between the Anabaptist forefathers [00:18:33] and the people who persecuted them was the belief in sanctification in addition to simply justification. There needs to be that initial commitment to Christ. That is when we are justified. The song says, justified never sin. When Christ redeems us, it becomes as if we had never sinned. But we need to go on from there. We can't just be justified and continue to live in our sins. We need to have our lives sanctified by following Christ. [00:19:05] The idea of discipleship is following Christ. Changing your thinking by your doing. That again was another, I guess a new concept to me, or at least was hammered home to me In our Anabaptism class was about some of the reformers. Luther and Zwingli were two of them. They're on record as saying, ideally, the Sermon on the Mount was lived literally, ideally. [00:19:41] But we're in a fallen state. We simply can't do it. So it was discarded. Where the Anabaptist view was, we know it's a high ideal. Maybe we'll never attain it perfectly, but we try. We do what we can. We try to follow God and even if it doesn't make sense to us, we do it out of obedience and by doing we learn to, it does make sense. You find out it does make sense. It does work in a fallen world. There needs to be that initial commitment to Christ, accepting Him as your Savior. [00:20:15] This is when we receive justification. But there also needs to be a sanctification of our lives where we are changed by that commitment. Because I have committed to Christ, my life is now changed. Not because I have committed to Christ, now I'm saved and what I do doesn't matter. We change our doing because of our commitment to Christ. This is not salvation by works. This is doing right out of a changed heart and truly being sorry for my sins. We cannot simply accept salvation and then go on our merry way as the same unregenerate, willfully sinful, sin-enjoying person. [00:20:55] I'm not saying that when we are saved we no longer sin. We rise above that and we'll never sin. I'm not saying that. I think you understand that. What I am saying is that we don't enjoy sin. We don't see sin as something funny or something comical, something to be enjoyed. We see sin as being wrong. We need to have a heart transplant. Our heart no longer enjoys sin. We cannot abide sin. If I can look back at the sins of my youth. Now here again, I'm bringing this out of, look at the response of the Ninevites. [00:21:30] When Jonah preached to them, they repented in sackcloth and ashes and fasting. They didn't just say, God, we're sorry, can you please forgive us? They truly had a change of heart. If I can look back at the sins of my youth, or look at the sins of others, and get a good laugh out of them, have I really repented of those sins? How much has my heart been changed to be like Christ's heart? If I can still enjoy sin, or I see someone else doing something that is sin, and I think, well, that's funny how he got that guy, he did this or that. [00:22:02] And I see humor in that. Do I view sin the way God sees sin? Let's turn to John 8, 29. John chapter 8. The question I have, who do my deeds and preferences represent? [00:22:38] Am I a disciple of Jesus Christ? John 8, 29-44 And he that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him. Notice what Jesus says. For I do always those things that please Him. Is that our testimony? As He spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. [00:23:12] Notice there again. If you continue in My word, then are ye My disciples. 33. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and we were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever. If the son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed, but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. [00:23:43] I speak that which I have seen with my father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication. We have one father, even God. They're just throwing it in his face that he's an illegitimate child. He was born of fornication. They didn't believe in the virgin birth of Mary. [00:24:20] We have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech, even because ye cannot hear my word? Now here Jesus says, And by your works I know, 44, For ye are of your father the double, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. [00:24:55] So in verse 29 we have Jesus saying, The Father hath not left me alone. God is my Father, because I do always those things that please Him. And in verse 44 He says, Because of these things I've just told you, how you are, your father is the devil. You are of your father the devil. Here again, some very strong language about what our deeds tell us about ourselves. Who do we represent? What kind of things do we enjoy? [00:25:30] A disciple. A disciple is a follower of a person or idea. Somebody who believes in and follows the teachings of a leader, a philosophy, or a religion. So to be Jesus' disciples, we need to follow the teachings of Jesus. Let's turn to James 2. We read this in Sunday school, but in our class. We'll turn to that, James 2, 14 through 26. This here is talking about the difference between simply receiving justification and going on and living in sin [00:26:07] or being justified by grace and then continuing to live a sanctified life. James 2, 14-26 What is a prophet, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warned and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, What doth it profit? [00:26:39] Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. That verse is such a powerful verse. Jesus is saying, you say you believe. Well, the devils believe. Everybody believes, in other words. Of course you believe in God. [00:27:09] God is very self-evident. But simply believing in God is doing... Well, the devils obviously aren't saved. They believe in God. But that is not the only distinction necessary. Verse 20. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. [00:27:42] And he was called the friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. It doesn't say you're justified by works and not by faith. It says, and not by faith only. We need both. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messenger and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Our works. How sorry do we really feel when we sin? [00:28:17] Do we view it as a personal offense against God himself? When David sinned, in Psalms 51.4, he says, Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. David said that he wet his pillow at night with his tears. Do we really mourn when we sin? Do we see sin as a personal offense against God? [00:28:49] Because that's really what it is. When we sin against our brother, we are sinning against God. It is a personal strike in the face against God. Do we view sin as a serious thing? I think we have a tendency to view sin as something that grace will cover our sin and it doesn't really matter. Sin is a serious issue. Joel chapter 2, 12 and 13 Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, [00:29:21] and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And notice this, And rend your heart, and not your garments. Don't just make an outward show. Your heart needs to be rended. Rend your heart, and not your garments. And turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentance him of the evil. Notice at the same time that God is saying you need to turn from your sin, He's also saying turn to Me because for He is gracious and merciful, [00:29:52] slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth Him of the evil. God is our judge and He's also our Redeemer. When we turn to Him, He will never turn us away. He will never condemn us because we have turned to Him and admitted our sin. Neither a weeping eye, nor a confessing tongue, nor a restoring hand will be taken for repentance without a broken heart. [00:30:24] We can cry, we can confess, we can pay back, make retribution, restitution. But if our heart isn't broken because of the sin, it really does us no good. We can't make up for sin no matter what we do to make up for it. It's when we repent, we truly repent that our heart is broken, that's when it makes a difference. Okay, moving on to verse 9, back in Jonah. [00:31:02] You'd think I could find it by now as often as I've been studying it. In verse 9, we see that the king, he's repenting and doesn't even really know if it's going to do any good. He says, who can tell if God will turn and repent, that we perish not? [00:31:39] And God saw their works that they turned, and He did it not. Here again is that assurance that we have, that when they didn't have assurance, He says, let's try it. We can at least repent and see what happens. Maybe God will have mercy. Maybe God will turn away. His anger from us, we have much more than that to go on. We know now that when we repent, God will forgive us. Psalms 103.8 [00:32:12] The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. You know, God liked to talk about His mercy. God liked to assure us and show us that we do have mercy there when we turn to God. 2 Chronicles 7.14 And here again, notice, I was kind of surprised, I guess, when I started studying the subject of forgiveness. The stipulations that are involved. It isn't real easy to be forgiven. We have things to do on our part. [00:32:44] 2 Chronicles 7.14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, Then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now this is Old Testament I realize, but notice that God says we need to humble ourselves, we need to pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways. And I guess that, I don't see how we can continue to live in sin, continue to enjoy living in sin, and experience forgiveness. [00:33:19] I just don't think that makes any sense at all. We need to turn from our sin in order to experience forgiveness. Psalms 86.5 For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. These are just some verses that give us an assurance that God is a merciful God. Jeremiah 36.3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them, [00:33:50] that they may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Here again, God is warning them so that just maybe they'll turn away and I can forgive them. 1 John 1.7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Notice what He says. If we walk in the light as He is in the light. Another stipulation. We walk in the light. We do our best to be open and honest before God. [00:34:26] And then two verses later, 1 John 1.9 says, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's a very familiar verse. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. We believe that. We rely on that. And I'm thankful we have that promise. But I think we also need to realize the seriousness of sin. I worked with a guy at Fortune Homes that he very candidly admitted that he was a Catholic, [00:34:59] but he admitted that he lived in sin throughout the week. He had no problems with living in sin because every weekend or two weeks or however often he got around to it, he would go to confession and make things right. And that was just his way of operating. And that made perfect sense to him. I don't think we can live in sin, fudge the rules, whatever. One thing I noticed when I read that in Romans, custom to whom, custom to whom, tribute to whom, tribute. [00:35:36] And it talks about paying our taxes. This is the tax season. And taxes is one thing where it's so easy to fudge here or fudge there. How much do we try to make sure we are following Christ's teachings? I want us to really think about our own personal situations right now. Let's all ask ourselves, what sin am I holding in my hand today? [00:36:06] Okay, what sin do I have? 1 John 1.8, we've often heard Harold say, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we say that we are not holding a sin in our hand, if we say that we do not have sin we're holding on to, the truth is not in us. Sin is missing the mark. That's a literal definition of sin is missing the mark. None of us are completely not missing the mark. [00:36:41] I think we all see where we have areas we need to grow in. What area in my life am I seeing as a I need to grow or I need to change and I'm not doing it. I'm putting that off until some other time. That's something I don't want to deal with. I remember Joe Stauffer, when I was in the youth group, there was something I was struggling with. And he was actually teaching the youth guys at that time. And he said, you guys, if there's anything in any one of your lives that you cannot get victory over, [00:37:16] he said, what you're saying is that God's Spirit, God in your life, there's not enough power there to overcome that. And that really spoke to me. When I say that there's something I can't get over, that's just me not wanting to get over it. I'm not saying that we just get over sin and it's no problem. But God says He will never give us a temptation we can't overcome. We've always got a way of escape. Every time we give in to something, we choose to give in to something. [00:37:49] And that sounds kind of harsh, but until we take the blame, until we take ownership of our sins, it's not going to get better. It's not a weakness, it's not something we can't get over, it's a choice we make. A sin that I cannot overcome is a sin that I do not want to give up. I've talked to, well, we won't go into that. But, what am I holding on to in my life? [00:38:22] What am I not believing God about? When God said, He will destroy the sinners, do I believe Him? When God says that if I have bitterness, I will not... If you have bitterness in your life, I cannot forgive you. Are we still depending on God's mercy, or are we believing God? What am I holding on to that I hope God somehow will be gracious enough to overlook? We have a very gracious and merciful God, but He has also told us that He is a just God and sin will not enter heaven. [00:39:03] In closing, I'd like to read Nahum 1, 1-7. I think I'm just going to ask you to think about, you can turn to that if you want, you don't have to. I'm going to read it here and just think about God's view of sin. He talks about being merciful and He also talks about being, He will not pardon, He will not rebuke, or He will rebuke. And then notice his power and his majesty. [00:39:37] Nahum 1, 1-7 The burden of Nineveh. If you follow through on Nineveh, about 100 years after Jonah, after this repentance, they were destroyed. They went back into sin and God destroyed them. We cannot repent and then turn back to sin and expect God to overlook it. We need to have a view of sin as being sin and wrong and something that cannot be in the life of a Christian. [00:40:09] The Burden of Nineveh The Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elphashite God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth. The Lord revengeth and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. I think this is saying that God is slow to anger. He gives you a chance. He gives you lots of chances. But when that power builds up and spills over, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. [00:40:46] The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers. Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence Yea, the world and all that dwell therein Who can stand before his indignation, and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him [00:41:19] The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him Let's stand for the closing prayer. Lord, we come before you today. Lord, we ask that you would speak to each one of us individually. Lord, I pray that you would help us to look inwardly, [00:41:51] To not apply what we hear and what we feel to those around us But that we would really look at our own lives and see, Lord, where we are holding on to sin Maybe it's someone we can't forgive Lord, I ask that you would bring that person to our minds I ask, Lord, that you would help us to see where we can improve Where we can change, where we can become more like you. [00:42:26] I pray, Lord, that you would help us to see our wickedness, our unworthiness of being called your children. We thank you, Lord, for your mercy. We thank you, Lord, that when we do turn to you, there is forgiveness. We thank you, Lord, for what you've done for us. Let us pray, Lord, that you would give us an awareness of your view of sin and of the seriousness of sin. We pray that you would go with us today. [00:42:59] Help us, Lord, throughout this week to be a witness for you, to be a blessing to those around us, to share your light to those that we meet. Work in our hearts, Lord. We commit ourselves to you. We thank you, Lord. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.