We want to exhort the house of Israel. However, we're not taking about old Israel; we're talking about new Israel. When Jesus came He brought a new covenant and he causes us to be new people who can worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
This Gospel is practical for the present day and hour. We're living in a different era of time, but we are living under the same Gospel, under the same anointing of the Sprit of God. The same God that spoke to Ezekiel, Paul, Peter, James, and John is speaking yet today. The Word of God is powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.
When we think how great God is and how small we are, we ought to realize something about the power of the Gospel. God is able to do all things. He's able to turn a man's life around and make him a new creature. God can turn his life around in such a way that people will look upon him and say, "He's not the same man he used to be!" When we're saved, we become a different man or woman. Old things are passed away and all things have become new through Him that loved us.
We ought to praise God for the Word of God and for His truth that He's been good enough to send to us. He didn't leave us in the dark, but showed us the way out of sin. He showed us how to live this beautiful life. He was our example from start to finish. If we ever make it to Heaven, we're going to make it because we follow Jesus and not because we follow some man or woman. We're going to make it to heaven because we keep the Word of God, and because we love God. "And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statures, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them" (Ezekiel 36:27). If we're a child of God, we belong to God, and the Spirit of God is in us. He put His Spirit within us, and it causes us to keep the Word.
We need to read the Word in order to know what it says. One thing it says is, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Well, it doesn't take a theologian to understand that it means just what it says. I've heard people say, "I can't understand the Bible." They need to be like the Israelites were when Ezra got the Word of God out and began to read it. The people had been down in Babylon and away from God, but when they came back to Jerusalem, old Ezra got out the Book and started early in the morning to read it, and the people understood it. Do you know how the people understood it? God gave them understanding hearts. (Read about it in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah.) When we read the Word of God and want to know God's truth, God will show it to us.
So often, I hear people say, "I don't see this," and I don't see that." If we "don't see it", we need to just do it! It will amaze us how quickly we'll see it. Many would like to get around certain things in the Word of God by stating, "I know he preached the truth, all right, but I don't see it." Now, how did they know it was truth if they didn't see it? "Well, the Word of God said it." Then, if the Word of God said it, it means do it. That's what God wants us to do.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among men. Christ came down to show us the way by giving us an example of how to live. The Word of God is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.
To "eat the roll" (Ezekiel 3:1) is to "eat" the Bible---the Word of God. Read it and obey it. Let's not eat just what we want of it, but let's eat it all. Let's eat until we're full, then, after we've digested that, eat some more. We don't need to worry about getting too much; we need to worry about not getting enough. We're living in a time when not too much of the Word is going forth and people are not so spiritually fat. Oh, how people watch their physical weight these days, even joining clubs to watch their weight. They want to make sure they're slim 'n trim, but they don't seem to care much about how they look spiritually. We don't need to worry about getting too fat spiritually from "eating' the Bible, because there's nothing in there except what's good for us. God wants us to be spiritual giants.
Let's Walk While We Have the Light
Needless ta say, we need to do the will of God. We're not going to see it as long was we don't really want to. Paul said, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost" (2 Corinthians 4:3). Jesus said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine" (John 7:17). How much of it do we want to do? Are there certain Scriptures that we read all around, under, and over? This Gospel fits every one of us. It shows us just what we are, because it's a looking glass to look into.
"So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel (Ezekiel 3:2-5). Ezekiel was sent to a people who knew exactly what God required of them. We, as the people of God, God requires us, as a saint of His, to measure up, to walk in, and to obey every bit of truth we know. If we're not walking in all the truth we know, let's not think that we're saved because we can't be saved and walk in darkness, or walk behind light. Jesus said, "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you" (John 12:35).
If we feel that there are some things that we can do and get by, let's remember that there's someone watching us; the way we live speaks louder than our words.]
Many today are being robbed of the privilege of serving God because they seem to be blinded to certain truths of the Word of God. Jesus tells us in John's Gospel, the third chapter, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." When someone tries to tell us that the kingdom of God is out in the future somewhere, just mark it down---he needs to be born again. We can't enter it unless we've been born again.
God has warned people down through the years of time, what way to go and exactly how to do it. However, man has never been satisfied with God's plan. The Israelites of old were never satisfied with God's truth. People aren't satisfied with it today, except those who are willing to accept it and walk in it. Salvation is the only thing in the world which satisfies everybody that get it. It will do the same for anybody in any part of the world.
Earthly kingdoms rise and fall, because they can't please people who are under all kinds of judgments and laws. God has a law today that if we obey it, and the world obeys it, it will satisfy everyone. We can find fault with the laws of the land, but we can't find any fault with God's law, because it's a perfect and upright law. It causes a man's face to shine, and makes his heart rejoice, and makes him thank and praise God.
Salvation changes the nature of a man and gives him an experience within his soul whereby everybody knows he's been born again. When we're born again we'll be the first one to know.
Woe Unto Hypocrites
Jesus was against the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites back in His day, just like we ought to be against those who are like them today. I've heard people say, "We ought to use wisdom and talk nice to these people. We ought to lead them out a little bit at a time." However, Jesus laid judgment on them.
Matthew 3:7-8 tells of a group of Pharisees coming down to John's place along the river Jordon, where he was baptizing. They had already confessed their sins by making their sacrifices of animals, but they had never repented. After they got to John, the first thing he said was, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance..." On, my, what a shock it was to them! They had found a reed they couldn't shake. John had built upon the solidness of God's truth. Before he was born, it was prophesied that he would prepare the way for Christ, and he came preaching a Gospel that got people's hearts clean.
If we ever get a clean heart, we're going to have to do more than confess our sins---we are going to have to repent and get an experience with God. Too many come to an altar and cry, chew their chewing gum, and confess their sins; but they don't repent. There's no easy way to get into the Kingdom. There's only one way to get in, and that is to confess our sins and repent. We must tell God that we're sorry about them and sick of them and really want to do the will of the Lord. He will save us.
To repent means to quit the sin business and turn and go the other way. Those Pharisees didn't repent, but they went the other way. They went away from John, and when they came to Jesus, He said, "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in" (Matthew 23:13). People are doing the same today. They won't enter themselves and they don't want anybody else to. Jesus called them hypocrites. That's pretty rough preaching. How would we like to sit under that for awhile?
"Woe unto you, scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation" (Matthew 23:14). These fellows with long coats on, put on a great show of religion, but say that a person can't live without sin and can't get into the kingdom until the hereafter. Jesus put judgment on them.
"Woe unto you, scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte..." My, don't they go all over the world and compass land and sea to make a fellow proselyte! "...and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" (Matthew 23:15). That Jesus was a preacher, wasn't He! Should someone protest that He was a loving fellow, I would agree! Yes, He was loving, but He also laid judgment to the line and let people know exactly how they stood.
Let's Listen to God's Voice
May God help us to understand that he has given out a solemn warning that we need to listen to His Voice. God has spoken His Word down through the years of time and sent servants to preach the Gospel, to prepare a way for people to get ready, but many have cast it aside as the Israelites did time after time. They were a people that did that which was "right in their own eyes." That's what many want to do today. They want to serve God, if they can do what is right in their own eyes. Let's remember, God has a standard and a plan, and we must go that way. The Word of God is true, and unless we come that way, we have no power with God.
"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas...unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believe..." (Acts 17:10-12). When the Apostles preached the Gospel, the people searched the Scriptures to see if what they said was so, and we need to do the same when we hear the Gospel preached. Too many of our time think that what their preacher says is "it," because he is a fine, educated preacher and went four years to college and studied theology. If he studied theology with very little "kneeology," he most likely will have "a big head and a little heart". We need to have a little head and a big heart. We need to cast aside any knowledge that goes against God, and let the Spirit of God come into our hearts and make us as He is.
Paul said, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). When we let God come into our hearts and lives, He will cleanse our hearts and sin will have no more dominion over us, because we have been saved from sin. This kingdom that God has is a great kingdom. It's marvelous to know what God will do for us, if we'll let him do it.
God will give us understanding just as he did the Israelites when Ezra the priest read the law of God to them. Let's read Nehemiah 8:8-9 and see what kind of an understanding God gave these people: "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly..." They made it clear so that everybody would know what they were reading. It was distinct; God never gives an uncertain sound to anyone. When God talks to us, He lets us understand what it means. When God told us last year what we ought to do, that's the same way it is today. God doesn't change His Word. God's Word is true. "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." People aren't as dumb sometimes as they let on they are. However, that won't get them by God, because Isaiah said the way is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, should not err therein (Isaiah 35:8).
"And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law." Our heart ought to be as open and as pliable as theirs were when they heard the law of the Lord. They had not heard it for years, but whenever we hear it, whether it be today, tomorrow, or next year, our hearts ought to be pliable to it and able to rejoice in the Word of God. The Bible is one book that doesn't get old. We can read the same chapter fifty-two weeks out of the year and God will show us something new and different in it and help us to understand it. God's Book is an inexhaustible Book. Its words lead men and women to repentance.
God Can Do All Things
Christ brought a kingdom that everybody could understand. There wouldn't be all this confusion in the world if people would just take the words of Jesus, " I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). If we're going to make it through, let's take what Jesus said. We can throw everything else away. No one would be lost if he would take the words of Jesus and follow Him, because He never leads anyone astray. When we're saved and we listen to the Word of God, He will only lead us one way. He'll never lead us to join a church. We don't need to join something we're born into. He will never lead us to deny the Word of God. He will never give approval to us...doing something that's wrong. Mistakes happen when we lean toward our human enthusiasm and knowledge. Let's get back to the Word of God and say, "Lord, show me the way. I want to do your will." God will lead every honest heart to the same truth.
If we know that God has all power in heaven and earth, we won't look to the arm of flesh to deliver us. It's a sad condition when so many who claim to belong the church say, "I know that God can do all things", but in actions say, "but He can't do anything for me." God is omnipotent; He fills the world; His power is great. There's nothing that He can't do. Now, if God can do all things, He can do all things for you and I.
"Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them the forsake him." (Ezra 8:21-22). I think we ought to stop and consider that God will do what He said.
Let's Trust God - He Will Never Fail
God found Abraham down in Chaldea among idol worshipers who didn't know anything about God. God came along to him one day and said, "Abraham, get ye out of here."
Abraham answered, "All right, Lord, I'll get out."
He said, "Get out to the land that I'll show you. Come, go with me."
Abraham asked, "Well, where are we going?"
God said, "Just follow me and you'll find out."
After they had gotten down the road a little piece, God asked, "Abraham, do you know who I am?"
God said, "I am God Almighty."
"Good enough for me, Lord," Abraham answered. From that time on, nothing staggered him. He was true to God because he knew that what God promised, He was able to perform.
We're little insignificant creatures of the dust. The great God of heaven created the universe and everything that is in it, and He put us down here, so don't we believe He can take care of us? He knows what's best for us. He is a mighty God! We don't need to be afraid to trust the Almighty God, because God never fails. God is never too late. He's always on the job. He always comes at the right time, in the right place, to do for us what He ought to do. The disciples tried to get Jesus to hurry when Lazarus was sick. They said, "He whom thou lovest is sick."
Jesus said, "That's all right. Don't worry about it."
"But Lord, he's going to die!"
"Well, let him die. He will just go to sleep and I'll go over and awake him out of his sleep." He didn't get in any hurry, but he was not late. When he got there, they were weeping about it, and Martha said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died."
Jesus said, "Roll the stone away."
"Oh, Lord, I know he will rise in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life."
It stirred her heart. She said, "Lord, I believe!"
We are an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ if we're saved. Whatever belongs to God, belongs to us. All we need to do is press our claim. Let's let God see that we mean business and are going to trust Him, and he will never fail us. He might seem to be a little slow in responding, but He will be there on time. How many times have we prayed and asked God to come to our rescue with something we needed, and it looked like it was not going to get there; but just at the time we needed it the most, there it was? God didn't fail us.
We're living in a world of unbelief where people's faith is no longer than their fingers sometimes. They've lost confidence in God because they've failed to take God at His Word and believe it. The disciple Thomas was s Sadducee. (Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead.) When the other disciples said, "Thomas, we saw the Lord last night, Thomas didn't believe them. "Ha-ha. You can't make me believe that. Unless I see Him, I'm not going to believe it." So in a few days they met with Jesus again, and Thomas was with them. The Lord said, "Thomas, come here. Put your fingers in my hands and thrust your hand in my side."
Thomas exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"
"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20"29).
What a privilege it is to take the Word of God, leave it like it is, and say, "Lord, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to believe it just like it is, because you said so." "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
A Powerful Everlasting Kingdom
He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. His Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His Kingdom fills the whole world. Wherever we find God, His Kingdom is there. He is a mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6). Daniel 2:44 says that in the midst of these kingdoms the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which would be an everlasting kingdom. It would not be left to other people, but He was going to give it to us, to be an everlasting kingdom.
This Kingdom has penetrated the granite walls of China, the unbelief of the Iron Curtain of Russia, and it has gone down into the darkest fields of Africa. No other kingdom in the world can do that. The power of Jesus Christ will reach down and save the poor Chinaman who is in heathenism. Russia turned down God and became heathen in its belief, but this Gospel will penetrate the Iron Curtain and find men's honest hearts.
This Kingdom is so great and so powerful that it fills the darkest corners of the earth; yet it is so small that it gets right down into our little heart. He sets upon the throne of men's hearts and causes them to rejoice and praise God. We ought to praise God for deliverance from sin. We ought to thank God that He didn't let us go out into darkness, that He didn't let us stay out in confusion but led us out into the truth of God's glorious, eternal way.
The whole world is seeking salvation, but they don't know what they're looking for. It's the only thing today that will satisfy men's souls. When the devil is raging, when homes are being broken up by sins, and abomination and filth on every side, the child of God can say, "Glory to God, I'm glad I'm free. Help me to take it to somebody else that's down in the dumps and lost, separated from everything that's good. Help me to show them the way out." This Gospel can find its way into every heart and soul who is in the world, if we'll listen to God.
His Kingdom will never be destroyed. It not only rolled down through Babylon and tore down the kingdom of Babylon, but it rolled right down through time and tore down the kingdoms of the world. There's not a kingdom that can stand against the Kingdom of God. If we put together the nations of China and Russian with their millions of people, we would have a great kingdom, but it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket when it comes to the power of the Kingdom of God that's able to wipe them off the earth in seconds of time.
The Eighth Beast
Jesus is the only Savior of the world. There's no salvation in any other name. If we ever get hold of it, it will clean us up and make something out of us. It will give us peace in our soul and cause the love of God to shine out brighter then the noonday sun ever shone. Praise God, salvation is something that we don't have to be ashamed of. It's the only thing that will ever take us to Heaven. It's imitated. By their actions, people say, "This is just as good as that." People want to fight for their church organization. They say, "My church is as good as your church." Well, maybe it's as good as mine, because I don't have one, but is it as good as God's? Will our kingdom stand against the Kingdom of God that Daniel said shall not be destroyed?
We're living in a time similar to the one in which Daniel lived. People have their own way of believing, getting together and making some kind of an image for people to bow to, which is the eighth beast of Revelation. "Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and breath thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon" (Daniel 3:1). That's what false religion is doing---setting this beast up in the province of Babylon. It's confusion to the people of God, just as old Babylon back there was a land of confusion to the Israelites.
"Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces..."(Daniel 3:2). False religions says they are going to have one church, something whereby people can see that all God's people are one. They say that this is a great thing and we ought to have had it years ago. But do you know what God said? He said it is an abomination in His sight. Just as the three Hebrew children didn't bow to the king's image, so God still has a few who aren't bowing to the eighth beast.
"Then the princes, the governors...and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image..." (Daniel 3:3). All kinds of people are coming together expecting to have a great church, but they're turning down the grace of God. People who don't believe in Christ, others who don't believe in the virgin birth, and others who don't believe in the resurrection, and many who don't believe one can live without sin, and again, others who don't believe a man can live holy---people who believe very little about the Word of God are all mixed up in the eighth beast.
I'm glad God saw fit to take a stone out of the side of a mountain. One night down in Bethlehem there was a little baby born. God said, "Call His name Jesus." None of the kingdoms of the world can stand against Him. Man can build any kind of an image he wants and make it look good and make it to fill the whole world, but God sent a little stone that's going to come right down through the middle of it and tear it apart, and set His people free to worship Him.
God's people may go through the fiery furnace or go down in a den of lions, but when they come out, they will be fireproof and purified gold.
We read in Isaiah 66:3 and 4, "They have chosen their own ways," but God said, "All right, you choose your way, but I'll choose your delusion." God is doing that today. He's letting people choose their way; He's letting them fix up the old beast. Oh, they have him shining. He has a head of gold and he's a great, large fellow. "Who is able to make war against him?" That little stone that was cut out of the mountain is going to put him in his place---in hellfire, where he's going "to burn throughout the ages of eternity", because he rejected God's Word and denied God's men and said, "Away with them--we don't want them."
New Life In Jesus
God said, "I want them!" He put us on the sea of glass where we can shout and praise God. We've been redeemed, blood-washed, and God has given us white robes of righteousness. Let's let people see what we have. Let's not be ashamed of our righteous garments. These are God's robes, made white in the blood of the Lamb. While some have blood dripping off their fingers and others are lost, the saints are marching home to Glory, because they are keeping the Word of God and are living in purity for Him.
When Jesus first came, the old dragon was ready to grab Him and kill Him. The wise men came from the East and went to Jerusalem looking for a king. King Herod said, "Now listen, when you find that little baby, you come back and tell me. I want to go and worship him too." Why, that old liar! He didn't want to worship Him; he wanted to kill Him! That old dragon spirit was there, ready to gobble Him up as soon as He was born.
You know what happened. When the wise men looked upon Him, their lives were changed. They didn't go back the old way of Jerusalem, they went back a new way. When we find the Christ, we will go a new way. We will have a new life.
Not too many love the Christian way. If everybody loved it, I would begin to think there was something wrong with it. Jesus said, "That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). Whenever we see a great multitude partaking of something in this world, it's not of God. When the pure Gospel is preached, people don't flock to it in great numbers. Oh, they used to come pretty good, when the sixth seal ministers "reaped the vine of the earth." They reaped Babylon and got them out by the hundreds, but we can scrape the bottom of Babylon today, as well as her walls, and we can hardly find one person that wants God. That' a pretty bad picture, isn't it? No wonder the eighth beast is claiming them!
Religious Professors
Nine out of ten(?) people we meet today are religious. Oh, many of them never go to church, but they have their names on a church book. Probably in most cases, it might as well be put on a sign along the highway, for all the good it will do. Nine out of ten(?) people think they're saved because they were baptized when they were babies. There are several modes of baptism offered by false religions and most people want the easiest way.
It's a shame, the thousands of dollars that people are giving preachers to lie to them. (If we pay a man to lie to us and then go back and let him lie to us the second time, it's our fault and we're just as guilty as he is.) They want the preacher to preach smooth things to them. They don't want him to preach truth. There's one thing about it, when they do come around a true congregation, the preacher will tell them the truth whether they want to hear it or not.
People will listen to a lie and say, "My, wasn't that a wonderful message the preacher preached!" However, let a minister get up and preach the truth---"I'd like to have him out in the dark someplace! I'd fix him! He looked right at me when he was preaching. Somebody must have told him about me." See, the truth will uncover. It will make the bed so short that our feet will stick out, and it well make the covers so narrow we can't hide. It will go right down where we love and show us ourselves as we are. If we're a liar, it will uncover us. No matter if we live away down in the sticks or in a big mansion upon the hill, God knows us and we know us. If no one else ever finds it out but us and God, it will meet us at the Judgment.
We can't get into the Kingdom of God without cleaning up and straightening up. We have to stay straight after we get straight. No matter who does it---wrong is wrong and right is right. Malachi said that in that day we would discern between the righteous and the wicked, and between him that werveth God and him that serveth him not (Malachi 3:18).
God Always Sends A Warning
God has sent out warnings down through time. He warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree or they would die, but they didn't listen. He warned Noah and let him preach, I suppose a hundred and twenty years warning the people, but they laughed them to scorn. Nevertheless, when the storm came and the rain began to fall, it didn't take long for them to change their minds and say, "Maybe the old fellow did know what he was talking about. Maybe he knew it was going to rain." Why, sure he knew! He told them about it. When the rain began to fall, they said, "We'd better move up close to the ark." However, it won't do anyone any good to get close to the ark. They'll have to get somewhere besides close---they'll have to get in.
Before it started to rain, God said, "Noah, you've been a faithful servant. You've been good to keep my word, and you built the ark just like I told you, Now, get in." When he got in, God shut the door. When it began to rain, people began to scream and cry, "Noah, open up the door! Open up and let us in!" Noah couldn't open the door because God had closed it.
God sent two angels to warn Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. Those two angels symbolize the Word and the Spirit. The people weren't after Lot or his daughters, they were after the Word and the Spirit. That's exactly what the devil is after today. If he can kill them, he has us.
Lot warned his family of the destruction to come, but they laughed and made fun.
God had told old Abraham what He was going to do, and Abraham fell on his face before God and said, "God, if I can just find fifty righteous souls, would you spare the city?"
God said, "Abraham, I will spare it for fifty."
Abraham asked, "How about forty?"
God answered, I will spare it for forty?" And so on down to ten. God said, "Abraham, for your sake, I will spare it for ten. Do we realize how much our prayers are worth?
God warned Jeremiah of the destruction of Jerusalem and he warned the people, but they wouldn't listen.
Remember Jonah? I often say that when I get to Heaven and see Jonah, I want to ask him about the whale ride he took. He took the first deep sea ride on record. God took him right down to the bottom of the sea where the water was icy cold and there were lots of seaweeds. God talked to him and asked, "Jonah, how about it? Will you go to Nineveh?"
Jonah said, "Lord, you get me out of here and I'll go preach to them and warn them."
After the whale had burped Jonah out onto the shore, he took off for Nineveh. He was sent to the edge of the city, he cried, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The people of Nineveh repented and God spared them. However, a few years after that, they went back on God and God destroyed them.
The Bible says that we shall all appear before the Judgment seat of God to give an account to Him (2 Corinthians 5:10). God has been good to us down through the years. He sent messengers, preachers, and evangelists. He has sent them to us so we could get ready for that great and terrible day that's just out ahead of us. It's not too long, until we will come into judgment. We're going to stand before God. God is warning us. What are we going to do? "Whosoever will, let him come."
[ The End ]