Sermon Transcript

Welcome. I’ve already met some first-time guests to our church. I want to welcome you. If you are new to Harvest—maybe this is your first time—we’re right in the middle of a series. We’re kind of at the climax of a story we’ve been tracking through the book of Jonah. Let me invite you to open your Bibles to Jonah chapter 3.

As you’re doing that, let me ask you, “Where are you from?” There are a lot of cities that represent the Michiana area. On the count of three, I want you to shout out the name of your city. Okay, how many of you said, “Granger,” and you don’t understand—Granger’s not a city? It’s not incorporated—it has a post office. I don’t know what it really is—it’s a spot on the map.

That’s where our city is, at least that’s where our church is located. There are so many people here with a South Bend address—how many? From Niles, Mishawaka, Buchanan, Edwardsburg? Who am I leaving out? Yeah, all those people—Goshen, Elkhart. Awesome! How many of you live in Berrien County? Okay, great. We’ve got a church coming to you soon! Welcome.

The reason I asked that is because we are going to learn about a city this morning. It was a great city—God said it was a great city—but we’re going to discover that it was not a good city. As we jump into this, I always want to make sure you’re caught up with the story. People have come up to me and said, “Trent, when you said we were going to study seven weeks in Jonah, I looked at that as a throw-away series.” I looked at them and asked, “Why did you think that?” They said, “Because I already know the story.” But then they came back and said, “I didn’t realize all that God wanted to teach me through the book of Jonah!”

So, do you realize what Jonah is about? God has a heart for a city called Nineveh, and he wants the prophet Jonah, to go to the city. Jonah says, “No, I’m going the opposite direction!” He catches a boat down to Tarshish. . .in the middle of the boat, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, God sends a storm that begins to shake the ship. The sailors on the ship throw Jonah overboard. God sends a big fish, and after three days in the belly of the fish, Jonah finally learns the lesson that, “Salvation belongs to the Lord, and I’d better get on the obedience track!” Last week we learned about obedience, because the same God who extends grace also expects—what?—he expects obedience.

We learned a little definition of obedience last week. Do you remember that? I will not have you stand and repeat that, but I will have you do the motions with me while you’re seated. Do you remember the motions? Are you ready? “Obedience is doing what I’m told to do when I’m told to do it with the right heart attitude. Mmm-hmm.”

Got that? How many of you went home and taught that to your children? Did it go better this week? I saw Josh: Josh was like taking pictures of the definition, and he had a PowerPoint presentation for his kids this week, and the whole thing. It’s very important for us as the people of God. The distinguishing mark of a Christian is obedience.

Jonah finally obeyed! Let’s read about it here in Jonah 3, beginning in verse 1: “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time [the God of second chances], saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.’ So Jonah [I always want to insert, “Finally!”] arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

This morning we’re going to learn five things that God does to prevent the overthrow of a city, a nation, a family, a church or a people. God is working right now to prevent a disaster! He wants to get our attention—to realize that the city we’re living in is facing a great threat. The nation is facing a great threat—and yet God is working to prevent it!

Five things. The first thing is:

 

• God loves our city. (v. 3)

God, as an act of his sovereign will, is choosing to love a very unlovable city.       Let’s talk about the city in this passage of Scripture, called the city of Nineveh. Do you know anything about Nineveh? I really didn’t, so I had to do a lot of research—I read a lot of different things, read a lot of different articles. Here are some of the things I learned about Nineveh.

First of all, Nineveh was great in its size. It was a massive city! It was probably, at the time, the largest city on earth. It had a population of about six-hundred-thousand people; it was probably about sixty miles wide. Scripture says it took three days for a man to walk across it. If we imagine him walking about twenty miles a day, that would make it about sixty miles wide. Large population of people…it was great in its size.

Nineveh had a wall surrounding it, and those walls made it very impenetrable from an opposing threat. That city and that wall was massive! Scholars tell us that the wall was probably around one-hundred feet tall, and that wall was so wide that it could support three chariots racing abreast on the top of the wall. So this was a massive city – a massive, great enormous city. There were fifteen-hundred towers along this wall. That’s how big, that’s how enormous it was.

That wall gave the people living inside Nineveh great security. You can imagine how they felt very safe and secure inside of this wall. They probably lived with a sense of invincibility. Part of the nature of Nineveh was to attack other cities. It had declared war on cities in Israel. It was the sworn enemy of Israel; it was the sworn enemy of the God of Israel. It was Nineveh’s goal to wipe Israel off the map. Is any of this starting to sound familiar to you?

Nineveh was located in modern-day Iraq. It was located five-hundred miles north of Bagdad, in a little community which is now the city of Mosul, which is under ISIS occupation. So, not a whole lot has changed in that particular geographical spot on the planet!

Nineveh was a great city. Not only was it great in its size, it was great in its sin. We’re going to read later that it was filled with evil and violence—even the king recognized that. It was filled with rage, it was filled with violence. This city was a city that had such a great military, when it would go in and invade and conquer other lands, they wouldn’t just kill that land’s army—the military   wouldn’t just win the military victory. It would completely annihilate the population…killing the women and the children, often skinning the bodies, impaling the bodies on poles. This was a wicked city!

Nineveh was a polytheistic city. They had a lot of gods with little “g’s.” they had invented gods and formulated different gods. There was worship, but it was just completely misdirected worship. In spite of all of that, do you see the trouble that God goes through, to get his message to Nineveh? He is working to get his message there, to prevent an impending disaster.

Nineveh was a great city. When God looked at the city of Nineveh, he didn’t just see a population—he saw individuals. He knew their names, he knew their families. He saw men and women, boys and girls, and God’s heart was to rescue, God’s heart was to save, God’s heart was to redeem this wicked, unlovable—seemingly unredeemable—city. God had a heart for the city of Nineveh. As a matter of fact, when we read here in verse 3, “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. . .” the word translated “great” there in our English Bibles, the Hebrew word is “elohim.” It’s one of the descriptors of God. It means “mighty.” So, what God was saying when he said Nineveh was a great city, he was saying, “Nineveh was a great city to God, and God had a great love for Nineveh.”

Not only that, God has a great love for our city. What’s going on in our city? What’s going on in our nation right now? I think that the consensus from all the world would be to say that America is a great nation. We’re great in financial strength, we’re great in industry, we’re great in technology…a presidential candidate wants to make America great again. Compared to other nations, compared to other nations in world history, America is a great city, but America is not a good “city,” America is no longer a good nation.

Years ago, there was a man named Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a French thinker, he was a French politician. He studied societies and how they grew and how they fell, and in 1830 or so, he made a trip to America. He was so intrigued with America’s greatness, he wanted to know, “What has made America so great in such a short amount of time?” He came to America…by the way, the French have some amazing lapels on their jackets—I just have to say that. That is massive. [Congregation laughs.]

After studying America, this is what de Tocqueville said, “America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” So, as we look at modern-day America and see what is happening, and read the news headlines about all the different things that are going on, what we’re discovering is that America is being threatened by a loss of goodness. America’s greatness is being threatened by a lack of goodness.

This morning as we talk about this great city of Nineveh, we want to look through the lens of America—look through the lens of our nation, asking “What is going on?” To be honest with you, in the midst of all the Christmas decorations and the joy, and singing about the light of the world, there is a dark side. (There’s a movie coming out about that soon.) There is a dark side that we have to look at to see the light shining bright. So, as we think about America’s condition right now, we need to understand that we are not heading in a good direction.

Now, if you are a Christian—if you’ve been born again into the family of God—you have a dual citizenship. Do you understand this? You’re a citizen of whatever city you shouted out to me, you’re a citizen of America, but the good news is this—your security, your value, your protection is not dependent on America’s goodness. As Christians, we are citizens of another city! In spite of the darkness we see in the city in which we’re living now, we’re living for another city! We’re longing for the day that we will be citizens of the kingdom of God, and God will reign supreme—as King—in that city. . .a place where there is no misdirected worship. There is unhindered joy, because we’re in his presence.

There is no evil there, there is no violence. So, as a Christian, we view what is going on in America through the lens of what we know we will one day experience in Heaven. We have every reason to rejoice and to hope, while at the same time we pray and we carry the burden for the city or the nation that we now live in. We have a dual citizenship. God loves our city.

Here’s the second thing:

 

• God sends His warning. (v. 4)

 

Look here in Jonah 3:4, “Jonah began to go into the city. . .” Yesterday, I gathered with about fifty others here in our church. We had an opportunity to go Christmas caroling (not just to sing songs out in the street; we went to some very strategic places). We went into the city—a place where you have to be intentional about going. We went into some assisted care facilities, some nursing homes in our city—and wanted to just share the good news of Jesus.

When Jonah went into the city, it took intentionality for him to direct his feet to a place where he would not normally find himself. For those of us who live in the “city” of Granger, we need to be careful that we don’t spend all of our time in the safest, most prosperous place in our community.

Our upwardly mobile, upper-middle-class, very white community needs to see people who have resources going into the city. That’s why we give you opportunities, and we talk all the time about things that are happening at Project Warm, and going into the city down by Hope Ministries, and things like Christmas caroling in those nursing home.

There’s an incredible ministry—Amazing Grace Ministry—where our seniors go in and share the love of God to people. We’re now live-streaming this service. We’re actually going to get these services into those facilities. We’re doing everything we can to get the message—and get the warning—into the city.

Now, can you imagine Jonah showing up in Nineveh at this point—after all that Jonah’s gone through? So, here comes Jonah, walking into the city. He’s got seaweed hanging all over him, you know…his skin’s probably a little burned from the digestive juices that have been eating away at him for three days in the belly of a whale. He smells like salmon.

And so, here he is…I mean, he is an army of one. There’s nobody to help him, there’s nobody to “carry his armor.” He’s tripping into the city; he’s really kind of been beaten up by God to get him going in the right direction, and he still has a bad attitude about it (we’re going to read about the bad attitude next week).

Jonah shows up, and he is an army of one—armed only with the word of God. So, if you’ve ever felt like, “I just don’t feel like I belong here, I don’t feel like I have the resources, I don’t feel like I can do it alone. . .”—Jonah’s your guy! Jonah shows up and he preaches an eight-word message.

See it in verse 4? “And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’” (Jonah 3:4) Some of you are thinking, “Man, I wish Pastor Trent could preach an eight-word message! That would make Sundays a lot better!” Now, I think that was the title of his message, okay? I think he had a lot more to say. . .God just didn’t choose to record it here.

I think Jonah went on and on and on about God and His grace, and the lessons he’d been taught and how “God wants to prevent this disaster, but you’ve gotta repent!” Jonah probably described what God was and who God was, and all kinds of stuff. . .we just don’t have all of that. We know there was more information because of what happens next. We’re going to read that.

But, here’s the great thing: Jonah says, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. . .” So the countdown clock has begun—forty days. “You’ve got forty days!” What a gracious God! He didn’t say, “You’ve got four seconds before you are overthrown!” He didn’t even say “four days.” He said forty days. “You’ve got almost six weeks to jerk it around and make sure that you have God’s attention. You’ve got forty days.” What a gracious God!

Over in the New Testament, 2 Peter 3:9 says this, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish. . .” God loved this city! And he didn’t want this city to perish, “but that all should reach [come to] repentance.” Last week we talked about not abusing grace by taking advantage of second chances. Well, they had forty days to repent.

We don’t know how long it took them to repent, but it got their attention and it began to turn them around! Jonah says, “In forty days, you will be overthrown.” Interestingly, Jonah knew what it was like to be overthrown, right? I mean, before Jonah could capture this city with the word of God, God had to capture Jonah with the word of God.

Jonah knew a little something about being overthrown…or thrown over…board. He had literally experienced that. So, you can just imagine the word pictures he was sharing. . . “Let me tell you about the digestive juices of a whale. Let me tell you about how God can get your attention. Let me tell you how God can turn you around. If you really want God to bless you, you had better make sure you are on the same page.”

Do you see that word “overthrown” there? That word is almost a hyperlink back to another story in the Old Testament. Every time that word “overthrown” was used it signaled attention to two other cities that had been overthrown. Do you know what they were? Sodom and Gomorrah. So, when Jonah used the word “overthrown” in Nineveh, that probably sparked some arrest in their hearts, and they realized, “You know what? If we don’t want hail and brimstone falling down on us, we might want to pay attention to what this guy has to say!”

So, Jonah eventually got the attention of the king. Look down at verse 6, because we’re going to see the third thing that God does is this:

 

• God humbles the leader. (v. 6)

 

“Who’s in charge? Who’s in charge of this city?” We’re introduced to him in verse 6: “The word reached the king of Nineveh. . .”

We don’t know his name. He’s just “the king,” and he did four things in response to the preaching of Jonah: “He arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.” Do you see the intentional actions in response to the preaching of God’s word that the king did? First of all, he got off the throne—and I think that was an indication that he realized there was another king who was coming. . .the King of Kings.

He got off his throne and said to himself, “This is not a time to play like I’m in charge of anything! This not a time to pretend that I can fix our problem.” So he gets off of his throne. The second thing he does is, he removes off his robes. So, robes of royalty, robes that would indicate majesty. The king recognized that this was not a time to be puffed up with pride, and pomp and circumstance. He removed the robe.

The third thing the king did was: he put on sackcloth. Now, that was not a fabric you’re probably going to find at the mall. It was probably like a potato sack, burlap, and he put that on. Why? What’s the symbolism? What was he doing? He was trying to show the outward conditions, and his outward appearance needed to reflect what he saw in the inward condition of his heart. Not pretty! Not attractive.

The fourth thing the king did was, he sat in ashes. The king lowered himself, got down on his knees, got as low as he could go, and surrounded himself with dusty, dirty, ashy remains of something that had been burned up. It was symbolically saying, “You know what? We’re all going to be ashes if we don’t do something about what has provoked the anger of God toward our city!” So God uses a humble leader to model what every other citizen needed to do. A quality of leadership, that is essential, is humility.

During this season, where in the next eleven months we will choose the next leader of our nation, it would be wise of us as Christians—who understand the importance of humility—to choose a leader who models humility. Any presidential candidate who would show himself to be a man who thinks he is God is probably a guy you do not want to cast your vote for. Any man who would say, “I’ve never at any time asked God to forgive me for anything I have done.” That’s probably a guy that you do not want to endorse.

God’s Plan A is always humility. But if you don’t sign up for Plan A, you by default enter into God’s Plan B for your life. Do you know what God’s Plan B is? Humiliation. If you do not, voluntarily, humble yourself to acknowledge, “I’m not God; I need God. I have provoked God and I need His forgiveness and His grace. . .”—If you are not a humble person—you’re signing up to be humiliated by God, because God loves you so much He’s not going to let you challenge His sovereignty.

Some of you are on Plan B right now and you’re experiencing turmoil and pain and humiliation, because you didn’t get with the program with Plan A. A little suggestion for you here. You need to follow the example of this king: Get off your throne, take off your robe, put on some sackcloth and get some ashes and get lower than you’ve ever gone before. And understand that God will humble a leader.

Well, this leader didn’t just humble himself—he modeled humility for everybody else. So, in verse 7 the passage says, “He issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh [a decree], ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water. . .’” So, there was a proclamation.

What is a proclamation? It’s the job of the leader to define reality, and so he uses his position to get the word out of what everybody else needs to do. Now, it’s important—he wasn’t asking the citizens to do something he wasn’t doing. He was asking the citizens to get with the program he was already on. He was signing up for Plan A so that the city could prevent signing up for Plan B.

So, the king humbles himself, he proclaims a fast, verse 8: He says, “Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.” See the word “God,” there in verse 8? Little “g” or big “G?” Big “G.” Do you understand, that was a new category for the citizens of Nineveh? They’d never heard of this guy! They had gods with little “g’s.” They had misdirected worship going all over the place, but for the first time—through the preaching of Jonah—they were introduced to the God with the big “G.” And we don’t exactly know all that was shared, but we know they got enough information about God that they knew they should respond to Him in worship and call out to Him.

So they began to call out to God. Scripture says in Jonah 3:8, “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” See the word “turn” there in verse 8? It’s an interesting word. So many times in the history of Israel, we read and we see God asking them to return. God doesn’t use the word “return” here, because they’d never been there before. “Return” means to go back to the original; they’d never gotten the original. This was the original turning—the initial. This was the first time they had ever turned to God.

So, there’s hope! If you’re here and you’ve never turned to God, God is still holding out the opportunity, just like he held out the opportunity to Nineveh. You can turn to God! Stop running away from him and turn your face toward him.

The king of Nineveh says in Jonah 3:9, “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” He asked the two-word question, “Who knows?” The king wasn’t quite sure if God was going to relent of his anger or not, but he was hedging his bets. He was going “all in.” “It’s our only hope!”

Now, the king didn’t know if they would survive, but we know, and you and I know of the grace and the nature of God, that all those who turn to God in repentance and faith—trusting the substitute righteousness of Christ—have every reason to have confidence that they will not be overthrown by the impending judgment of God. He didn’t know, but we know! That’s great hope!

Notice the two categories of sin that was going on in Nineveh: “Let everyone turn from his evil way and [number two] violence that is in his hands.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I turn on the news, when I read the newspaper—about what’s going on in America—there are basically two categories of news: evil, and violence, in our nation.

There are certainly external threats that America is facing, but America will not be overthrown by external threats. America will be overthrown by internal threats. I mean, you turn on the news and what do you see? You see financial irresponsibility. Our nation carries now eighteen-trillion dollars in debt, and it’s quite likely to become twenty-trillion before this administration is finished. We open up the news and we see violence in the streets, protests over racial tension in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, and recently even in Chicago. It’s getting closer.

And, of course, we’ve seen the slow and steady destruction and decline of the family—as back in the 1970s divorce laws were relaxed, and so people began to race into the courts to dissolve marriages that God intended to be permanent and durable, which has created the next generation that has come up, with no interest in marriage—and so they are involved in unbridled sexuality and a “hook-up” culture, and cohabiting, living together without fidelity, without trust and without commitment – just trying to get along so they can enjoy some sexual pleasure before they move on to another relationship.

We see the decline of marriage has led to a fatherless culture, a rise in abortion and all kinds of gender confusion. These are the news headlines, internal threats—not external threats.

Of course, there are external threats: radical Islamic terrorism is something that dominates the news. We’ve seen instances of that even within our own borders, in places like Ft. Hood, Texas, Chattanooga, Tennessee and most recently in San Bernardino, California. You turn on the news just wondering, “Is the next news headline going to have something to do with Islamic extremism?”

Let me say this—it would be foolish for us to equate peace-loving Muslims with ISIS. We would not want to equate every Muslim with an Islamic terrorist any more than we would want to equate the idiot that walks into a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado and starts shooting the place up in the name of saving children. We don’t want people equating us with that guy. So, be careful about the types of discernment you use. Peace-loving Muslims need to denounce Islamic extremism. . .but listen, if you value religious freedom at all, you have to value religious freedom for all.

Do you understand that our secular, godless culture and our secular, godless government leaders have no theological construct to understand the difference between a god-fearing Muslim and a God-fearing Christian? They have no theological understanding. They just think you’re motivated by some imaginary God out there.

The same government that can restrict access to Muslims could soon, in time, begin to restrict access to Christians. The same government that can shut down a mosque can shut down a church. The same government that would want you to register as a Muslim could require you to register as a Christian, and then begin to divide what kinds of rights you are actually allowed to have,  because you believe in some “imaginary god” in their mind. Be careful! Be careful—use discernment when you talk about the things that are in the news.

Our nation has declared war on God, and that’s why the title of this message, America’s Greatest Threat, is not Financial Irresponsibility. It’s not Government Instability. It’s not Islamic Terrorism. America’s greatest threat is God! Like the city of Nineveh, we have provoked Him to anger—and yet God is calling out to us and sending his warning. “There is a clock counting down to the days America has left to turn to him and repent.” We need a humble leader!

Fourth, we need to understand:

 

• God sees our (v. 5, 6-10a)

 

Look back up at Jonah 3:5, “And the people of Nineveh believed God. . .” You’ve heard it over and over if you’ve come to church here for any time at all. You do not get right with God by something you do, you get right with God by something you believe. The hindrance to our repentance is unbelief. The fuel for sin is not believing God! It’s not believing about what he says about every component part of your life.

Finally, Nineveh believed God, and because they believed God, do you know what happened? They did some stuff. They turned, they called for a fast. Do you know what a fast is? A fast is a God-ordained way of intensifying your spiritual hunger. When you go without food for a season, that shallow, empty feeling in your belly is to remind you, that’s the condition of your heart. It’s to intensify the spiritual emergency going on so that you will have a greater hunger and appetite for God.

So they began to fast and they put on the sackcloth. Notice, the verse says, “From the greatest of them to the least of them.” Now, I don’t know who the greatest person was in Nineveh. I don’t know who the least person was in Nineveh—and I don’t know how you measure that. But imagine, if you lined them all up—if you had all the great people here at the front of the line, and you had all of the lame people down here at the end of the line—what if we did that in here?

Maybe I could just do that. . .why don’t you. . .here. . .[laughter] no, we won’t do that. That would be a little prejudiced, wouldn’t it? But, seriously, where would you find yourself in the line, if we lined you up according to your bank balance, your leadership ability, your ability to communicate, your education, your grade-point average, your wardrobe, your influence?

Let’s just say your influence. We had all the great people down here at the front of the line, and somehow we marked them all the way down until we came to the least impressive guy in the room. Where would you be in line?

Now, notice [in the passage], every person in line responded the same way. Do you know what? We really do line ourselves up—we do it all the time. And for those of you that think you’re down here at the end of the line (you don’t have any power, you don’t have any influence, you’re down here sucking your thumb—you’ve been kicked around so much you’re just ready to quit), do you know who you’re probably blaming for the problems in America? The guy down there at the front of the line. The least blame the greatest.

Now, if you’re somebody who’s like, “Nah, I think I’m—if I’m to be honest (I want to be humble about it!)—I’m pretty awesome!” So you’re down here at the front. Do you know who the people at the front of the line want to blame for the problems in America? The people at the end of the line.

Notice what happened in Nineveh: from the greatest to the least, they all owned the problem. They took responsibility collectively. Instead of polarizing into groups and pointing fingers, what did they do? They stopped using the pronouns “they” and “them” and “their,” and they started using the pronouns “we,” “us” and “our.” They didn’t pray, “God fix them.” They prayed, “God, fix us.” They didn’t pray, “God forgive their sin.” They said, “God, forgive our sin.”

They didn’t point to the king and blame him for all the problems; the king didn’t point to the people at the end of the line and blame them for all the problems. Together, they collectively understood, “We have filled our culture with evil and violence—and we must turn together to God,” from the greatest to the least. . .and God saw it.

Look down at verse 10: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” It’s interesting to think about this—did God change His mind? In our limited finite perspective we would say, “That appears God changed His mind.” That’s because we’re using our finite little pea-brains to try to understand the infinite wisdom of God. As a matter of fact God, several times in the Old Testament, gave us an indication that he changed his mind.

 

• God displays His mercy.

 

In Jeremiah 18:7-8, Scripture says this: “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it. . .If that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.” God was simply acting according to His nature, a gracious God of second chances patiently enduring the rebellious tendency of His people—and yet he loves the city, he sends a warning, he humbles a leader, he sees our turning, and he sends mercy.

This is the way I’d like to end the service today. . .I’m going to open up the altar here. I’m going to ask you to come and fill it this morning. . .and not only just to fill it with your bodies kneeling, getting off our thrones, “taking off our robes,” putting on. . .we don’t have any sackcloth, we don’t have any ash—we have a prayer altar.

I’m going to ask those of you who carry a burden for our city and for our nation to come. The purpose of the Scripture, that was preserved for us, was to give us hope! God told us about an ancient city that was about to be overthrown, and yet through a sovereign act of God, he sends his mercy to an undeserving people. The parallels to the culture and the nation that we live in are obvious. How can we do any less than the citizens of Nineveh? Than to cry out mightily to God?