Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do otherwise, feel free to sit
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down and we're going to turn our
attention now to Jonah, Jonah Chapter Three.
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So God has sent his profit to
go and preach to the city of
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Nineveh. His Prophet refused. God
send a storm, which eventually resulted in
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Jonah's drowning, but Jonah cried out
to the Lord for Salvation in the Lord
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saved him. Then now, in
Jonah chapter three, Jonah is on the
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dry land, out of the water, safe and ready to preach. So
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God gives him the command again,
and we read what happens Jonah Chapter Three.
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Then the word of the Lord came
to Jonah the second time, saying
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arise, go to Nineveh, that
great city, and call out against it
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the message that I tell you.
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh,
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according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city.
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Three days journey and breath. Jonah
began to go into the city,
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going a day's journey, and he
called out yet forty days and none of
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us shall be overthrown. And the
people of Nineveh believed God. They called
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for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the
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least. The word reached the king
of Nineveh and he arose from his throne,
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removed his robe, covered himself with
sackcloth and sat in ashes, and
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he issued a proclamation and published through
Nineveh. By the decree of the King
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and his nobles, let neither man
nor beast heard, nor flock taste anything.
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Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast becuther
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covered with sackcloth and let them call
out mightily to God. Let everyone turn
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from his evil way and from the
violence that is in his hands. Who
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knows? God may turn and relent
and turn from his fierce anger so that
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we may not perish. So when
God saw what they did, how they
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turned from their evil way, God
relented of the disaster that he said he
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would do to them and he did
not do it. Praise God. Please
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be seated. Want to talk to
you today about the surprising power of God's
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grace. We think about surprises.
We often think about things that we don't
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expect. Right. I tell you
a quick story. When my brother was
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on his honeymoon, he and his
wife were walking across a street. They
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were in a crosswalk. There were
people coming from the other side and one
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of these people a man, and
when he reached my brother swung hit his
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nose and broke it. He had
no idea who he was. My brother
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didn't he never figured out why this
happened. He just sort of stood there
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with a bloody nose and then went
to the emergency room or something like that,
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and that's the end of the story. There's there's no other ending to
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that. It was just a surprise
out of nowhere. We still don't know
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why that happened. Sometimes surprises are
like this. They come out of nowhere,
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we don't expect them. But there's
another kind of surprise. Sometimes we're
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surprised by things that we should expect. So another walking story. At our
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old house, my kids and I
you used to walk down to a basketball
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court that was on the corner at
the end of the street so they could
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play. It was really close and
it was right along this one stretch of
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sidewalks. So We'd do this,
sometimes several times a day and we knew
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this path well. We'd play Games, talk things like that, but occasionally
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I would get stratt distracted. I'd
be talking, playing, maybe even reading,
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and then whack, I get hit
out of nowhere. Well, of
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course it's the same branch that is
always there every time. Right. I
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should have expected this surprise, and
yet didn't. Sometimes we're surprised by things
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we can't expect. Sometimes we're surprised
by things that we can expect and even
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should expect, but don't, and
Janah three has a lot of these kinds
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of surprises. One I want to
focus on today is this surprising power of
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God's grace. God's grace is in
many ways to be expected, as will
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read in Jonah Chapter Four. Jonah
will say, I knew that you were
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a gracious God, Merciful, slow
to anger, abounding in steadfast love and
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relenting from disaster. And yet something
about him is sort of frustrated by this.
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His expectations, although he knew this, were we're not. Something turned
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out different. We sing about God's
amazing grace, right, we can also
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seeing and wonder at his all powerful
grace. The power of God's grace is
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one of the most important aspects of
his grace and it's worth spending time thinking
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about. Sometimes, when people hear
the word grace, they think of maybe
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a little girl of a summer dress
and soft braids, and that's true.
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Grace has a sweetness to it,
doesn't it? A loveliness to it,
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a gentleness to it, in such
a way that we may our daughters after
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after grace. But grace is not
weak. Grace, like a wind,
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can cool your face with a soft
breeze, but grace can also power a
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wind farm or move an armada of
ships across an ocean. Because grace is
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an attribute of God, who is
powerful. Grace is always able, grace
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always does its work. Why?
Because God does his work. You remember
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what Paul says about the grace of
the Gospel. He says it is the
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power of God. Why is grace
powerful? Because it is of God.
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Why does grace always accomplish what it
sets out to do? Because God sets
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out to accomplish what he wants to
do. And you see the power of
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God's grace here in some wonderful and
memorable ways in the story of Jonah.
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One way you see it is the
dramatic sending of this word to the people
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of Nineveh. God speaks to this
Prophet and sends him and nothing is going
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to stop God from getting that Prophet
to that city so that he could announce
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this coming judgment and the corrodlary corollary
a hope of salvation. Nothing was going
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to stop God from doing what he
desired. From the storm to the sailors
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to the fish, God proves himself
sovereign, doesn't he? Jonah says,
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I want alert work according to my
will, do things according to my way,
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and God says, I don't think
so. Sometimes this happens in our
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life, right we say I am
going to flee from the presence of the
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Lord and God says, I don't
think so. Have you ever found yourself
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in the that kind of position?
I hope so. It's hard, but
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it teaches us great things. The
power of God one is one reason this
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can be held very beneficial for us
to know, as as we think about
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our own evangelistic efforts. When Jesus
gave us our great commission to arise and
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go, he says, go therefore
and make disciples of the nations, go
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and preach to the Ninavites and the
Tucsonaans and to everyone else. What does
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he say before that command? Before
that command in Matthew Two thousand and eighty
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says all authority in Heaven and on
Earth has been given to me. And
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then after that command he adds these
words. Behold, I am with you
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always to the end of the age. Those are powerful words. Those are
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the words of a commander, of
a King sending people out on a mission.
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Those are the words of God.
So that means when we go to
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tell people about Jesus, to invite
them into discipleship, to train them in
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their faith, we are not doing
something we think will be a good idea,
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we're not doing something we're not sort
of recommending a book that we happen
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to enjoy. We are obeying the
marching orders of our divine commander, even
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as Jonah, in chapter three,
not chapter one, but in chapter three,
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obeyed the orders of his divine commander, knowing that the one who scents
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sends him is not weak. He's
seen that, he's experienced that as he
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was drowning in the water, as
he was swallowed by the fish, as
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he heard these Pagan sailors, and
chapter too, calling out and praising and
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sacrificing to Yahwe the God who controls
and rules and made the sea and the
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dry land. So here one way
we see the power of God's graces in
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the sending of his word, Jonah
is sent forth and eventually he does go.
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But the power of God's grace extends
not only to getting the word to
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people, but also in changing people
by that word. In other words,
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God only not only controls the sea
and the dry land, but also every
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human heart. Jonah's heart was changed. Something happened in him, and there's
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no reason to think that it's because
he was eventually drowning that he called out
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to the Lord. Obviously God used
that, but there were a number of
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other things that should have happened that
Jonah's heart sort of should have been changed,
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humanly speaking, why didn't Jonah feel
the pressure of the other sailors and
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change his heart? Then? Why
didn't Jonah feel the pressure of of of
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his own confession and in the hypocrisy
when he says on the boat God made
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these things, and yet I'm pure
fleeing his presence. That didn't change his
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mind. It didn't change his mind
when they were tirelessly trying to save his
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life. It didn't seem to even
change his mind when he says might as
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well just throw me overboard. Why
did it change his mind when he was
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drowning? Well, obviously God was
using these events in this way, but
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ultimately it was God who was using
these events. God was changing him,
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God was working in him. Jonah
was very stubborn, but eventually God changed
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him and he cries out, not
to himself in chapter two, but to
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God. He doesn't put his hope
in vain idols or in vain Jonah's he
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puts his hope in the Lord for
seven, as we have thought about many
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times, of chapter two, when
my life was fainting away, I remembered
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the Lord and my prayer came to
you. Salvation, Jonah says, belongs
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to the Lord, and that's why
he called out to him. Why?
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Because God's grace is powerful. Salvation
is powerful because God is powerful. Some
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people, some people like to think
that God is powerful over everything except the
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human heart, and that's simply not
true. Imagine this, okay, imagine
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that you're washing your hands and you
want to direct you the water to one
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side of the sink or another.
The littlest people here can think about this
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right. We've all stood in front
of the sink and washed our hands and
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and move the water this way or
that way. How much effort does that
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take you to do to move the
water to this side of the sink or
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that that side of the sink not
much right. Or here's another example.
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I when it's summer and it's hot, not so much when it's raining,
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but maybe a month ago. I
love to go outside and water the plants
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and ever since I was little,
and I still enjoy this, I love
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putting my thumb right over that I
don't know what you call that, or
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wherever the water comes out the end
of the hose and right and you move
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your thumb this way in the water
shots that way, you move your thumb
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that way in the water shoots that
way. You can shoot it strong,
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you can spread it out wide up
into the trees or right in front of
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you, just moving your thumb around
over the end of the hose. It's
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fun, cools you off. It's
an enjoyable thing. It's an easy thing
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to do. Well, the Bible
says in Palm in there, I'm sorry,
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in the proverbs, that God moves
our hearts just like that, like
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it says the stream running in the
and God moves the human heart. Actually
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doesn't say the human heart, he
says the heart of kings. God can
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move the heart of a king like
stream like a stream of water in the
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hand. It's not an amazing thing. Some of us are stronger than others.
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Right, some of us have stronger
wills than others. Are Kings,
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our leaders are commanders. It has
been said by many that those who ruled
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best are those who rule themselves.
Some of US have a weak wills,
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but others of us have strong wills, unbendable wills, unbreakable wills by human
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standards. But we know from the
words of scripture and the stories in our
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own lives that even the hearts of
kings can be easily moved by God.
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Proverbs two and twenty one. The
king's heart is a stream of water in
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the hand of Yahwe, he turns
it wherever he will. And isn't that
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exactly what we're seeing right here?
The King of Ninaven, this great king
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of this great city, of a
great people that are currently conquering armies and
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nations and cities that are known for
not being pushovers, for destroying all who
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they set their eyes on. And
yet with a single prophet, a single
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begrudging Prophet of God, God is
able to move the heart of this wicked
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king and this wicked people so that
the whole city, down to the animals,
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are repenting. But the animals need
repentance. But the king calls them
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all into this work. The whole
city, the whole people, are going
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to get down on their knees,
even literally, it says. He rises
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up from the throne and puts himself
down in ashes. What do you do?
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What did you do the last time
you dealt with ashes? You probably
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did everything you could to avoid getting
them on you. Why? Because they're
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dirty, they're really, really messy. This king stands up from his throne
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and sits down in ashes. He
covers, he soils himself, he puts
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sackcloth on himself, he removes his
robes, he issues a decree, he
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calls everyone. No one's eating,
no one's drinking. Why? Because we're
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facing impending doom. But this is
what a good king does when his city
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is under attack. But notice,
instead of strengthening themselves, instead of building
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up their resources, making them stroll
stronger, manning the walls, getting the
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armies ready, what does he do? They go to a play lease of
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weakness. They deprived themselves of food
and water. Instead of rising up to
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his throne and calling his nobles to
Himself, he steps off of his throne
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and him, with his nobles,
call all the city into repentance, repentance
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that he knows is necessary. And
you hear it in his decree. He
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says we need to turn from our
evil way. He knows that what they
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have been doing is not right and
that they are going to be judged by
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it and judged for it, and
he knows that no amount of posturing or
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strengthening or armies is going to with
stall forcedall, not sure what the right
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word it is, pulled off this
attack. Nothing will keep back the hand
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of the Lord, the hand of
Yahway, when he sets to do his
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holy will. So what option does
he have? What option do you have
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when the Lord says I am coming
in judgment for your sins? Bargaining,
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no gift giving. Know all you
can do is what the king does hear
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repent of your sins and say perhaps
the Lord will turn from disaster, perhaps
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he will be gracious. That's all
that we can rely on when we find
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ourselves sitting in the ashes of our
sin and the coming judgment of God.
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That's all that we can do.
All that we can do is rely on
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God's grace and God's grace is powerful. It's even so powerful that he can
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both enact justice and grace at the
same time, that God cannot just look
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of the other way at an evil
city, at an evil king, and
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sort of pat them on the back
and say now, now, I guess
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everything that you've been doing is just
fine. No, God still will have
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his justice, he still will have
his judgment, and yet somehow he can
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also have grace, he can also
have forgiveness. That's how powerful grace is,
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that's how almighty God is, and
that's why the king of Nineveh was
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right, and the people, from
the greatest to the least, were right
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to turn away from their sins and
turn unto the Living God, because just
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as because God's will, because God's
grace is powerful. The how did all
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that happen? How do you have
one of the most evil, wicked kings
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and all of history with a heart
like this all of a sudden, but
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a prophet walking into town with his
hands in his pockets saying everybody, you
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should be over with God's going to
overthrow the city, and they all turn
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like that. How can you have
weak preaching and then hearts change powerful grace?
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I don't know how else the power
of God's grace working through his word.
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This is what Paul says. He
says to the Corinthians. I didn't
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come preaching of great sophistry and amazing
words and Fine Art. I was clear
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about the Gospel. I preached that. I preached Christ in Him Crucified.
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And Look what the Lord has done. The power of the Gospel is unto
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salvation, he says in Romans to
those who believe. Does what Paul Prays
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for it. When he prays,
he prays and asks for prayer that the
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doors would be open for the work
of the Gospel, that Christ would be
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at work, as in his preaching, and we see that happening here.
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It's an amazing thing when God sends
out his word, when he commands as
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a great and Almighty King for the
Gospel to go forth. It doesn't go
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out into the void. God's not
a blogger with no followers, just typing
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away and hoping maybe someone will hear
posting into the void, or even he's
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not a basketball coach or a CEO
or a commanding father or even a king.
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Sometimes leaders have authority to direct and
send out their words and they are
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heated in the way even is,
the King of Nineveh does. But the
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power of a human word is always
very limited. We are always very limited.
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That's why our will and our word
as only goes so far. This
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week I was reading the meditations of
Marcus Aurelius. He is, was one
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of the Roman emperor's and I guess
from what we know, or what we
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think we know, that these things
were just things he sort of wrote to
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himself and then eventually have been published
and republished and republish. There's a lot
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of wisdom in there, a lot
of foolishness too, but one of the
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wise things he notice is is the
weakness of humanity. I think he even
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eventually says something like turn not to
humanity for your strength. Remember who's saying
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this? One of the Great Roman
emperors, and part of his argument is
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this. He says he I think
he says something like what doctor, what
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doctor WHO's contracted his brows over his
own patience, has not eventually died himself?
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What great hero and Victor who has
conquered armies and slaved men does not
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eventually himself get slain? He gives
a number of examples like this, examples
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of people who exert all kinds of
power and will and do good in this
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world and then eventually are gone.
That's it. Now he takes that and
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thought and in ways that I wouldn't
recommend. But his observation is correct,
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isn't it? He's speaking the words
of ECCLESIASTES. Vanity of vanity is all
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this energy, all this effort in
proof it's gone. This is life under
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the Sun. So don't trust it. Don't trust in the power of kings,
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don't trust in the power of people. Our word, our wills are
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very, very limited, but not
so with God. The power of His
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grace, as we see here in
Jonah three, can accomplish everything that he
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sets out to do. The human
word is one thing, the divine word
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is another, and it always,
God always accomplishes what he desires. We
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need to remember this when we consider
God's command to us to go and make
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disciples, to arise and go forth
to another. Will we be like Jonah,
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refusing and trusting and even angry at
the mercy of God, or will
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we remember that when God sends forth
his word of grace, it goes forth
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with power, that it's issued with
a kingly command and it's accompanied with God's
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kingly energy. What are the ways
in which we are trusting and not trusting
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God? What are the ways in
which we doubt him in his power?
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What about you? Isn't that a
good question to ask? Wouldn't that have
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been a good question for Jonah asked
at the beginning of this book? Think
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about that. What if Jonah had
reflected and taken to heart the very message
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that he was called to preach about
the power of God? First, I
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think he would have more greatly feared
the Lord. Instead of casually looking for
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a ship, he would been looking
for lightning strikes. Right, you don't
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flee the presence of the Lord,
simply walk out and say I'm just not
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going to do that. You don't
do that when you understand and you believe
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really deep down and the power of
God. Jonah seemed to think, like
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we all do when we set out
on a path of sin, that God
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simply doesn't care or that he's unable
to do anything about our sin. But,
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as we see here, he does
care and he is able. If
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Jonah had reflected on the power of
God more, perhaps he would have changed
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his mind given more weight to the
command that he had been given. But
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when we think about the power of
God's grace, and particular, I also
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think that if Jonah had trusted more
in the power of his grace, he
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would have liked the Ninovites, had
a much better response to the evil inclinations
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of his heart. As you're thinking
about the things that you fear, the
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sins that you love, the things
that you struggle with, think about the
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Ninovites. When the Ninovites heard the
word of the Lord. Did they run?
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Do they flee the presence of the
Lord? That they decide they're going
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to just keep doing what they're doing
because maybe God doesn't care or maybe he
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can't do anything about it, like
Jonah did? No, they stopped right
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in their tracks, dead in their
tracks. What about those times when you
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feel like you don't have the will
power to stop in your tracks, to
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turn from your evil ways? What
will you do? I would encourage you
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to trust in the power of God's
grace when you find you have no will
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power, no power of the will
trust and the will of God. In
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God's will power, it's much stronger
than yours. You can rely on it,
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as we see here. And we
see that. And why does God
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give it that to us because he's
gracious. There is this power in His
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grace. So ask yourself what is
stronger? My flesh or God's spirit?
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My Sin or the blood of Christ, my lust's or God's love? The
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answer is obvious in every question.
God. God is stronger, God is
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more powerful, he is stronger than
anything, and that includes when he is
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acting according to His grace. How
is it that God can both have justice
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and grace at the same time?
How? Because it is almighty power.
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He sends his own son into the
world to be born of a virgin.
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Power to live a perfect life of
righteousness, power to go to a cross
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willingly, power to die for our
sins, power to defeat our sins and
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death itself and rise again from the
grave in glorious resurrected life. Power.
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God exercises this power through the work
of his son on the Cross and in
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that and as he hangs there and
as he dies there, he takes on
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the sins of the world in such
a way that God is not going to
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overlook the atrocities of the Ninovites or
the evil things that you have done,
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but he will take them on himself. He will put them so much he's
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not overlooking them. He's putting them
so much under his sight that he is
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there on the cross bearing them.
That's how God deals with our sins.
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He takes the penalty of death that
is owed to us, all of us,
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and he puts it on himself so
that then he can extend, on
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the basis of that this offer.
Trust in me, trust in my death,
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and you will not have one yourself. You will have forgiveness of your
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sins. You will, instead of
have the punishment for sin, death,
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you will have the reward for life, life, the reward for righteousness,
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life. God tells us that His
grace can cover all sin. It can
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remove it as far as the East
is from the West. That's power.
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He can conquer and subdue your heart. He can provide you, as first
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corinthians thirteen says, a need to
a way of escape from every temptation.
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This power of God's grace has testified
about again and again and again, visibly
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demonstrated in the resurrected resurrection of Christ
from the dead, where he rose as
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a conquering king, and it's through
that grace that we and everyone else in
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the world are saved. The Cross
and the resurrection of particular, is the
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certification of the power of God.
What other proof do you need of God's
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great will power, of the power
of His grace? Jesus didn't rise from
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the dead as a neat trick.
He rose from the dead as one who
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had conquered death himself. Ever since
the fall of mankind and to sin,
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those who have been saved have been
saved by God's grace, have been saved
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by his powerful grace, by the
work of the son who has brought all
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these things to completion. That's good
news for you. It's good news for
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us that, by the power of
His grace, grace is accomplished and these
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things come to us, they come
to you even to day in the preaching
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of God's Word, in his divine
word. Acts for thirty three tells us
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that after the resurrection, the Church
began in its work of evangelism, it
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began its great commission. And we
read an act that, with great power,
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the apostles were giving their testimony to
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
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Great Power, and it goes on
and says, and great grace was upon
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them. All that work continues to
day in the Apostolic Church, and that's
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important because it means you don't have
to wait for the power of God to
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manifest itself in your lives. You
don't have to sit around and wait for
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God to show up. You don't
need to wait to be thrown into a
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sea before you've confinally trust in God, before you finally bring to him your
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rebellion, in your sin and receive
from him his goodness and grace. Because,
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as in the preaching of Jonah,
as in the preaching of the apostles,
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as in the preaching of this church, God is present, he is
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active, he is alive, his
word working like a sword dividing the heart.
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So you can trust him for that. That's what I'm saying. You
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can trust him that his divine word
is at work and hold fast to that
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hope that he is offering in you
blab it. Don't trust in your own
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power, trust in his and wherever
you have doubts, wherever you have sin,
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give those to him as well.
Is The power of God s grace
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surprising to you? It may be. Sometimes surprises me. Sometimes I doubt
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God's willingness or his ability to help
me, to help those people I love.
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But this is a problem in us, not in him. You don't
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need to be surprised at His grace. You need to trust it. Let's
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pray
