Beloved radio friend, we greet you in the ever-precious and the worthy name of our wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus. We again come before you today with the word of God from the book of Jonah chapter three. For our lesson today we read from Jonah chapter three and verse ten. These are marvelous words of divine encouragement and blessing regarding the city of Nineveh. after the preaching of Jonah and their repentance. We read that God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. In our preceding study, we learned of the repentance of the people of Nineveh upon the preaching of God's judgment by his servant Jonah. From the king who was upon his throne, together with his princes and nobles, from the greatest of the least of them in the city of Nineveh, in no uncertain terms they believed God's message, they immediately repented, long before the expiration of God's ultimatum, in forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. I do not know, my radio friend, what you may think of the great physical miracle that the story of Jonah is related concerning the swallowing of the prophet by the great fish, and its preservation, and then the ultimate deliverance of the prophet out of the mouth of the great fish, and landing upon dry land, as we have read it in chapter one and two. That was indeed miraculous. But may I say, I believe that the complete repentance of possibly nearly a million people in the city of Nineveh was a greater miracle. The moral and the spiritual miracle of their complete repentance is unequal in all biblical history. There can be only one explanation for this. Jonah coming with a true message from God and having his message authenticated by the very power of the Holy Spirit to the hearts of the heathen Ninevites convicted them of their true condition and their deserving judgment from the hand of God. God certainly proves to us that he is concerned in the broken and the contrite heart, none in the royal purple of the king and of his princes, nor in the porpoise rags. But when in the hour of repentance the king and the people were on the same level, confessing their sinfulness, then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. What an amazing miracle of divine grace. The conversion, so to speak, of complete repentance in the city of Nineveh, from the king upon his throne to the humblest peasant within the gates of the city, from the greatest to the smallest, the richest to the poorest. They level themselves down prostrate, confessing we are sinners and deserving of the judgment of God. None of them thought of their wealth. None of them thought of their social standing. None of them let anything pertaining to what they were and what they possessed hinder them from confessing in repentance and contrition. their true state in the sight of a holy God. Would to God we could see such repentance today? Then it may be that some may question why man as well as beast were both involved under the threatened judgment as we find it indicated in verses seven and eight. What had the animals done to deserve destruction? But may I state there is a very close relationship between man and beast. whereby the animal creation has been affected by the sin of man. And according to Romans chapter eight, verses nineteen through twenty-five, it significantly declares that the animal world has come into bondage because of man's sin and man's corruption. The beloved apostle Paul plainly states in Romans eight that the literal creation, the animals included, They long for their liberation, their deliverance from the bondage of corruption, which will take place when the return of our Lord Jesus Christ is accomplished. Therefore, if God had overthrown Nineveh, it would have been the doom not only of the men of the city and the people of the city, but of the animals as well. But our God has a regard for both man as well as beast. So when God saw their works of repentance that they turned from their wickedness, he repented of the punishment, he had threatened, and he did it not. The sparing of Nineveh was of a temporary duration, which we can confirm by reading the prophecy of Nahum. He was a later prophet who predicted certain judgments for Nineveh, And the citizens of Nineveh in Jonah's day they were spared. But less than a century later the city was destroyed by God. But the genuine repentance through Jonah's message brought a reprieve from God's judgment, though later years the inhabitants evidently returned to their former ways of wickedness. There is an obvious lesson in this book of Jonah. that we may learn about the value of repentance. First, even with repentant Jonah, and then the repentant Ninevites. These things were written aforetime, were written for our learning. The Spirit of God is written in Romans fifteen and verse four. And the great value of repentance is clearly emphasized with Jonah as well as with the city of Nineveh. Jonah was an individual. And today God anxiously awaits individual sinners to repent. But let me direct each listener to consider the words of the beloved Apostle Paul in Acts seventeen and verse thirty, as well as in thirty-one, partly. God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. My beloved, it's a long time since the city of Nineveh came under the judgment and the sentence of God. But may I point out from the words of the Apostle Paul that God is now commanding not one city, but all men everywhere to repent. In view of the fact there is a divine appointment that in a certain day he will judge the world and he will judge it by the appointed man that he's ordained, and that is Christ. My unsafe sinner, did you ever seriously consider that you will someday give an account of your life and you will face God in regard to your sins? Now God commands all mankind to turn away from their sins. genuinely forsake them, and in contrition and godly repentance, seek his mercy now, rather than meet a righteous and a holy God in eternal judgment, where there can be no escape from the inevitable and the eternal consequences of your sins. God, through the death of his beloved Son, commends you to repent, and he is commending his redeeming grace and matchless love and his mercy toward you. Listen to the words of Romans chapter five and verse eight. God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Well, has the Christian poet put the writing of this truth regarding the death of Christ upon the cross by saying of that death and of that cross? Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. My beloved unsaid sinner friend, why do you not sincerely, genuinely repent of your sins? Put your faith in the blessed person of the Son of God and in the redemptive work that he has done upon the cross, when God placed upon him the judgment of sin on your behalf and upon my behalf, and upon believing, God offers to give the forgiveness of sins to all who come to him through Christ. And then, in view of a city and even a nation, when wicked and corrupt practices of a nation are genuinely repented of, God will certainly refrain from visiting with divine judgments. But let it be clearly understood that if the city or the nation is not repented, his judgments will fall and destruction will be executed. This is a principle for the nation, for a city, as well as for the whole world. For when leaders in highest office of governmental responsibility, revealed by their personal conduct, moral corruption, likewise the majority of the people follow the same pernicious practices, violence and corruption openly break out as a cancer, and with cancerous moral sores, then how can we but recognize we must be upon the precipice offcoming divine judgment, unless the nation follows the example of Nineveh and repents? My beloved, our nation needs to repent. But God is much more anxious to bless them than he is to judge and destroy them. But how many care about this fact today? Oh my beloved radio friend, the Holy Spirit, is still seeking to work and bring you to repentance. that you might be saved. Do not hesitate. Come as you are, come as you now are. Come now and receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Repent and believe the gospel for his name's sake. Father, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, sanctify and magnify thy word to thine eternal glory with eternal blessing. In Jesus' name, amen.