Beloved radio friends, we greet you in the precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, and give you a hearty welcome to the concluding message on the book of Jonah. We have covered this book of Jonah chapter by chapter, and I wonder if many of our friends may have noticed the seeming abrupt ending of this prophecy. But we must not forget to realize It is by divine inspiration that Jonah wrote this book, and he did not spare what we have found within it, the unpleasant revelation of his own selfish character and his disobedient heart. For this we should be grateful. The fact that without sparing his servants from the exposure of their own failures, God has written the Bible, thus proving the divine glory of the book, that it is his true and living word. For if the Bible was only human in its origin, the glaring sins and the failures of the people of God would undoubtedly have been veiled and unrecorded rather than revealed. But the Bible in its written revelation does not fail to write the words of truth concerning men, even in their full character, whether it be grace or whether it be men's failures. Even the saints have their failures recorded in the Word of God, and we find with those failures God's accompanying judgment and his correction. So we believe the Bible is the word of the living God, and so it is with the book of Jonah, that it is the word of God in spite of the failures recorded of his servant. The Hebrew scholars of all would not omit this prophecy from the Old Testament, and it has its place, and it always will. Now we have learned from this book And without apology, we repeat it in order that the teaching of each chapter might be remembered by our friends. We have learned in chapter one, Jonah was a disobedient prophet, fleeing from the Lord and finding himself in the midst of a great storm. Now here is a lesson we should remember. The lesson that disobedience is not the pathway of blessing. or any others. But it will lead us into the storms of trouble. May that be remembered by each one. In chapter two, we saw the chastened prophet. We found him praying to the Lord inside the great fish. How the believer should be reminded that in times of chastening, no matter the circumstances, we should ever realize that whatsoever they are, while we are in them, while we pass through them, we too can pray to God. And in contrition, repentance, we can look for his deliverance out of those circumstances of trial. We again repeat the words of Psalm fifty and verse fifteen. Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will answer thee. and thou shalt glorify me, saith the Lord. And even as Jonah prayed at the close of his prayer in chapter two, verse nine, so may we declare salvation is of the Lord. In chapter three, we learned of the successful prophet when Jonah was speaking for the Lord in that great city of Nineveh. He had been chastened, but he had been restored and he was now recommissioned by God to go to Nineveh and give God's message. And when the believer is chastened and restored, God will use him or her. Jonah's success was undoubtedly phenomenal when the whole city repented and turned from their evil to God. All that you and I could realize if we are the children of God, we may speak for the Lord and God will bless. what we do and say for him. In chapter four we have noted that Jonah was the instructed prophet. He had to learn one of the greatest lessons that any of us can learn from God. Learning to know something of God's love, of God's pity, of God's compassion, the greatness of his loving heart, and a heart that loves a world of sinful men. The last words in the book of Jonah in the opening of verse eleven declare these words. God saying, And should not I spare Nineveh that great city? This is the greatest teaching in the book of Jonah in the words of the New Testament. Why think of the words of Peter when he writes in second Peter chapter three and verse nine, God is long suffering toward us. not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. We have stated in the story of Jonah, there was approximately six hundred thousand and more souls in Nineveh. But you try, counting the millions of souls that are in this world, and have been in the world through all the ages, the present millions upon the earth today. The great heart of God longs to save them from an eternal hell, The great heart of God is given His only Son to die for every one of them upon Calvary in order that they may obtain salvation, through and by the eternal value of the sacrifice and the death of His dear Son. God's love fully reveals that every soul, pressing stubbornly on toward a lost eternal hell, must go to that lost eternity, neglecting the great love of God, and rejecting his great salvation. Well, did the prophet or the apostle write in the book of Hebrews, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? When Christ, his beloved Son, was upon the cross, in the words of the weeping prophet Jeremiah, we can hear him say these words, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, Behold and see if there be any sorrow, lie unto my sorrow, which Jehovah hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger. O beloved, dear Jonah, hath to learn the greatest of all lessons, the love of God for a perishing city, and you and I should learn the greater lesson, the love of God for a perishing world. God loves, God pities, in tenderest compassion, the hearts, the lives, and the souls of his creatures. Oh, my sinner friend, you may go on your way now, but you will have to pass by his love. You will have to pass by his pity. You will have to pass by his mercy. You will have to pass by and reject his compassion. My beloved, may we not plead with you, and though we do not preach the same message of Jonah, though we warn of coming judgment, But we preach of a cross. We preach of Calvary. We bid you take a look at Calvary and stop at the cross. Don't go by that cross. Don't pass it by lightly, but stop before that cross. And will you not say in the words of the poet, On the cross for me, on the cross for me, see him hanging there in agony. Jesus paid the price. himself the sacrifice on the cross for me. May I quote these words, God speaking them through his servant Paul in Romans eight, verse thirty-two. God spared not his son, but freely gave him up for us all. Oh, my radio friend, we have noted that God spared Nineveh. But when you and I think of his redemption in Christ, may we not be reminded He did not spare his son. God spared not his son, but freely gave him up for his all. My radio friend, all the punishment for your sins and mine, God placed upon his son. He did not spare that blessed son one stroke of judgment. All the full penalty he bore upon that cross. He bore our sins in his own body upon the tree Peter has written. and in order that you, and in order that I might be spared an eternal death from an eternal hell. Oh, beloved, if God could spare Nineveh, will you not recognize He wants to spare you the judgment, the penalty, the sufferings of an eternal hell? This is God's love toward the whole world, and you and I who are Christians, We have the privilege, we have the responsibility, we may have the joy of telling it out, that God loves the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. Salvation then, at highest cost, He offers free to all. And we must indeed declare, sin a friend, you must believe it. Nineveh believed, from the youngest to the oldest, from the king on the throne to the peasant in the land, Ninib believed the word of God. Oh, my sinner, friend, that's all God asked you to do. Believe the record that God has given of his son, that that son died to save you upon the cross of Calvary. Believe it. Sinner receive it. God's love is ever seeking to save all, whose all rightly doomed to eternal punishment will come to him. Oh, how we can give praise and thanks to God. to his holy name. God is not narrow-minded. God is not narrow-hearted, like mankind may be around us. He has shown his pity. He has shown his compassion. He has manifested his love. He can never do any more, and any better than he has already done, by giving his only begotten Son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting light. The old, old story of Jesus and his love. This is the story. Dear Jonah, have to learn. God loved not the sins of the Ninevites, but he loved the sinners that were in the city of Nineveh. God loves the world of sinners, but he doesn't love their sins. And my radio friend, God loves you. May God, in his mercy, and by the power of his Spirit, bring you to Christ to receive him as your Savior, before it may be eternally too late. Granted, it will never be a lost eternity to which you will go. May you, too, repent, believe the gospel, and be saved. Father, we pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus, by his grace, by his power, through the Holy Spirit, the truth of his word. Many souls will repent and turn to the Saviour today, for it is named Saint Amen.