Judah's societal decay mirrored contemporary issues, highlighting a nation's critical choice between repentance and destruction. The sermon draws parallels between ancient Judah's corruption—including rampant idolatry, materialism, and social breakdown—and modern society's struggles with cults, excessive wealth, and moral decline. It emphasizes that God offers a path to restoration through repentance and seeking Him, as exemplified by the conditional promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14. The message concludes by urging believers to be the righteous salt and light in their communities, impacting society through personal faithfulness and prayer, much like Jonah's impact on Nineveh.
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on Christ's second coming. It's an exciting topic, and we have a lot to share with you concerning Christ's second coming. There's more said in the Bible about his second coming than there is his first coming as far as prophecies in the Old Testament are concerned. So we look forward to seeing you out, and if you have a friend, bring that friend along as well. Now take your Bible this morning and open to Isaiah... And we're going to be looking at chapters one through three. Isaiah chapters one through three. Now you don't know it that while I've been sitting on the platform, I've been reading a sign every session as we've been singing.
And the sign is down here under my feet, and that's why you can't see it. And the sign says this, pray for our president, pray for our country, and pray for those in authority. Now, I'm sure this sign is brought out from time to time, but that's right down here under my feet. And we are to pray for our country. In fact, we have a national day of prayer in May, and maybe you've heard about it and participated in it, and maybe you have a day of prayer here on the complex from time to time as well.
And we pray and been asked to pray for our country and call the nation back to repentance and acknowledge our dependence on God. Well, Isaiah had the same clarion call as well to the household of Judah. And you'll remember in Isaiah chapter six that the prophet was called and God said, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And you remember that Isaiah said, here am I, send me. And he picked up the commission to go and tell his people, but sad to say, he would tell them about repenting, coming back to God, but they would not listen, and God already warned the prophet that they would not heed his call.
Well, Judah was pretty corrupt in that day, and you can read about it here. It's religious corruption, it's political corruption, it's social corruption, and it's like reading our daily newspapers. Many of the same things that were being manifested in Judah are being manifested in our country today. And Judah had a choice to make, and that's the topic we want to speak on. A nation needs to make a choice. And well, let me tell you what I'm not saying this morning. I'm not saying that we're putting together God and country.
That's not what I am saying. I'm not saying today that America is in prophecy. But what I am saying, there are similarities of what took place in Judah and brought her down that are taking place in our society today. And Judah had a choice to make. I think this nation has a choice to make as well. Now, there are a number of points that I want to bring out this morning. And the first point we want to see is the sorted direction that Judah was going. And right here in Isaiah chapter two, beginning with verse six, we notice that there were worthless cults passing through the land.
Therefore, thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of foreigners. Customs from the east were inundating their country. I don't know if you realize it today, but there are some twenty-five hundred to three thousand Eastern philosophical religious systems that have inundated this country. You've all heard of the Moonies with Sun, Moon, Transcendental Meditation, Gurus, and Bhagwams in Oregon.
And you've heard also of Spiritism. There's Spiritism all over the TV today. And the occult is growing, Satanism is growing in this country. In fact, there is the Psychic Friends Network that you can tune into on your TV. And for a price, they will give you a reading. You say, well, that doesn't apply to us, brother, we don't watch that stuff, and we're not into that. But much of the country watches that and is into that. There are sixty million people in our society caught up in the occult.
And another sixty million people that dabble in the occult. And many Christians, it might surprise you, read the horoscope in the newspaper or the astrology chart. Statistics tell us that ten percent of those who claim to be evangelical read such things. And fifty-five percent of the young people between the age of thirteen and eighteen are dabbling in the occult. And if this is not rectified and changed, you're going to see this growing throughout the country. We are inundated with cultic people and the occult in our society.
So was it the case in Judah. Now there's a second thing, and it's mentioned here in verse seven, not only were worthless cults in the land, but they were a wealthy country. Notice verse seven. Their land also is full of silver and gold. Neither is there any end of their treasures. Their land is also full of horses. Neither is there any end of their chariot. Now you say, what's wrong with that? They have a little gold, a little silver, a little shekels in your pocket, and, well, what was Judah to do? Israel was not to multiply unto themselves three things, horses, wives, and silver in gold in abundance.
And that's brought out very clearly in the law in Deuteronomy chapter seventeen. But here you have Israel is gathering together well. Well, we're a very wealthy country. You know, today we are building homes not around the kitchen or the dining room or the living room. We are building our houses around what is called great rooms. Have you ever gone to look at a new house or to buy a house and you see they got this great room and right in the middle of the house is this big family room and everything centers in on that and usually they're building it so you can have an entertainment center, a huge TV screen with stereophonic music playing all throughout that room and the house.
We are building houses for entertainment today, not just to live in. Well, I guess there's nothing wrong with that if you have everything in balance. But often, as I travel and I stay with a family, I'll go up to the bedroom and they'll have a five-inch color TV there just in case I want to entertain myself a little. Then I come down to the kitchen for breakfast, and they have a twelve-inch color TV there so they can watch Good Morning America. And then I go into the family room, and there's this huge twenty-six to sixty-four inch TV in case we want to watch something in living big color, I guess.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but I do think it shows where our priorities are sometimes. We are a wealthy country, believe it or not. All you have to do is look at the stock market today, all time high yesterday, right? Again, people making a lot of money. But when you travel around the world, you really see how poor many, many other people are. Well, Judah was a wealthy country as well. There's a third similarity here as well, and that is the worship of idols. Notice verse eight. Their land also is full of idols.
They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Here was a people who had rebelled against God. Here's a people who had rejected God's program and set up their own religious ritual that was offering idols but not with the right spirit and attitude and in the proper way that God had desired for them to do. Here is a people that were away from God. They were setting up idols. And we know when Solomon was ruling and reigning, he married many women from other countries and let them bring their gods into the land.
And all you have to do is read the prophets and you see that they spoke out about the idolatry of this people. You say, well, Brother Levi, we just don't worship idols in this country like silver and gold idols. No, we have other types of idols. We worship people. We worship TV stars and we worship music people. You know what amazes me? You could have somebody come into your church and have a meeting and preach the Word of God and you'll get a remnant of people out. You mention a famous vocalist or music group coming and they pack it out.
And it shows, I think, sometimes where our priorities are. Often we're more interested in being entertained as Christians than hearing the preaching of the word. Now, I know that's not you folks, but that's some of the others out there in the church, you see. But we worship people. We worship a position. We worship prestige. We worship pleasure. And we worship possessions in this country. You don't think so. You just go to another society that doesn't have electricity and has to go out and gather wood and water just to have a fire and to brew a cup of coffee.
And you see how out of it we feel. Well, up in the New England states, the electricity went off for a number of days, and I'm sure they felt out of it as well. We are more materialistic in this country than we really realize. Now, in Judah, they were worshiping these things. They were in a weakened condition as well. Look at chapter one in verses five and six. It says near the end of verse five, the whole head is sick. The whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, even under the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
They were in a sick, weakened condition, no soundness in them, and this is the medical chart of Judah. I think you would agree with me as we read the newspaper and watch TV news and hear what's going on in our area, no matter whether it's Canada or the United States, we sense that society is sick. Society is in desperate need of the Lord Jesus Christ and sound leadership that can guide it in godly principles. Whether that's going to come about, we do not know, but that is what the need is.
Now, God was going to call Judah to gather together with him and discuss the situation, and he was going to give them a warning to contemplate here. And notice verses eighteen through twenty of chapter one. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Now we use this verse when we're witnessing to somebody and trying to bring them to the Lord and telling them if you repent of your sin, you know, God's going to clean you up.
He's going to make you clean. Let's reason together. In the context here, God is reasoning with Judah. And he's saying in a sense, let's sit down around the table and let's discuss your situation. He says, if you repent, well, you see, here's what's going to be the situation. You will be cleansed. You will be put back on the right road. We can have a proper relationship. But he says here, If you don't repent in verse nine, if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But then if you don't do that, if you refuse and rebel, he's saying in verse twenty, what's going to happen?
Well, the sword of the mouth of the Lord has spoken at it. You are going to be devoured by the sword. So in essence what he's saying is, come, sit down, let's reason together, repent of your sin, be willing to do that, but if you rebel, then the sword is going to fall upon you. Now, what are some of the signs of decay that was taking place in Judah? That's the second point I want to bring out this morning. In chapter three, you see the signs of decay. In verse one, God says he's going to remove bread and water.
For behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, hath taken away from Jerusalem, from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water. Now these are the symbols of survival. They are the staff of life, bread and water. You say, well, he hasn't taken away the water from Florida, at least not this week. We got water all over the place. Yes, that's true. But God is able to take away water. I live in the Chicago area. We have about eight million people living in the area. And many of the wells in the suburbs have gone dry.
But the people are not worried. We got Lake Michigan there, plenty of fresh water. And so... They buy it from the city of Chicago and it's piped out. Well, that's the Chicago area. There are some places in California where they have run out of fresh water as well, and it has to be piped all the way from Colorado. And in some areas, the wells have dried up. on the farm. I've been in Indiana where I see this big tanker out in front. The well has dried up and they have to bring their water in and have a tanker filled up just to have water. And the water is being polluted.
I know they're cleaning the water up in some areas, but as time goes on, it could be a real problem. You say, well, we have plenty of bread in this country. Yes, we do. But if God can allow an El Nino to pass by and upset the situation where we live, he can send a drought. There have been times of drought. And there might come a day when we don't have the bread in this country that we need. God can remove it. He removed the staff of bread and water from Judah.
There's the removal of leaders as well in verses two and three. You'll notice the civil leaders would be removed, judges, the ancient, the honorable man, the counselor, the prudent. How about military leaders, mighty man, man of war, captain of fifty? And then what about the industrial leaders? He would remove the skilled craftsmen. Now, God was going to remove all these people. I don't know about your house, but I look at my car and I drive a Honda and a Subaru.
We have two Japanese cars. I look at my radio and it says Sony on the front of it. I look at my VCR and it says Mishabishi on the front of it. I look at my computer and it says Toshiba on the front of it. And everything I have in my house is Japanese, laced in the electronic area. And why do I buy those? Why don't I buy American? because I bought some American products from time to time and often they didn't hold up. And so I researched out and found out that these products were reliable.
They last longer. And I think a lot of Americans have done that. Where is the skilled craftsman? Well, they're bringing him back in this country now just to be able to compete. and in the past we found that quality control wasn't there. But now it's coming back in many of the products. Oh, I also have a GE refrigerator and dishwasher and oven, so I have a few American products. But the point is there came a time when the skilled craftsman was passing off the scene. That was happening in Judah. God also removed another very important person here in verse number two.
It says right in the middle of the verse that he would remove the prophet. Now, I don't agree with everybody I hear on radio and TV. That's for sure. And sometimes I say, no, that's not right. That's not teaching the Word of God right. No, I don't agree with that. But I'm glad that they have the freedom in this country to be able to proclaim their message about Jesus. And someday the opportunity might not be there. The radio waves might not be open to us. The TV Avenue might not be open to us to be able to preach the Word of God.
Be thankful for the voice out there that is saying, Thus saith the Lord today, and warning this country. There would come a day when God would remove the prophet in Judah. Hopefully that day will not come to this country. Now, in verse four, we see here that he would replace leadership in Judah with incompetent rulers. It says here, children, and that means youngsters in Hebrew, would be their rulers. And it says here, babes, and that literally is pranksters, would rule over them.
Often a nation gets the kind of leadership they deserve. And when a nation receives incompetent leadership, remember... that God is allowing that because they deserve that type of leadership. You remember Israel, and we were talking about this the other day with some folks, Israel, all the kings were wicked, evil kings in the ten tribes. Why? Because they had broken off from Judah, set up their own worship. in Ephraim and Dan, and it was not the Lord's will, and raised up for leadership were wicked men in that context.
Now Judah at least had a few men who ruled that were righteous men, tried to put idolatry out of the land, Josiah, Hezekiah, but they had many wicked kings as well. So often a nation will receive incompetent leadership. If you have a mayor who is trying to do right and ruling well or a governor, be thankful because it's not that way throughout the country as you well know. Now there is another thing here mentioned in verse five, the rebellion of the people.
people would be oppressed by their neighbors. Is that happening in our area? Well, you say, no, not in my area. We live in a small town. We know our neighbors and they're great. Well, that might be the case, but our areas throughout the country that that's just not the case. Why do you think people are moving into gated communities today? Hmm? to escape the crime problem in their area. There's a self-centeredness, a selfishness running throughout the country. Everyone seems to want to do that which is right in their own eyes, and that was the situation in Judah that day.
Violent crime is up some five hundred and sixty percent in the last thirty years. And let me give you a few statistics. statistics. There's a burglary every twenty seconds, a larceny every thirty seconds, a car theft every forty-eight seconds, an assault every two and a half minutes, a rape every nineteen minutes, and a murder in this country every forty-three minutes. Are you like me? I turn on the news to get the news, but I get everything else but the news. I don't want to know how many murders or who was murdered or who robbed whom and all that we get on the news.
We don't want to hear that, but that's what we're getting today on our local newscast. I've been robbed three times in the last twenty-five years. I was robbed just before I came with the Friends of Israel. Somebody just knocked out my window pane and unlatched the door with one of those just little knobs and walked in and took an old black and white TV and left. So I moved further out in the suburbs of Chicago. I moved out to Lockport, Illinois. I almost lived in the country. Went to mail a letter. Had to go five miles just to the post office every day, pick up my mail, mail a letter.
Came back, eleven-thirty in the afternoon. I noticed my front door was unlocked. I walked in, somebody had taken another black and white TV, taken some jewelry, and had left right in the middle of the day out in the country. You think it only happens in the urban area? Think again, it happens in the rural areas as well. So I was up in northern Illinois, up by the Wisconsin border, and I was speaking at church, staying with a couple. We went out to dinner and came back, and wouldn't you know, somebody broke into his house and stole his gun collection and his coin collection.
But my wife had some jewelry up on the dresser, and they knew just what to take and what to leave. I don't know how they know that, but they know that. He even got robbed in a preacher's house one time. So you never know today, is it going to get any better in this country? I rather doubt it as time goes on. This was the condition of Judah. Now, what about the rebellion of young people? Well, look at verse twelve in chapter three. Children are their oppressors living in a permissive society.
with a lot of peer pressure. And that was taking place in Judah. Same thing is taking place here. The number one criminal in the United States is a young person between the age of fifteen and twenty. Just some other statistics, illegitimate births are up four hundred and nineteen percent in the last thirty years. Teenage suicide up two hundred percent in the last thirty years single parent homes growing thirty eight percent at the present time latchkey kids two million across the country they come home and there's no parent there they got a key and they let themselves in mom and dad are out working or moms out working four hundred and fifty thousand adolescent alcoholics in our country today two million young people run away to the big city like minneapolis or chicago or new york or los angeles and we have problems with young people unless there is the heralding of the gospel to them and seeing them saved and
a turnaround what will society be like another thirty years From now, if the Lord does not come back. If I were to say to you thirty years ago, do you think we will be facing problems like this? Or better yet, if I preached this thirty years ago and said, this is what's going to be the case in nineteen ninety-eight, a lot of you would have listened and probably not said much, but walked out and said, oh, well, Brother Levy doesn't know quite what he's talking about. But look what has happened to the morality, the family life in our society.
But it was not new. It was happening in Judah, twenty-seven hundred years earlier. The people got so bad that there was no body to lead. They were in a rulerless society. Notice verses six and seven. when a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, let this ruin be under thy hand. And how will he respond? And that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be a healer, for in my house is neither bread nor clothing.
Make me not a ruler of the people. It'll get so bad in Judah that nobody wants to take charge and try to set things in order and take the leadership to rule. Well, it hasn't come to that in our country, and it might not come to that. But may I remind you that there was a city and a country on the Mediterranean coast called Lebanon and Beirut. It was called the Pearl of the Middle East. You had Islamic people living there. You had Christians of sort from the Eastern Church living there.
There seemed to be peace there. And then you'll remember that there came a day when all anarchy broke loose. And they would put one person leader, and he'd be put down very quickly. And it got so that the whole country was destroyed and our anarchy ruled and they could get nobody that would be an acceptable ruler that had power. And so the Assyrians came in and control and set up leadership in that country. Now, I'm not saying that that could happen here.
It happened in Judah. and it's happened to other countries throughout our world. But that's how bad it got in this situation. Well, those are some of the signs of decay, but there's a third point that I want you to see here, and that's the sins of destruction. The people were polluted. Notice verses eight and nine. For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of His glory. Isn't that a sad commentary?
I mean, here's a people of God. Receive such revelation. Have the temple of the living God on Mount Moriah right in the midst of the people and are able to enjoy God. But yet their tongue and their doings, their whole lifestyle, was against the law, was against God. And they had set aside the revelation of God, whether it became commonplace or whether the idolatry in the land grabbed their heart, I know not.
But here was a people of God that had turned away from Him. I think things are changing in the church today in our country as well. Oh, not in your churches. I'm talking about other churches throughout the country. I've already mentioned that to get the heralding of the good news of the gospel and the expositing of the Word of God, in some places you have to go pretty far before you'll hear a solid biblical message. And what they're putting in place often is acting out the gospel. What they're putting in place are music programs.
What they're putting in place are homilies, short messages, a little thought, some conversational preaching. The man will come down and talk and give you a little homily. And what we find is they're not wanting the proclamation of the Word of God. and we're turning out a group of people that are weak spiritually now that is not in your group I realize that but that is in some other groups that I that I go to preach it now there is another thing that would take place that would pollute the people and notice verse number nine the show of their countenance thus witness against them and they declare their sin.
Now notice, like Sodom, they hide it not. They declare their sin like Sodom. What do we see manifested in our society today? Hmm? I really don't have to say much about that, but homosexuality, they're coming out of the closet, as they say, trying to get recognition and rights so that in even this area things are changing. God judged Sodom and Gomorrah very severely, and this could be the straw that breaks the camels back in time.
If this is allowed... to be manifested in our society. And the show of their countenance does witness against them. It's all out there paraded in their dress, in their look. This was taking place in Judah. And then the poor were plundered in verse fourteen. It says here, the spoil of the poor in your house. They were misusing, mistaxing, and abusing the poor. But here's another situation as well. Look at verse twelve, the political situation. Women rule over them. It seems like women were coming to the forefront and ruling over them.
That's one interpretation of this. Or another possibility is that effeminate men, like women, were coming to the floor and ruling in that society. And this was a thing that was totally against God's plan and program for Judah. Well, I've been standing up here for twenty-five minutes and painting a very, very negative, negative picture. Is there any positive word in all of this negativism? Yes, there is. and society can be delivered.
God is saying, Judah, you do not have to remain in that situation. And right in the middle of chapter three, we have here a positive word in verse ten. Say to the righteous, it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. even though the righteous man lives in a corrupt society, if he does right and lives right before God, God will honor that and he will be able to eat the fruit of his doings. It's very important that we manifest a lifestyle different from the world in our attitudes, in our actions, in our look, and let that be known.
You know, when you're different in society, not because you're trying to be different, just because you're spending time with the Lord and your whole lifestyle is godly, that speaks volumes to your society. You walk into a room, the people right away know you're different. And if you're with that people for very long, you will have an opportunity to share with them why you are different. you will be able to manifest the Word of God and let them know that there is a different lifestyle out there and if they come to Jesus Christ they can have what you have.
Well, is there any hope for Judah? Let me just say restoration of Israel did not rely upon government. They didn't have the answer. Didn't rely upon education. That was not the answer. Didn't rely upon urban renewal. That was not the answer. Didn't rely upon social rehabilitation of man. That was not the answer. But the remedy was the righteous. They were the key to the restoration of Judah. If the righteous people would do right. You say, well, you know, I'm just one somebody.
What can I just one somebody do? Remember Abraham started praying for Sodom and Gomorrah? And he said, if I find only ten righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, he would spare them. I think if we begin to pray, God can make changes. Do you know there are enough born-again believers that if they really meant business to pray for this nation, pray for their local area, pray for their schools. I think God would move and do. Now there is a formula given specifically to Judah in the Word of God, and you know it well.
It's not given to the United States. It's not given to Europe. It's not given to Canada. But it is given to Judah. But I think we can apply the principles, and you know it well. Second Chronicles, chapter seven, verse fourteen. And here's the key to revival for Judah. The relationship. If my people, who are called by my name, if my people mean business, God says, I'll mean business with them. And here are the requirements. First of all, submit to God. Humble yourself. No more this me-ism.
I'm going to humble myself before God. And then supplicating prayers. Pray. Pray for the city. Pray for your state. Pray for your providence. Pray for your country. And seek the Lord. Seek my face. That takes consecration. That takes effort. That takes time. and then separation as well here. Turn from their wicked ways. And that's the key. First of all, revival starts with us. We must get before God. Pray, put sin under the blood, and make sure that when we do pray, we pray before God with a cleansed life, humble before Him, separated from sin.
And then how will God respond? Well, it says in Second Chronicles seven, fourteen, God will hear. That means he bends his ear down from heaven towards the prayer of the individual. God hears everything. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient. He hears everything, but he takes special notice. And he will heed. He says, forgive their sin. He would purge Judah from their sin. and heal their land, he would bring spiritual healing to this people. Now, we have no guarantee that God would do that in this country.
This was given to Judah. But I believe that if a group of people mean business, just like Park of the Palm, start praying for your area around here. You don't know what God would do. You don't know that God might not do a unique, special thing in ministering to the people outside of these walls and bringing people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And your area could start to change. Well, I'm asked often, Brother Levy, do you find the United States in prophecy? And I have to say, no, I do not find the United States mentioned in prophecy.
They say, well, what's going to happen to the United States? I say, I don't know, really, to be very honest with you. But here are some possibilities. Might be that we're not even here as a country when the tribulation begins. We might be destroyed from within. We might be destroyed by an outside power. Just because we're a superpower today doesn't mean that's going to last very long. We might decide to be an isolationist nation. We've got a black eye from trying to police the world so many years that we might say, hey, let somebody else do it in Western Europe. The United States of Europe, when it gets its act together, might step in.
Or we might be identified with the Western Confederacy of Nations ideologically and militarily, but not mentioned in prophecy, because the United States wasn't a nation when the prophecy was written. I really don't know what's going to happen to the United States, but while we're living in this day and age, and it's the age of grace, I think we need to do all that we can with our freedom to bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that could have an impact upon the area that we live now and for the next generation as well, if the Lord doesn't rapture away the church.
You say again, well, what can I just want somebody to do? You know, I can't get around. Do you have a telephone, by the way? You could just take your telephone directly and start calling people, you know, especially around Resurrection Day. I don't like to call it Easter, but around Resurrection Day, you could start calling people and say, you know, it's Resurrection Day coming up soon. We remember the Lord, by the way. Do you read your Bible? Do you read the resurrection story? And you could start just encouraging people to read their Bibles. You could, of your own, just put a little message in the local paper and say, do you want a good message?
Call this number. And what would happen? They call up and say, what's the good message? The good message is, you just say, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, the whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, and just go right through the plan of salvation. You know what they say? They say, is this a recording? And you say, no, I'm here. Oh, oh, yeah. But you could lead people to the Lord just over the phone by developing a ministry. Get before the Lord. See how you can impact your society. We have a choice, too, to bring our nation to Jesus Christ. Let me give you an example in closing.
Take Jonah. Jonah didn't even have a complete Bible, did he? Jonah didn't have advertisement in the newspaper that he was coming, did he? Jonah didn't have some PR men going before him and setting up the meetings that he was going to go and preach through Nineveh, did he? He didn't have anything. What did he have? Well, he had, first of all, the call of God on his life. Then, second, he had a commission from the Lord. And then, third... He had the Spirit of God that came upon him, and he went to Nineveh after some persuasion, and he just went through that city and just said, Repent, repent, repent.
And the king got down off his throne, put on sackcloth and ashes, and the people did likewise, and God spared that nation for a hundred years. And Jonah didn't want to go. You know why? He wanted them to get judgment. Because they were brutal. They were one of the most brutal nations in the world, Assyria. But God loved that people. God loves the people outside these doors. Jesus died so that they might come to know him as Savior. Let's impact our society.
Well, the sign reads down here. Pray for our country, our president, and all in authority. Now, it must have been put there for some reason. Will you take that challenge and pray for a nation you have a choice. Let's pray that God would spare us and give us more time, if it be His will, to herald the good news of the gospel to men and women so we can see them in the body of Christ. Father, we thank you for a man like Isaiah. who stood in the gap in his day, suffered greatly for his witness for so many generations under many kings, but he was faithful to the task even till the end.
We pray that we might be found faithful, Father, in the task that you've set before us, and that we might herald the good news of the gospel to our family, our friends, and those out there side that we rub shoulders with. Even today, as those go to the shopping center, maybe there'll be an opportunity to share the word. Or they sit down there at the shopping center. Somebody sit next to them. Maybe there'll be an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel or to share a track. Pray that you'll use each one of us in this day. In Jesus' name.