[00:00:00] Speaker A: I now can sing Since I've been redeemed I'm on the everlasting everlasting rock I faith in Christ my redeemer king I'm on the everlasting everlasting rock Then row, row, pillows war cease the whole world lives in peace Bitterness and hatred fade away foes talk the whole world walks the walk that's what happens when men pray when men pray when men pray the heart of God is touched when men pray as the Father's will is done the whole world can be won that's what happens when men pray Healing starts God mends our broken hearts Nobody goes to bed afraid Blind are led the hungry all are fed that's what happens when men pray when men pray when men pray the heart of God is touched when men pray as the Father's will is done the whole world can be won that's what happens when men pray.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Welcome to the Voice of Hope. I'm Anthony High, your host for today's program.
Here's a question I want you to consider.
Does God care for evil people?
Now, don't answer too quickly.
In Matthew 5:45, Jesus says, For God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
This is part of Jesus justification for teaching us to love our enemies.
But are you comfortable with the fact that God loves and cares even for those who are not good people in our opinion?
In today's program, we're going to meet the people of Nineveh.
In Jonah's opinion, they were not good people.
But how does God think of them?
Ponder this as our Bible teacher Arlen Horst leads us through our continuing study in this Old Testament Book of Jonah.
But before we get into today's program, I want to tell you about several events we're holding for our listeners during the last week of October 2025. If you would like to hear more about Heralds of Hope, I encourage you to go to our
[email protected] and click on the Events link at the top.
These events have limited space, and so please register today to reserve your spot.
Now for today, here's Arlan with today's teaching from the Book of Jonah.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Have you ever found yourself wondering if God hears?
This is a question that reaches to the core of who we are. Does God hear? Does God know?
Years ago, before I was a teenager, we had a family friend who was suffering from a brain tumor. This was one of the first things I remember praying about for an extended time. There were moments he rallied and things were looking good. Then the next week it would be the opposite. This battle continued for many months, but steadily his health declined and eventually he died.
This is one of my first memories that caused me to ask, does God know? Is he even listening? I had prayed so many times for him. Did God even hear? Did God even care?
I'm guessing you don't have to think very long till you remember a similar story from your life. Events like this turn us inward and we ask big questions. I'm guessing you have also experienced the opposite. Have you ever casually asked God for help with a small request and bam. It happens. It feels like you didn't even officially pray for it. And there it was, just like you wish for. This of course makes us wonder if we prayed wrong for months and months, if the three second prayer was answered just like that.
What do we have to do to replicate the answer to the 3 second prayer so our other prayers get answered?
It's a privilege to be with you today as we continue our fascinating look into the Book of Jonah. Thanks for being there.
Some books of the Bible just grab hold of us and refuse to let us go. Accounts that ring true down through the centuries, each generation being impacted by the profound message. The book of Jonah is such a book. Imagine the countless sermons which had been preached from its pages. And if the Lord tarries, many more will come.
We are but a small blip on the span of time.
Yet here we are digging into this part of scripture and hearing God's spirit speak to us through his living words.
The Bible is so incredible and praise God we have access to its life changing message today. Let's go to the city of Nineveh and see what's going on inside its walls. Remember, this is a great city. It's very big and very wicked. The Ninevites were Assyrians. These were the same Assyrians who later conquered the northern tribes of Israel. Remember the awesome story of sennacherib? He lost 185,000 of his army in one night.
He was an Assyrian. Here in chapter three, believe it or not, Jonah finally makes it to Nineveh and begins preaching. Surprisingly, this terrible wicked city experiences the incredible life changing mercy of God.
They cried out to God and he responds.
Somehow these wicked people get God's attention and he hears them. He listens.
I want you to know God responded to the Ninevites so that we approach God the same way.
What did the Ninevites do to get God's attention? As we look at chapter three, I see Four things they did, which we still need to do today.
Don't think of these things as once and done actions. These are actions that are continuing, present, progressive action words, each of them ending in ing, showing us how to come before God. Hear me correctly, these four things show us how to approach God. I'm not saying if we do these things, God will answer every prayer like we want him to.
However, if we come before God like the Ninevites, we will accept God's answer to our prayers. If you can, follow along as I read Jonah. Chapter 3 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three day journey in extent.
And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk.
Then he cried out and said, Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
So the people of Nineveh believed God proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
Then word came to the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily to God. Yes, let every one turn from his evil way and and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them. And he did not do it.
Notice how there at the beginning, God described Nineveh as a great city. This wasn't an exaggeration from Jonah. This was God's description. Nineveh was significant and vast. This kingdom was marked by evil and violence. Their reputation for cruelty endures to this day. It was to this city that God first called Jonah to go and preach. We remember Jonah's initial rebellion, his attempt to flee from God's command.
But in chapter three we see a different Jonah. He actually listens. He arose, he got up, no longer going down, he is finally getting up. And he obeyed Good job, Jonah. Nineveh was not a port city. So if the fish vomited him up on the Mediterranean shore, he still had a long journey to go. Do you think he was tempted to change his mind as he made the trip?
I'm not sure what he was feeling, but we know he didn't change his mind. He made the trip to Nineveh and begins to preach.
Imagine Jonah emerging from the belly of the great fish after three days in the stomach.
What must have he looked like? What effect would that have on his skin and his hair?
Perhaps his complexion contributed to the power of his preaching.
Or perhaps, as God often does, maybe he validated Jonah's preaching with other supernatural events, like an eclipse or extreme weather. Whatever the circumstance, Jonah is preaching to Nineveh.
I had to wonder how he started. Did he go to the shopping mall or where everyone was buying and selling?
Maybe he went to the temples where they worshiped.
And then how did the message spread?
The city I live in is around 100,000 people. All the ways I know of to get a message to everyone involve technology that I don't think existed in Nineveh. Somehow Jonah's message went viral and the whole city responds. In verse four, we have Jonah's sermon. It isn't long and complicated.
Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.
Short and to the point.
Was Jonah intentionally keeping it short and vague so the Ninevites would not respond?
While there are some who accuse Jonah of doing this, I'm guessing there was more to his sermon than this.
However, this was the main gist, and this is all we have recorded.
And what was the result? The Bible tells us that they believed God.
Jonah is the one preaching, and they believe God, not Jonah. This is where we begin to see the heart of Nineveh. Their response offers us a blueprint for how we too can approach God and experience his mercy.
The Ninevites show us the first important step. It was needed then and it's needed now. It is believing.
This is an amazing statement, especially considering who these people were.
It doesn't seem like they had lots of teaching about God. Yet here is Jonah giving this message of doom. And they believe.
But what does it mean to truly believe?
Our culture has separated belief from lifestyle. We tend to think of believing as something that takes place only in our heads. A mere intellectual agreement with a set of facts.
But here we are challenged in this shallow understanding. It is much more than that.
Belief in the biblical sense is not a passive mental exercise done in your brain. It's an Active, continuing commitment.
We must not think of it only in past tense. It's not just I believed God way back when. It needs to be I am believing God. This present progressive form is crucial. It signifies an ongoing active trust, a daily yielding to his reality and his truth.
Think about how drastic this must have been for Nineveh. This was a massive city. Jonah's message, combined perhaps with his appearance or supernatural signs, grabbed their attention. This truth shook them to their core.
Their belief wasn't just intellectual and it permeated the entire society from least to greatest.
God was definitely on the move.
This kind of widespread, genuine belief leading to national repentance was and is rare even among God's own people.
Are we today truly believing God in this active, ongoing way?
Or have we relegated belief to a historical event, something we did once, but not something we live out daily?
Let us learn from Nineveh that true belief is the foundation upon which other actions of faith are built. And let's be a people that are believing God, knowing that his word will come true.
Following their believing, the Ninevites demonstrated the second crucial action, humbling. Their humbling is shown in two powerful ways. The wearing of sackcloth and ashes and the King's act of getting off the throne.
Sackcloth and ashes were an outward sign that displayed an inner condition. There was no secret power in the cloth or the ash itself. The power lay in what these actions represented. It was a public, tangible demonstration of an inner sorrow, a recognition of their unworthiness before a holy God.
I understand the sackcloth would have been like burlap, a rough, coarse material. And if this was rubbing against your skin, it would have been a constant reminder to cry out to God. They were doomed and this was their last hope. So they didn't want to forget or take it lightly. And now imagine if everywhere you looked, you saw people like you in sackcloth and ashes, all doing it because you feared the coming destruction.
This must have been very powerful, like believing. Humbling is not a one time event, it's continuing action. It's not just that we humbled ourselves two or three times, and each of them was a long time ago.
No, as servants of God, we continually humble ourselves.
The King of Nineveh provides us with an amazing example of being humble. When the message reached him, he immediately got up off his throne and removed his royal robes. This was an incredible act of humility. This was the King, the most powerful man in Nineveh, and he humbled himself. His action shouts a clear message for all who come to can't come to God on your terms.
We must get off the throne. Think about it. It's very possible to look completely righteous on the outside, to be active in church, to say all the right things. And yet in our heart, we are still sitting on the throne. We think or say, look at me, look at all my accomplishments.
Or perhaps we think to ourselves, I can handle this addiction. No one knows. And besides, there are other things that are much worse.
In both cases, we are on the throne, asserting our control on our terms.
When we approach God, we come to him on his terms, because he alone is supreme.
The king also changed his clothes, and he, like everyone else, put on sackcloth and ashes.
Humility is a daily posture, a continuous recognition that God is God and and we are under Him. It means relinquishing control, admitting our need, and submitting to his sovereign will. The humble king then issues an incredible decree for the whole city. And this leads us to our third action.
First, they were believing. Second, they were humbling. And now the king tells them to cry mightily.
The decree to cry mightily came along with not eating or drinking and wearing sackcloth and ashes. We discussed the sackcloth and ashes. Now let's think about the fasting and crying.
The king's command was not only for people. It also affected the animals.
All should not eat or drink.
This extreme measure was designed to make everyone, from the least to the greatest, pray more. And pray with urgency.
Can you imagine the racket from the animals?
I mean, just dealing with hungry people would have been hard. Think about how you feel when you miss one meal. Tired, irritable, short tempered.
And now imagine this going on for a few days.
Now add the noise of all the hungry animals. This must have been quite something.
Explaining the fast to your children is one thing, but how do you explain the lack of food to the animals?
It doesn't say, but I had to wonder how long this fast lasted.
Fasting is a powerful spiritual reality, just as baptism is a physical action that shouts in the spirit realm. Fasting is similar.
It's very physical, yet it carries a huge impact in the spiritual world.
Is there some secret power from skipping food or whatever you choose to fast from?
No, but when we choose to deny ourselves so we can pray fervently and hold our requests before God. God notices.
In Isaiah 58, we see the Israelites skipping meals, but God wasn't listening because their hearts weren't right. In verse three, he says, on the day of fasting, you do as you please.
Fasting isn't about manipulating God.
It's about shifting our focus and aligning our spirit with His.
The lack of what we are fasting from reminds us to pray and cry out to God with our request in Matthew 6, Jesus gives further instruction on how to fast. And I like how Jesus says when you fast, he doesn't say if it's like he expects his followers to fast, then he gives clear instructions and to do it for God's attention, not man's.
Fasting isn't a magical power, but doing it to intensify your prayers and help you stay focused on your request is good.
And what about the crying mightily unto God? When was the last time you truly did this? Was it years ago when you first started walking with God? I hope not. The apostle James speaks of the fervent effectual prayer.
This is crying mightily.
Think of Peter sinking into the waves and crying out, lord save me.
This is a mighty, urgent prayer.
Prayer born of desperation, a recognition that only God can deliver.
This is more about the person praying than the circumstance we're going through.
So often I find my prayers becoming routine, apathetic and half hearted.
We can and must cry mightily about small things and big things.
It's a desperate plea from the depths of our soul. A prayer that acknowledges our utter dependence on God. The Ninevites. Crying mightily is a challenge to us.
Is your prayer time fresh, living and intense? Are we crying out to God? For he is our only option and we need Him.
This was the third action, crying mightily. And their cries were intensified by the fasting.
Finally we come to the last action. And it's one we better not miss.
Turning away.
This is the idea of repentance. To give up, to turn a complete about face.
They turned away from their evil and violence.
Remember who we're talking about.
This is the Ninevites. They had certainly done their fair share of both evil and violence. History bears witness to the terrible things they did to their enemies. Evil and violence were normal. This is who they were. So for them to turn away from it was radical. It was a huge shift. This was far more than just a mental change in their thinking. It totally affected their lifestyle. This truth resonates deeply with us now. Christianity has always been more than knowledge. Christianity must be lived. It's not enough to intellectually agree to Christian doctrine or simply know about God. True Christianity demands a transformation of our lives, a turning away from sin and towards righteousness. It's a radical shift in our conduct, our priorities and our very way of life.
The Ninevites repentance was not presumptuous or arrogant. They said, who knows, God may relent. This was not a given, and they certainly weren't demanding God's mercy. Instead, it was their only hope. They understood that if they got what they deserved, utter destruction awaited them.
And so, in their humility, they passionately ask God for His mercy.
Humble people, truly repentant hearts do not make demands of God.
This sincere, turning from their wicked ways, found favor with God. Praise the Lord. We have a God who listens. He heard their cry. As God said through the prophet Ezekiel, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
This is what God wants. He wanted this all along. The Ninevites turned from their wicked ways, and in response, God turned from the destruction he had planned. This is his desire for all people everywhere.
And so chapter three ends with a beautiful, glorious scene of God's mercy. This chapter, and indeed the whole book of Jonah, testify to God's character. He is merciful. We saw it with the sailors in chapter one, we saw it with Jonah in chapter two. And now we see it with the Ninevites, the entire city.
He's not out to destroy. His heart longs for repentance and life.
These four actions, believing, humbling, calling mightily and turning, still get God's attention and show us how to approach Him. The emphasis is on the present progressive form of these words. These actions are good to do regularly.
The question for each of us today then is are you believing, humbling, crying and turning? Are they continuing actions in your life? Or are these things you did last year or five years ago?
The Ninevites provide a powerful example for us. The message Jonah gave to Nineveh is relevant for us. Destruction is coming. Whether it's the consequences of personal sin, the trials of this broken world, or the ultimate judgment when Christ comes back.
We need his mercy and we must prepare now while we have the chance. So let's be like the Ninevites. Let's believe, embrace a living act of faith, humbling ourselves before God, crying out to him with genuine desperation and turning away from every form of evil and violence in our lives. For in doing this, we come to God on His terms and depend on him for mercy and life.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Thank you, Arlan. And thank you for tuning in for today's message on the Voice of Hope.
As I think about the question I asked at the beginning of the program, God's love does extend to everyone.
It's his desire that everyone repent and turn to Him.
And as I mentioned at the beginning of the program, we're holding several special events in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio with a guest from India and these are during the last week of October.
The events include food, music and fellowship. Go to our
[email protected] and click on the events link at the top to see if one of these are near you.
Space is limited so please reserve your seat today.
You can reach us by phone at 866-960-0292. Again, that's 866-960-0292. Or visit our website at heraldsofhope.org and click on that events link at the top. And don't forget, you're welcome to listen to past episodes or explore more Bible based content right on our
[email protected] including the videos from our podcast called Guide through the Bible.
Your prayers and support make this ministry possible and we're thankful for each one who walks with us as we share the good news of Jesus around the world.
Keep tuning in for more Bible teaching and encouragement right here on the Voice of Hope.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Families gather in God's name Kids laugh Moms see no violent wrath that's what happens when men pray when men pray when men pray the heart of God is touched when men pray as the Father's will is done the whole world can be won that's what happens when men pray when men pray when men pray the heart of God is touched when men pray as the Father's will is done the whole world can be won that's what happens when men pray that's what happens when men pray.
