(Day 7) Seeking God Through His Word, Prayer, and Fasting

Jonah 3:1-10

There are times when God sends His Word to arrest His people; to summons us to repentance. Through His Word, God warns the world about impending judgment. He sends His Word in love, giving us time to respond to it by taking heed to His demands. The faithful servant of the Lord uses the Word to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:2). The key is in how each of us responds to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.

THE WRONG RESPONSE

The apostle Paul tells his son in the faith to be steadfast in fulfilling his calling by preaching the word; be instant in season, out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). Paul knew and understood through the Spirit of what was to come. He said, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4). This is the wrong response that is so prevalent today. Many are rejecting God's truth and turning to what appeases their flesh. One of the reasons why the enemy craftily seeks to infiltrate the church is to dilute the Word of God, weakening it's message. He knows that only the message of the gospel can bring salvation, healing, and deliverance.

Paul wrote about this to the believers at the church of Galatia; I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. Paul is saying that if he or any of his co-laborers in the gospel decide to change and preach something other than the gospel of Christ, may they be cut off from the Lord; or if an angel came down from heaven, and preached something other than the supremacy of Christ, let that angel be accursed. To emphasize the point, Paul repeats his thought in the next verse. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9). To tamper with the gospel is to invite damnation and the judgment of God. For through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a soul can make a decision that will impact their eternal destiny.

Which brings us to the prophet Jonah, the reluctant preacher that ran away from what God was calling him to do. It's dangerous to not speak the message that God gives you to declare because souls are waiting for the word that God has put in your mouth. After God dealt with him by commanding the fish to swallow him up, and him spending 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the fish, our passage picks it up after the Lord speaks to the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land (Jonah 2:10). Jonah, having received from God for the second time, the command to go preach in the city of Nineveh, obeys. As he is entering the city, declaring the message that God gave him, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (Jonah 3:4), we see from the people:

THE RIGHT RESPONSE

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and CRY MIGHTILY unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not? (Jonah 3:5-9).

The response of the people was incredible. Everyone from the king to the cattle, was ordered to observe this fast, but they didn't have to be coerced into it; the scriptures said that their immediate response after hearing the preached word was the people of Nineveh believed God (verse 5). An important key in that verse is that there was no delay. While the Word of God was still echoing in the air, the people's heart had been pricked, and they moved with godly reverence. The Hebrew writer says it this way, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts (Hebrews 3:15).

The right response to the Word of God is also a strong response. They cried mightily unto God. They understood the urgency of the hour and that God's timer was counting down on them. We all need to understand the emergency and urgency of the times. This is why I believe God is calling His people to consecration and rededication; He's calling us to repentance and surrender. To cast ourselves upon the altar of sacrifice, allowing Him to burn up our flesh through the fires of His holiness as we offer up all that we are to Him.

GOD'S RESPONSE

And 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 (Jonah 3:10). It's the Word of God that does the work on our hearts, purging our innermost being. His Word exposes us before Him, and lays us bare. The Word of the Lord confronts us and shows us our sin so that we can confess it and be cleansed. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).

From the heart and hand of Pastor Reginald Reaves