The Lord Promising His Spirit to Teach Us

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The Lord Promising His Spirit to Teach Us
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things . . . When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth.  (John_14:26 and John_16:13)
We have been meditating upon the Lord's promise to build His church. "I will build My church" (Mat_16:18). One aspect of this promise is the qualitative development of the spiritual life of God's people. To properly develop spiritually, the Lord's people need to learn the truths of His word. The Holy Spirit is promised to us to fulfill that need.  
The coming of the Spirit (in His ministry as Helper to the church) was a matter of promise: "The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. " When the Father would fulfill this promise (on the day of Pentecost), one of the primary purposes would be the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. "He will teach you all things. " This teaching work of the Spirit was to involve leading us into all the truths of the word of God. "He will guide you into all the truth. " This role harmonizes fully with one of the titles of the Spirit: "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come."  
Our need for Spirit's teaching ministry is an absolute necessity. We cannot learn the truths of God on our own intellectual capabilities. " 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts' " (Isa_55:8). The thoughts and ways of God are as far above our thoughts and ways as the heavens are above the earth. Jesus gave similar insight concerning the heavenly kingdom that He invited people to enter by following Him. "My kingdom is not of this world . . . My kingdom is not from here" (John_18:36). Consequently, we need the Holy Spirit to be our teacher concerning this kingdom.  
God loves us beyond measure. The death of His Son demonstrates that without question. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John_3:16). For all who will come by faith and, thereby, love Him in return, He offers blessings far beyond what human minds can grasp. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him" (1Co_2:9). Yet, these wonders can be known. "But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit" (1Co_2:10). 
These spiritual treasures are in the word of God to be unfolded to us by the Spirit of God. 

Lord God of great promises, thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit. I need Your Spirit to teach me the wondrous realities of Your kingdom. As I humbly approach Your word, guide me into all the truths You want me to know and to live, in Jesus name, Amen.

Keep the altar of private prayer burning

“The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.”
- Lev_6:13
Keep the altar of private prayer burning. 

This is the very life of all piety. The sanctuary and family altars borrow their fires here, therefore let this burn well. Secret devotion is the very essence, evidence, and barometer, of vital and experimental religion.
Burn here the fat of your sacrifices. Let your closet seasons be, if possible, regular, frequent, and undisturbed. Effectual prayer availeth much. Have you nothing to pray for? Let us suggest the Church, the ministry, your own soul, your children, your relations, your neighbours, your country, and the cause of God and truth throughout the world. Let us examine ourselves on this important matter. Do we engage with lukewarmness in private devotion? Is the fire of devotion burning dimly in our hearts? Do the chariot wheels drag heavily? If so, let us be alarmed at this sign of decay. Let us go with weeping, and ask for the Spirit of grace and of supplications. Let us set apart special seasons for extraordinary prayer. For if this fire should be smothered beneath the ashes of a worldly conformity, it will dim the fire on the family altar, and lessen our influence both in the Church and in the world.
The text will also apply to the altar of the heart. This is a golden altar indeed. God loves to see the hearts of his people glowing towards himself. Let us give to God our hearts, all blazing with love, and seek his grace, that the fire may never be quenched; for it will not burn if the Lord does not keep it burning. Many foes will attempt to extinguish it; but if the unseen hand behind the wall pour thereon the sacred oil, it will blaze higher and higher. Let us use texts of Scripture as fuel for our heart’s fire, they are live coals; let us attend sermons, but above all, let us be much alone with Jesus.


“He appeared first to Mary Magdalene.”
- Mar_16:9
Jesus “appeared first to Mary Magdalene,” probably not only on account of her great love and persevering seeking, but because, as the context intimates,she had been a special trophy of Christ’s delivering power. Learn from this, that the greatness of our sin before conversion should not make us imagine that we may not be specially favoured with the very highest grade of fellowship. 
She was one who had left all to become a constant attendant on the Saviour. He was her first, her chief object. Many who were on Christ’s side did not take up Christ’s cross; she did. She spent her substance in relieving His wants. If we would see much of Christ, let us serve him. Tell me who they are that sit oftenest under the banner of His love, and drink deepest draughts from the cup of communion, and I am sure they will be those who give most, who serve best, and who abide closest to the bleeding heart of their dear Lord. But notice how Christ revealed Himself to this sorrowing one-by a word, “Mary.” It needed but one word in His voice, and at once she knew Him, and her heart owned allegiance by another word, her heart was too full to say more. That one word would naturally be the most fitting for the occasion. It implies obedience. She said, “Master.” There is no state of mind in which this confession of allegiance will be too cold. No, when your spirit glows most with the heavenly fire, then you will say, “I am thy servant, thou hast loosed my bonds.” If you can say, “Master,” if you feel that His will is your will, then you stand in a happy, holy place. He must have said, “Mary,” or else you could not have said, “Rabboni.” See, then, from all this, how Christ honours those who honour him, how love draws our Beloved, how it needs but one word of his to turn our weeping to rejoicing, how His presence makes the heart’s sunshine.

The Burning Heart

The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way ?— Luke_24:32


(MSG)  Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?" 

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A Beautiful Story That Lives in Our Hearts
Every detail of this beautiful story lives in the imagination of Christendom. Never a week passes but some earnest heart is travelling with the two down to Emmaus. We see them joined by the stranger on their journey, and then the talk turns on all that has been happening. We see the three entering the house, and sitting down to supper, where the bread is broken. Then the eyes of the two disciples are opened; they recognize that their fellow wayfarer is Christ, and in the very moment of that recognition they glance again and He is gone. Like the followers of Cortez of whom Keats sings, they look at each other with a wild surmise; and in that moment of tumultuous excitement they speak out frankly, as in such hours men often do. "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"
One Distinctive Mark of Christianity Has Been, This Burning of the Heart
Someone—I think it was Matthew Arnold—defined religion as morality touched with emotion. In all the fullness which such words are capable of bearing, that is conspicuously true of Christianity. We know how the Gospel has renovated morals, yet the Gospel is far more than any moral philosophy. We know how the Gospel has quickened and expanded intellect, yet the Gospel is not primarily intellectual. Its deepest appeal is not to the intelligence: its deepest appeal is always to the heart. I have seen a fountain with one great central basin, and round about it a dozen little basins—and of course it is always possible to fetch water, and to fill these lesser basins separately. But the fountain was not intended to be filled so. That was not the idea in the mind of the designer. He meant the water in the central basin to rise, and well up to the brim and lap and overflow, and in that superabundance from the center every vessel and receptacle in the structure would be filled. It is thus that the Gospel deals with human life. It does not begin with the brightening of the intellect; it begins with the burning of the heart. It touches what is deepest and truest in us by the power of a love passing the love of women; and all its influences in the world of conduct, and all its expansive action on the brain, and all the recreation of the nations, with the new ideals and aspirations of the ages, are the result of that burning of the heart.
We see this distinctive feature of the Gospel very clearly in its earliest days. What most impresses us in the Acts is not the heroism nor the resource of the first preachers. It is the extraordinary way in which the Gospel reached to the very center of men's lives, and filled them, sometimes in an instant, with a glowing ardor that was rich in promise. In the dead of winter, when the frost is keen, you know how sometimes our windows get frosted over. The glass is dimmed like the fine gold of which the prophet speaks, and ceases to be transparent through its frosted veil. We cannot see the figures in the streets, nor the trees in their beauty of ten thousand diamonds, nor the infinite depths of the cloudless winter sky—they are all hidden from us by that icy covering. Now, it is possible for a child to take his knife, and doggedly and steadily to scrape the frost away; but there is a simpler and surer and quicker way than that. Kindle the fire; set wood and coals a-burning; heighten the temperature of the room within the window, and in an hour the warmth will achieve for you what a whole day's rasping never would accomplish. It was the dead of winter when the Gospel came, and men were trying to scrape away the frost. Every honest effort that was being made to lead mankind to better and nobler things was like the child with his knife upon the pane. Then Christ, through His love and sacrifice, kindled the fire—heightened the temperature of the secret and mystical chamber—and the frost melted with incredible speed, and men recognized their brother in the streets, and nature was clothed in unexpected glory, and in the depths of heaven there was home. All that forces itself on us in the Book of Acts. That book is like the most valiant human lives: there is no glitter in it, but abundant glow. From the day of Pentecost with its tongues of fire, we hear as it were the echo of our text, "Did not our heart burn within us?"
It has been noted by Professor Lecky in his work on the "History of European Morals," that one great change has come over the moral temper of Europe. That change may be summed up in a word by saying that the emotions and the affections—in a word the heart—have won a recognition for themselves in modern life, which they never gained in the life of the old world. We all have some idea of what a stoic was: we know how zealously he repressed all emotion; and though perhaps we are apt to overdraw the picture (for the human heart is always too big and strong to be effectively fettered by any iron creed), yet the fact remains that in the old pagan world the burning of the heart was not distinctive. It was not the virtues of the heart that were applauded; it was the virtues of the judgment and the will. Today as the very crown of all the virtues there stands love; but in the old world love was not a grace—it was an appetite. Today to be tender-hearted is a noble thing; but then to be tender was to be reckoned weak. Today it is a mark of the highest manhood to be pitiful; but in the eyes of the stoic, pity was a vice. Compare the cold severity of Grecian statuary with the warmth and tenderness of Raphael's Madonna; contrast the lot of woman in antiquity with the honor and glory of womanhood today, and you will feel that some power has been at work shifting the accent of the moral life. Somehow into the life of Europe there has come a recognition of the heart. Pity and tenderness and love and charity have won a hearing for themselves at last. The heart has been touched and has begun to burn; and it is the Gospel of Christ Jesus that has done it.

I think, too, that in this burning of the heart lies the great secret of Christian progress. 
A Gospel that carries this power in its message has little need of any other aid. Mohammed conquered, but Mohammed used the sword, and without the sword he would have made little progress. And Buddha conquered—he won thousands of followers—but the message of Buddha never kindled anybody. It lulled men to rest with dreams of infinite quietude, and with the hopes of Nirvana where they should cease to feel. But there is something more inspiring than quietude—it is ardor, enthusiasm, animated feeling; and there is a better secret than a brandished sword: it is the secret of a burning heart. And I humbly submit that if our Lord is conquering, and if His Gospel is going to be a universal Gospel, it is because He has touched that spring in human life. When a man is faced by any great endeavor, it is not more light he wants, it is more heat. Kindle his heart by any ruling passion—love, anger, indignation, pity—and he will fling himself on any obstacle. The only statesmen who ever move a country are the statesmen who can set the people's heart a-burning—and that is true of the Savior and the world. He meets men as they travel by life's ways and for every battle you will have new equipment, and for every temptation the necessary strength, and nothing will be too hard for you to try, and nothing will be too sore for you to bear, if you can but say like these two going to Emmaus, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us?"

The Gospel Ever Makes the Heart Burn as Christ Did Here
There are two things only which I ask you to observe. First, we should carefully mark that the hearts of these two men began to burn, not so much by learning what was new, as by a new interpretation of the old. These travelers were no strangers to the Scripture. They were Jews, and had read deeply in every book of it. When they were little children in their village homes, they had clambered round their father's knee on Sabbaths, and had listened to the stories of Moses and David and Daniel with the eagerness that our own young folk display. They had studied Jeremiah more intently than any of us, and they had heard it expounded in the synagogue. The Scripture was a familiar book to them. And what did our Lord do when He met with them? He took the book they had studied all their lives. He turned to the pages that they knew so well. He led them down by the old familiar texts. And in the old He showed such a depth of meaning, and in the familiar such a wealth of love, and He so irradiated the prophetic mystery and so illumined its darkness with His light, that not by what was absolutely new, but by the new interpretation of the old, their hearts began to burn within them by the way.
Does not our Savior always act like that when He begins to make our heart burn? He does not startle us with unexpected novelties; He touches with glory what is quite familiar. It is the familiar experiences that He explains. It is the familiar cravings that He satisfies. It is the familiar thoughts which have filled the mind since childhood that he expands into undreamed of fullness. We have known what sin was since we were at school. Christ meets us and talks about our sin—and we learn that sin is more exceedingly sinful than we had ever thought. In our most reproachful moments. We learn, too, that He died that we might be forgiven, and that there is pardon for our worst, this very hour. We have known what pain was and we have known what death was, and we have known that there was a heaven and a God; but when Christ meets us as we travel by the way and talks to us of these familiar things, there is such promise and light and love about them all, that everything becomes new. That is the first secret of the burning heart—nothing new or startling or revolutionary but the life we are living, and the sin we are sinning, and the death we shall die, and the God we shall all meet, set in the light of a love that is unfathomable, and interpreted through the consciousness of Jesus.

The Christ behind the Word
But after all, what set their heart a-burning was not the mere word of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the Christ who was behind the word. It was their immediate contact with that personality, and the mysterious outflow of His life upon them, which stirred them, as only personality can do, and moved their nature to its very depths. I remember two experiences that illustrate this, the one from literature and the other from history. When the essayist Hazlitt was a young man at home, his mind was dull and his faculties unawakened. But in one of those charming essays that he calls "Wintersloe," he narrates how the poet Coleridge came to see his father, and young Hazlitt walked several miles home with him. Hazlitt tells in his own eager and eloquent way, all that the walk with Coleridge meant for him. It quickened his intellect, gave him a new world, put a new radiance into the sunset for him, and a new note into the song of every bird. His heart began to burn, and it was not the talk that did it; it was the poet who was behind the talk. The other instance is from the life of Napoleon. You will find it in Lord Rosebery's book The Last Phase. Napoleon was beaten, his great career was ended; he was a prisoner on St. Helena. Yet "everyone," said the French commissioner Montchenu, "everyone who has an audience of Napoleon leaves him in a state of most intense enthusiasm." Their hearts began to burn, and it was not the talk that did it—it was the titanic man behind the talk. Dimly, then, and very imperfectly, such instances help us to understand our passage. It was immediate contact with a living Person—true poet, yet captain of the armies of the universe; it was immediate contact with the Lord Jesus Christ that made their hearts burn as they journeyed to Emmaus.
Need I tell you that it has been the same in all the ages? The ardor of Christendom, its life and its enthusiasm, its countless efforts, its unwearied service—all that is rooted, not in any creed, but in the immediate presence of a living Christ. Why are men toiling in our slums tonight? Why are our sisters preaching in the heart of India, and living and suffering in central Africa? Why are men resolutely spurning what is base, and clinging to all that is pure and all that is noble? Ask them and they will say, "Christ died for me." There is no motive like it in the world. I beseech you to realize the love of Christ. That is the secret of the burning heart, and with the burning heart one can do anything.

THREE AMBITIONS

THREE AMBITIONS
"We make it our aim (we are ambitious) to be well-pleasing unto Him."-- 2Co_5:9 (R.V., see marg.).

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

 Longing to Be “at Home with the Lord” 



This mortal life is a pilgrimage, and our body is a tent, so slight, so transitory, so easily taken down; but what does it matter, since there is awaiting us a mansion prepared by God? Often in this veil of flesh we groan. It cages us, anchors us down to earth, hampers us with its needs, obstructs our vision, and becomes the medium of temptation. How good it would be if our physical body could be suddenly transmuted into the glorified ethereal body which should be like the resurrection body of our Lord! It would be sweet to escape the wrench of death. But if not, then through death we shall carry with us the germ of the glorified body. That which shall be quickened will first die, but God will give it a body as it shall please Him.

The gate of death may look gloomy on this side, but on the other it is of burnished gold, and opens directly into the presence-chamber of Jesus. We long to see Him and to be with Him; and such desires are the work of the Holy Spirit and the first fruits of heaven. But remember that just inside the door there is Christ’s judgment seat, where He will adjudge our life and apportion our reward. Prepare, my soul, to give an account of thy talents!

THERE IS scope for ambition within the sphere of the Christian Faith, and to be without it is to miss an influential incentive to high and holy endeavour. Our Lord does not destroy any natural faculty, but directs it to a worthy object. Instead of living for material good, or the applause of the world, we must stir ourselves to seek those things which are the legitimate objects of holy ambition. In two other passages the Apostle Paul uses this same word. See 1Th_4:11; Rom_15:20 (R.V. marg.).
There is the ambition of daily toil,--"Be ambitious to be quiet, to do your own business, to work with your own hands." In the age in which the Apostles lived there was much unrest, and in the case of the Christian Church this was still further increased by the expectation of the approaching end of the world; many were inclined to surrender their ordinary occupations, and give themselves up to restlessness and excitement, all of which was prejudicial to the regular ordering of their homes and individual lives, But the injunction is that we are not to yield to the ferment of restlessness; we are not to be disturbed by the feverishness around us, whether of social upheavals or for pleasure or gain.
The ambition to be well-pleasing to Christ. At His judgment-seat He will weigh up the worth of our individual mortal life, and He is doing so day by day. Not only when we pass the threshold of death, but on this side, our Lord is judging our character and adjudicating our reward. Let us strive to be as well-pleasing to Him in this life, as we hope to be in the next.
The ambition of Christian work--"Being ambitious to preach the Gospel." The great world lies open to us, many parts of it still un-evangelized; and all around us in our own country are thousands, among the rich and poor, who have no knowledge of Christ. Let us make it our ambition to bring them to Him, always remembering that the things we do for Christ must be that which He works through us in the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom_15:18-19).

PRAYER
Give us grace, O Lord, to work while it is day, fulfilling diligently and patiently whatever duty Thou appoint us; doing small things in the day of small things, and great labours if Thou summon us to any; rising and working, sitting still and suffering, according to Thy word. AMEN.

The Spirit Promised to Glorify Jesus

The Spirit Promised to Glorify Jesus

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth . . . He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you . . . Now we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.  (John_16:13-14 and 1Co_2:12)

The promised teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit involves His guiding us into all the truths of the word of God. "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth." As the Spirit is fulfilling this promise, He especially wants to unfold God's truth in ways that will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." The desire of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory and honor, not to Himself, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me" (John_15:26).  
One of the primary ways the Spirit glorifies Jesus is to reveal to us (and bring into our growing experiential knowledge) the free heavenly riches that are ours in Christ. "Now we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." This is the language of grace: "freely given to us." The wonders of God's grace are poured out freely: "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus . . . to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved" (Rom_3:24 and Eph_1:6). What man deserves (and has earned by his own sin and offenses) is judgment. However, Christ supplies at His cost (His death for us) the free remedy of eternal life. "But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many . . . For the wages of sin is death, but the (free) gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom_5:15; Rom_6:23).  
These freely given things of everlasting life include far more than the precious gift of forgiveness. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Rom_8:32). From a river of blessings (including, peace, hope, fruit, gifts, victory, etc.) we are to freely drink throughout time - - and even for all eternity. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts . . . and let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev_21:6; Rev_22:17).
Lord Jesus, these freely given things of God, revealed to me by Your Spirit through Your word, cause me to glorify You greatly. Please teach me to freely drink of these riches yet more and more, through humble dependence upon You, Amen.

hatred of theirs arose from ignorance of the Father of Christ:

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John 15:21  "They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me. 


But all these things will they do unto you,.... Christ here signifies, that all the hatred and persecutions raised against His people by the world, would not be on their own account, for any evil actions done by them; they would not suffer as thieves, murderers, and evildoers, but as Christians; or as He says, 

for my name's sake: because they were called by His name, and called upon His name; because they professed His name, and confessed Him to be the Messiah and Redeemer; because they loved His name Jesus, a Saviour, believed in His name, and hoped in Him for eternal life; and also preached Him, and in His name salvation, and encouraged others to believe in Him; and therefore they had no reason to be ashamed, but rather to rejoice; as they afterwards did, that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name: besides, this malice and hatred of theirs arose from ignorance of the Father of Christ: 


because they know not Him that sent me; they did not know that Jesus was the Christ, and sent of God; they did not acknowledge Him to be so, or the Father to be the sender of Him; and because Christ and His disciples asserted this, therefore they were the objects of their hatred.

John 15:22  If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. 

John 15:23  Hate me, hate my Father--it's all the same. 

John 15:22

If I had not come and spoken unto them,.... The ignorance of the Jews is represented as inexcusable, since Christ was come, and had preached unto them; if he had not come and told them that He was the Messiah, they might have pleaded an excuse for their ignorance of Him, and His mission, and of the Father that sent Him: but inasmuch as He was come in the flesh, and came to them His own; and came also a light into the world, carrying along with Him evidence, conviction, and demonstration, of His being the Messiah; speaking such words as never man did; preaching with such authority as the Scribes and Pharisees did not; declaring in plain terms He was the Christ of God, and that if they did not believe Him to be so, they would die in their sins; they could have no pretext to make for their ignorance and disbelief: if all this had not been done, 

they had not had sin; or been guilty of the sin of unbelief, in the rejection of the Messiah; not that they would have been without sin in any sense, or without any kind of sin, but without this particular sin; at least they would have excused and wiped themselves clean, and would have looked like innocent and sinless persons, under all their ignorance and unbelief: 

but now they have no cloak for their sin; they could not say, had He come to us, and told us that He was the Messiah, and given evidence of His being sent by the Father, we would have believed Him, and received Him as the Messiah; for He did do this, and so cut off all excuses and pretence's from them.

John 15:23

He that hate me, hates my Father also. The hatred the world bears to the followers of Christ, is interpretively hatred to Christ Himself; and hatred to Christ Himself, is no other than hatred to His Father; and indeed, all the hatred that is shown by the men of the world to Christ, to His Gospel, and to His faithful ministers and followers, originally arises from that enmity, that is naturally in the heart of every unregenerate man against God: now since not only Christ, but the Father also, is hated by the world, the children of God and disciples of Christ may sit easier under all the resentment, frowns, and malice of the world.

Next, GOD spoke to Jonah a second time:

Jonah 3:1  Next, GOD spoke to Jonah a second time: 
Jonah 3:1-10

 A Repentant City 

Jonah_3:1-10

Peter was not only forgiven, but restored to his office; so also was Jonah again sent to Nineveh. Thank God for our second chances! There was no hesitancy this time. The prophet arose and went. The story of his deliverance seems to have reached Nineveh and to have prepared its people to receive his word, Luke_11:30. We must deliver God’s messages and preach only as He bids us. He will tell us what to say.

Nineveh is said to have been sixty miles in circuit, the distance of a three days’ journey. It was full of violence and cruelty. But the sight of that strange figure, clad in a rude sheep-skin mantle, smote its conscience. The alarm spread from the streets to the palace. Even the great king felt it within his sculptured chambers. It stirred him to action, so that king and court, peers and people, and even the brute creation, became united in one act of common humiliation. The repentance was city-wide in its scope, Jonah_3:5; was practical, Jonah_3:8; and directed toward God, Jonah_3:9. What a contrast to Israel! There, prophet after prophet was exposed to refusal and even to cruel usage. Whatever fear there may have been upon man’s side, there was no hesitation upon God’s. He abundantly pardoned! See Isa_55:7.

Jonah 3:1-10

THREEFOLD REPENTANCE

This passage falls into three parts: Jonah’s renewed commission and new obedience (Jonah_3:1-4), the repentance of Nineveh (Jonah_3:5-9), and the acceptance thereof by God (Jonah_3:10). We might almost call these three the repentance of Jonah, of Nineveh, and of God. The evident intention of the narrative is to parallel the Ninevites turning from their sins, and God’s turning from His anger and purpose of destruction; and if the word ‘repentance’ is not applied to Jonah, his conduct sufficiently shows the thing.

I. Note the renewed charge to the penitent Prophet, and his new eagerness to fulfil it. 

His deliverance and second commission are put as if all but simultaneous, and his obedience was swift and glad. Jonah did not venture to take for granted that the charge which he had shirked was still continued to him. If God commands to take the trumpet, and we refuse, we dare not assume that we shall still be honoured with the delivery of the message. The punishment of dumb lips is often dumbness. Opportunities of service, slothfully or faintheartedly neglected, are often withdrawn. We can fancy how Jonah, brought back to the better mind which breathes in his psalm, longed to be honoured by the trust of preaching once more, and how rapturously his spirit would address itself to the task. Duties once unwelcome become sweet when we have passed through the experience of the misery that comes from neglecting them. It is God’s mercy that gives us the opportunity of effacing past disobedience by new alacrity.

The second charge is possibly distinguishable from the first as being less precise. It may be that the exact nature of ‘the preaching that I bid thee’ was not told Jonah till he had to open his mouth in Nineveh; but, more probably, the second charge was identical with the first.

The word rendered ‘preach’ is instructive. It means ‘to cry’ and suggests the manner befitting those who bear God’s message. They should sound it out loudly, plainly, urgently, with earnestness and marks of emotion in their voice. Languid whispers will not wake sleepers. Unless the messenger is manifestly in earnest, the message will fall flat. Not with bated breath, as if ashamed of it; nor with hesitation, as if not quite sure of it; nor with coldness, as if it were of little urgency,-is God’s Word to be pealed in men’s ears. The preacher is a crier. The substance of his message, too, is set forth. ‘The preaching which I bid thee’-not his own imaginations, nor any fine things of his own spinning. Suppose Jonah had entertained the Ninevites with dissertations on the evidences of his prophetic authority, or submitted for their consideration a few thoughts tending to show the agreement of his message with their current opinions in religion, or an argument for the existence of a retributive Governor of the world, he would not have shaken the city. The less the Prophet shows himself, the stronger his influence. The more simply he repeats the stern, plain, short message, the more likely it is to impress. God’s Word, faithfully set forth, will prove itself. The preacher or teacher of this day has substantially the same charge as Jonah had; and the more he suppresses himself, and becomes but a voice through which God speaks, the better for himself, his hearers, and his work.

Nineveh, that great aggregate of cities, was full, as Eastern cities are, of open spaces, and might well be a three days’ journey in circumference. What a task for that solitary stranger to thunder out his loud cry among all these crowds! But he had learned to do what he was bid; and without wasting a moment, he ‘began to enter into the city a day’s journey,’ and, no doubt, did not wait till the end of the day to proclaim his message. Let us learn that there is an element of threatening in God’s most merciful message, and that the appeal to terror and to the desire for self-preservation is part of the way to preach the Gospel. Plain warnings of coming evil may be spoken tenderly, and reveal love as truly as the most soothing words. The warning comes in time. ‘Forty days’ of grace are granted. The gospel warns us in time enough for escape. It warns us because God loves; and they are as untrue messengers of His love as of His justice who slur over the declaration of His wrath.

II. Note the repentance of Nineveh (Jonah_3:5-9). 

The impression made by Jonah’s terrible cry is perfectly credible and natural in the excitable population of an Eastern city, in which even now any appeal to terror, especially if associated with religious and prophetic claims, easily sets the whole in a frenzy. Think of the grim figure of this foreign man, with his piercing voice and half-intelligible speech, dropped from the clouds as it were, and stalking through Nineveh, pealing out his confident message, like that gaunt fanatic who walked Jerusalem in its last agony, crying, ‘Woe! woe unto the bloody city!’ or that other, who, with flaming fire on his head and madness in his eyes, affrighted London in the plague. No wonder that alarm was kindled, and, being kindled, spread like wildfire. Apparently the movement was first among the people, who began to fast before the news penetrated to the seclusion of the palace. But the contagion reached the king, and the popular excitement was endorsed and fanned by a royal decree. The specified tokens of repentance are those of ordinary mourning, such as were common all over the East, with only the strange addition, which smacks of heathen ideas, that the animals were made sharers in them.

There is great significance in that ‘believed God’ (Jonah_3:5). The foundation of all true repentance is crediting God’s word of threatening, and therefore realizing the danger, as well as the disobedience, of our sin. We shall be wise if we pass by the human instrument, and hear God speaking through the Prophet. Never mind about Jonah, believe God.

We learn from the Ninevites what is true repentance They brought no sacrifices or offerings, but sorrow, self-abasement, and amendment. The characteristic sin of a great military power would be ‘violence,’ and that is the specific evil from which they vow to turn. The loftiest lesson which prophets found Israel so slow to learn, ‘A broken and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise,’ was learned by these heathens. We need it no less. Nineveh repented on a peradventure that their repentance might avail. How pathetic that ‘Who can tell?’ (Jonah_3:9) is! We know what they hoped. Their doubt might give fervour to their cries, but our certainty should give deeper earnestness and confidence to ours.

The deepest meaning of the whole narrative is set forth in our Lord’s use of it, when He holds up the men of Nineveh as a condemnatory instance to the hardened consciences of His hearers. Probably the very purpose of the book was to show Israel that the despised and yet dreaded heathen were more susceptible to the voice of God than they were: ‘I will provoke you to jealousy by them which are no people.’ The story was a smiting blow to the proud exclusiveness and self-complacent contempt of prophetic warnings, which marked the entire history of God’s people. As Ezekiel was told: ‘Thou are not sent . . . to many peoples of a strange speech and of an hard language. . . . Surely, if I sent thee to them, they would hearken unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee.’ It is ever true that long familiarity with the solemn thoughts of God’s judgment and punishment of sin abates their impression on us. Our Puritan forefathers used to talk about ‘gospel-hardened sinners,’ and there are many such among us. The man who lives by Niagara does not hear its roar as a stranger does. The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment with other generations than that which was ‘this generation’ in Christ’s time; and that which is ‘this generation’ to-day will, in many of its members, be condemned by them.

But the wave of feeling soon retired, and there is no reason to believe that more than a transient impression was made. It does not seem certain that the Ninevites knew what ‘God’ they hoped to appease. Probably their pantheon was undisturbed, and their repentance lasted no longer than their fear. Transient repentance leaves the heart harder than before, as half-melted ice freezes again more dense. Let us beware of frost on the back of a thaw. ‘Repentance which is repented of’ is worse than none.

III. We note the repentance of God (Jonah_3:10). 

Mark the recurrence of the word ‘turn,’ employed in Jonah_3:8-10 in reference to men and to God. Mark the bold use of the word ‘repent,’ applied to God, which, though it be not applied to the Ninevites in the previous verses, is implied in every line of them. The same expression is found in Exo_32:14, which may be taken as the classical passage warranting its use. The great truth involved is one that is too often lost sight of in dealing with prophecy; namely, that all God’s promises and threatenings are conditional. Jeremiah learned that lesson in the house of the potter, and we need to keep it well in mind. God threatens, precisely in order that He may not have to perform His threatenings. Jonah was sent to Nineveh to cry, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,’ in order that it might not be overthrown. What would have been the use of proclaiming the decree, if it had been irreversible? There is an implied ‘if’ in all God’s words. ‘Except ye repent’ underlies the most absolute threatenings of evil. ‘If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end,’ is presupposed in the brightest and broadest promises of good.

The word ‘repent’ is denied and affirmed to have application to God. He is not ‘a son of man, that He should repent,’ inasmuch as His immutability and steadfast purpose know no variableness. But just because they cannot change, and He must ever be against them that do evil, and ever bless them that turn to Him with trust, therefore He changes His dealings with us according to our relation to Him, and because He cannot repent, or be other than He was and is, ‘repents of the evil that He had said that He would do’ unto sinners when they repent of the evil that they have done against Him, inasmuch as He leaves His threatening unfulfilled, and ‘does it not.’

So we might almost say that the purpose of this book of Jonah is to teach the possibility and efficacy of repentance, and to show how the penitent man, heathen or Jew, ever finds in God changed dealings corresponding to his changed heart. The widest charity, the humbling lesson for people brought up in the blaze of revelation, that dwellers in the twilight or in the darkness are dear to God and may be more susceptible of divine impressions than ourselves, the rebuke of all pluming ourselves on our privileges, the boundlessness of God’s mercy, are among the other lessons of this strange book; but none of them is more precious than its truly evangelic teaching of the blessedness of true penitence, whether exemplified in the renegade Prophet returning to his high mission, or the fierce Ninevites humbled and repentant, and finding mercy from the God of the whole earth.               Download Here A free 'Fruits of the Spirit'Chart