Answering The Call Of Jonah (Part 2)

GOG - 19 - 265 - 2019: Answering The Call Of Jonah

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Answering The Call Of Jonah (Part 2) Pastor Nkechi Ene (Mrs.) In the previous article, we realized that God has a passion for souls to be saved, and to have a relationship with Him. We saw how far God went in getting Jonah to go and evangelize to the city of Nineveh.

This passion is also revealed in Jesus’ last or final words to His disciples before ascending to heaven. In this article, we will see other ways that God uses to feed His desire to see souls saved.

10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he Sled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous.

12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me”.

13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them.

1 4 Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You”.

15 So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacriSice to the Lord and took vows.

Jonah 1:10-16

God Uses Any Opportunity To Win Souls Jonah was thrown into the sea as the last resort, and the sea ceased from its raging.

When the men who threw him into the sea observed that the sea became calm, they were in awe and offered a sacriSice to the Lord.

They sacriSiced to Jehovah, the God of Jonah as it were, the same God, Whom he was running away from, and even made vows to Him. God uses any opportunity to win souls, because when you have a passion for something, you will look for opportunities to express that passion. When you are after something or you have a passion for something, you will create and bring out opportunities in places where nobody else may have seen them. Other people might be in the same situation and not see the opportunity that you are seeing, but you will see them because of your passion.

This scenario was right in the middle of a storm. God had His focus on the great crusade coming up in Nineveh and He had a Sleeing preacher, so the mind of God should have been focused on trying to catch Jonah, and get Him to go and attend the crusade at Nineveh.

That was the plan, but in the midst of the storm there was an opportunity for some other people who didn’t know Him to get to know Him. Jonah who was in the ship was thrown into the sea, and by the time Jonah left, people who didn’t know God, who were worshiping idols began offering sacriSices unto Jehovah. In this dispensation, we can say a convention took place. God still had His eye on Nineveh, but He spotted an opportunity, He saw a bunch of men who were ignorantly praying to their gods; and He said, “I will use this opportunity to introduce Myself to them”.

You may have had storms in your life, and had

been blinded by them. You need to be able to see opportunities in the storms of life to get people born again.

In stormy situations, people are very vulnerable and pliable; you can get their attention. You just need to preach the gospel and they will surrender to Christ. I have had situations where I missed opportunities because I was focusing on the storm, but God is not like that. In the midst of the storm, God uses any opportunity to win souls. Something interesting about those men that got converted was that by the time Jonah left the ship, they were actually acting nicer than Jonah. God told him to go and carry out a crusade in Nineveh, he thought to himself, how terrible those people were and he took off. Now, these men in the ship were unbelievers, and they found out that it was the fault of the preacher in their boat that these terrible things were happening to them.

They were supposed to throw him over board, but they were reluctant to do so. The Bible says, they tried to save Jonah; they tried to do for Jonah what he was not willing to do for Nineveh. These men were nice but they were still crying out to their gods: their niceness did not guarantee them salvation.

Do not be blinded by how nice the unbeliever is, and neglect addressing the fact that an unbeliever needs to be saved.

In Acts 8:26-40, God re-directed the journey of Phillip; He wanted him to share the gospel with a eunuch in the desert. God sometimes, will re-direct your trip and ask you to go somewhere, God orders the steps of the righteous into opportunities to win souls. The passion for souls is what will open your eyes to see the opportunities that God will bring your way. There was a time when I really was

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GOG - 19 - 265 - 2019: Answering The Call Of Jonah

getting very consumed with passion for souls, and each time I drove past a particular area and saw a certain mad man, I would weep profusely. My thought was that, if he dies in his state, he may go to hell. On another occasion, I was in the car with my Pastor and we saw a mad woman whom we used to know around that area. She was obviously ill and she looked terrible, and was a smoker as well.

She was one of those who made me cry then. On this particular day, the courage to reach out to her was overwhelming. I came down from the car and went to her. I held her and preached to her; she accepted Christ and got saved.

God Is No Respecter Of Persons 16 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

The Bible says “whoever”. Also in Acts 10:34, Peter says, “…In truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality”. In other words, God is no respecter of persons. The New International Version (NIV) says, “…I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism”. So if God shows no partiality, and the passion of His heart is to get souls saved, it means that in salvation there is no partiality or favouritism with God. 1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” Jonah 1:1-2

There are many things that can stop you from identifying certain people as possible candidates for the gospel of salvation. You may see someone, and you say, “It would have been nice to evangelize, but…” It would not even occur to you, that you just missed an opportunity to win a soul. Maybe you saw something and you just decided not to reach out to that person. God is no respecter of persons. It may be easier for certain classes or groups of people to reach certain people, but that is not restricting.

It is probably easier for a multi-millionaire businessman to minister to an unbelieving multi-millionaire businessman. It’s probably

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easier for a Christian trader to minister to an unbelieving trader, but that should not be a limitation. There are certain things that stop us from identifying the unbelievers we ought to minister to. Some of them are as follows: Ethnicity And Tribalism Nineveh was an Assyrian city; it was foreign to Israel. They served other gods, and did terrible things. God will not always send you to preach to or evangelize to people who are from your village or your area. Your next-door neigbour might be more receptive to the gospel, but you prefer speaking to another person miles away that is of the same tribe as yourself. God doesn’t function like that necessarily; and if you have put yourself in that “ethnic box”, come out of it. The Bible says man looks on the outside; but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Sometimes, you might be in the midst of expatriates and you are afraid to talk, so you don’t lose your job.

God gave you the job and not man. You have what it takes, and that thing is the message that brings liberation.

Intimidation 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left — and much livestock?"

Jonah 4:11

Nineveh was a great city, it was inSluential and wealthy; but God sent Jonah all the same.

We are not told that Jonah was very rich or inSluential. The greatness of Nineveh did not intimidate God and there is no unbeliever too great as to intimidate you. It was Namaan’s maidservant who God used in restoring him (2 Kings 5:2-3). She saved her master by telling him about the prophet of God in Israel.

God did not see the greatness of Nineveh, because any greatness that does not come from God is transient. God saw their spiritual confusion. They are a great city, but they needed salvation. The Bible says that Jesus looked at the multitude and He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd and they were just

scattered and weary (Matthew 9:36). How you see the unbeliever is what will determine if you can speak to the unbeliever. If you see intimidating greatness, overwhelming education, grammar, and the likes, you will not be able to speak; but if you can see somebody who is lost and trying to Sind their way, you will open your mouth and speak. The reason for abundance and health is to enable you preach the gospel effectively.

A Judgmental Attitude 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me." Jonah 1:2 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”

Jonah 4:11

Wickedness refers to the vices you see everyday: child pornography, child abuse; some children die from sexual abuse; some people kill their own relatives for money.

Others betray other people to get what they want and the list goes on. God is not in denial about people’s wickedness, but there is something that is greater than their wickedness: the compassion of God. The word “pity” as used in Jonah 4:11 is the word compassion. In spite of man’s wickedness, God wants to show him compassion. God wants to show compassion to the prostitute that has broken many homes. God is aware of how evil that prostitute is, but He is full of compassion and wants you to be the channel to reach her with His love, so that, she can stop breaking people’s homes. You are God’s channel but you have to stop judging her for you to be able to reach her. If you keep judging people by their terrible deeds; don’t forget where you are coming from and how God transformed you. A nun who is not born again from an orthodox church is as wicked in the eyes of God as a prostitute. You are the channel of God’s compassion to the lost. God sees the heart, His Word does not recognize the colour of the skin covering the heart. Will you recognize opportunities even amongst people that look very nice? Will you see opportunities for salvation in the storms of life? God is counting on you. Realize that the focus of everything we do is to get people saved.

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