Let us turn to God's Word in
this portion of scripture that we've read, the book of the prophet
Jonah. I'm directing you towards tonight
that we find in the third chapter and verse 5. Jonah 3.5, So the
people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast and put
on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of
them. So the people of Nineveh believed
God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest
of them even to the least of them. Here then we read of the
repentance of the Ninevites. the repentance of the Ninevites. Previously, we were looking at
Jonah's repentance, or at least his prayer of repentance, that
remarkable prayer that we have recorded in the second chapter. The gods had prepared a place
for the restoring of the soul of his rebellious and backsliding
servant, the Prophet. He'd been so disobedient, he'd
acted contrary to the command of God. He was willful in his
departure from God's ways, and God had pursued him, remember.
There in chapter one, pursued him in a remarkable way. hurling the great wind into the
sea as we're told in verse 4 of chapter 1 and there was a mighty
tempest as the prophet is fleeing from the presence of the Lord and then he's cast overboard
and he sinks into the depths of the sea but the Lord had prepared
a great fish to swallow up Jonah, we're told. And Jonah was in
the belly of the fish three days and three nights. The Lord brings
him, as it were, into his closet, where he might engage again with
God in prayer, because Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God,
we're told, out of the fish's belly. And we were looking this
morning at something of that prayer and the way in which he
expresses himself, the conviction of his sin, and the spirits of
repentance that is now upon him. He says there at verse 4, Then
I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again
towards thy holy temple. Oh, it was to be away from the
presence of God that he'd gone to Chopra and then gone on board
the ship in order to go further away, even to Tarshish, it was
to be from the presence of the Lord. And now the Lord had met
with him. And in a sense he feels the conviction
now. He feeds the backslider with
his own desires. I am cast out of thy sight, he
says. Yet. Here is the change of mind
then. Here is that spirit of real repentance. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple. And so we thought of the repentance
this morning, the repentance of Jonah, that godly sorrow,
that workers' repentance unto salvation not to be repented
of, that was the repentance of Jonah. Because his prayer was
heard, his prayer was answered, he was delivered, the Lord spake
unto the fish, it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land, And
then God, having delivered him, restores him, recommissions him.
And the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time. Oh,
what a mercy when God comes again. God came the first time and yet
he rejected the Word of God. What a mercy when God comes to
us again and again and again and again. God's Word coming. And what is God's Word? It's
the same Word. God hasn't changed. Jonah's changed. The Word of the Lord came unto
Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. And then we see the results of
his preaching. And it was very fruitful, really.
His preaching was not in vain. because there was repentance. And that's what we have here
in the words of our text. He preaches the message that
God had given him. What was the message? Remember,
he was to cry against it for their wickedness. He's come up
before me, says God at the beginning of the book. This must have been
the the message, the preaching that God was bidding him to preach,
and he proclaims this message, and so the people of Nineveh
believe God, and proclaim the fast, and put on sackcloth from
the greatest of them even to the least of them. And I want,
as I said, to consider this repentance. It is different. It's different
to what we have In chapter 2, the repentance of Jonah, that
was a true evangelical repentance. That was that godly sorrow that
works repentance onto salvation. What we have here now, of course,
is a national repentance on the part of the people of this great
city, wherein were more than six score 1,000 persons. That's 120,000. And who are these? Those who cannot discern between
right and left. And they're little children who
don't know right from left. So there are obviously many more
than 120,000. There were also many adults in
that city, as well as much cattle. And what we have here is a national
repentance, we might say. a natural repentance in a sense.
And it's that sort of repentance, surely, that at this time our
own nation is in a crying need of. A real repentance, a real
recognition that what has come upon the nation, as on other
nations, is the just judgment of God upon a world that's in
wickedness. It lies in wickedness, it lies
in the wicked one. and there have been sins and
multiplied sins over many years and people think that God winks
at these things but God doesn't God deals with men, God always
has dealt with his creatures well let us come to consider
these things for a while tonight and first of all I want us to
consider what was the cause of this national repentance what
was the cause of it Well, we're told, aren't we? Here, in the
text and in the context. Verse 4, Jonah began to enter
into the city, a day's journey, and he cried and said, Yet forty
days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed
God, it says. In the first place here, Repentance
arose from belief in God, or more particularly their belief
in the Word of God. Now interestingly, the word that
we have here, the trend of believed, is derived from the Hebrew word
Amen. And of course, that Hebrew word
has come over into the New Testament. We have the word Amen in the
Greek New Testament, and it's come over into our English language
because we have the same word. It's been transliterated from
Hebrew into Greek and again into English. The Amen. And what it
literally says here is that they hear the preaching of Jonah and
they say to his preaching, Amen. They acknowledge the truth of
his message. That's what they're doing. They're
acknowledging the truth of what this man is declaring. It's a
true message that is being proclaimed. They deserved the punishment
of their sins. This was a message he was to,
as I've said, he was to preach onto it the preaching that God
was bidding him to there at verse 2 and the message as we have
it remember right at the beginning cry against it for their wickedness
is come up before me all they deserve the punishment of their
sins they believed this solemn message and alas how many in
our nation today would accept that solemn truth that God is
dealing with us because we are a sinful nation How few, how
very few would even acknowledge God in our day. But this city,
you see, they believe God. They believe the Word of God.
They believe that God's Word is true. Now, remember what faith
does. They have faith, they believed,
and we're told how faith works. Now, what does faith work here?
Now, two things I would mention. This faith of these people works
in them the fear of God. It works in them the fear of
God. God's threatenings, that he is
going to destroy the city. Look at what we are told in verse
9, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from
his fierce anger that we perish not or they were fearful of that
fierce anger of God this is what the message brings
to them it causes them to be afraid Now, at this time in our
nation, many are afraid, they have a fear, but they don't have
the fear of God, they have the fear of a virus. And what do
they do? They look to the wisdom of men,
they look to the scientists, they look to the arm of flesh,
but there's nothing of the fear of God. No recognition of the
hand of God in these things. But how different it was amongst
these Ninevites. and we see how it began with
the king. It begins with the chief man
in the land and his nobles. Verse 6, 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. It reached the very chief person,
the king. And as it reached to the top
man, so it also descends and reaches down to the very brute
creation. Because what is it that the king
does? Well, verse 7, 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 anything, let
them not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered
with sackcloth. man and beast covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily unto God. This is the king's decree. It
reaches down not unto the lowest of those in his realm, his subjects,
but even to the very brute creation. Or doesn't it remind us that
the curse of sin has affected every part of creation. The sin
of men, the sin of Adam there in the garden of Eden. Remember
the language we have in chapter 3 of Genesis. Cursed is the ground
for thy sake says God to the man. Cursed is the ground, the
very ground upon which he walks, the very ground out of which
he was taken because God formed his body out of the dust of the
earth. All of creation is under that terrible curse of God. And we're reminded of that, how
the creation is groaning and travailing. Think of the language
that we have in Romans chapter 8, the language of the Apostle
Paul here. Romans 8 verse 19. The earnest expectation of the
creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature
was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him
who hath objected the same in hope. Because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the
whole creation Or as the margin says, every creature groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until ne'er. O thou hideous monster
seen, what a curse hast thou brought in, all creation groaned
through thee, pregnant cause of misery. Why we just sang those
very words in our opening praise, did we not? Thou wast God afflicted
too. Nothing less than that would
even God manifest in the flesh comes to bear that awful curse
of man's sin and man's wicked rebellion. All of creation, you see, is
involved here in the in the repentance, the penitence,
that is being manifest amongst those Ninevites, because sin
reaches to every creature. And again, we see it in the language
of another prophet, Joel, where Joel speaks of God's army, the
plague, the plague of the locusts, the Palmyra, all that came upon
a wicked people. What does he say there at the
end of chapter 1? Joel 1 verse 18. How do the beasts groan? The
herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture.
Yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O Lord, to Thee
will I cry. For the fire hath devoured the
pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned up all
the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also
unto For the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath
devoured the pastures of the wilderness." All that has come
upon this creation because of the sin of man. But here, amongst
the Ninevites, we see that there is something of the fear of God
and that recognition of God's just anger. His fierce anger they speak of.
Who can tell? if God will turn and repent and
turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not. You see,
there's not only fear as the cause of this remarkable show
of penitence, this covering in sackcloth, this sitting in the
ashes. There's also hope. There's also
a measure of hope here. And let us not forget what Jonah
is. He is a sign of the resurrection. He is a
sign of the resurrection. Those words of the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, when the scribes and Pharisees want a sign, and
the Lord says that an evil, adulterous generation seek after a sign,
there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas. This is a sign, for as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the Wales, barely so shall
the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because
they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater
than Jonas is here. It is a sign also, I said this
morning, a sign of repentance, but principally it is a sign
of resurrection and resurrection hope, living hope, living hope. Oh, who can tell? Who can tell if God will turn
and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish
not? They have some hope here. Here is Jonah, what is he doing? He's preaching that that God
did bid him to preach. He's preaching of the wickedness
of the city, but surely Jonah also is speaking of his own experience. Is he not a sign to these Ninevites? He must have spoken of himself,
and something of what he had been through, if he's going to
be a sign to them. And what was it? Well, he had
sinned. He was a sinner. He was a man
who had disobeyed the Word of God. He had rebelled against
God's commandment. He had been brought to the place
of the conviction of sin. He had known something of a spirit
of real repentance. There had been deliverance. There
had been restoration. Oh, we know how this man had
obviously spoken to those mariners on board the ship, when they
were exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou
done this? And we are told, for the men
knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told
them. Jonah is bound up in the message
that he is proclaiming. And Jonah surely here is a remarkable
sign that there is hope because Jonah is a sign of resurrection
or that blessed resurrection. He is an experimental preacher
really, that's all I would say. He speaks of things that he has
known and felt. He's not just theorizing with
regards to the message that he's proclaiming even to these Ninevites. A good man out of the good treasure
of his heart bringeth forth good things and he's bringing forth
good things. He's able to tell them how God
does deal with people. God deals with his creatures.
How God had dealt with him so remarkably as we were saying
this morning. And so, the cause of this repentance,
yes, principally it's fear. They're afraid. They're afraid
of the fierce anger of God that is going to visit a terrible
judgment upon the city. And yet there's a measure of
hope. Who can tell? Oh, what a word is that! Who can tell
if God will turn and repent? returned from his fierce anger and then there's no perishing
but there's preservation the cause in the cause of their
repentance is national repentance and then secondly consider the
way it's expressed the manifestation of that in our text here at verse
5 The people of Nineveh believed God and were told, and proclaimed
a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even
to the least of them. There is a fasting. They proclaim
a fast. In fact, it's a royal proclamation,
isn't it? When the word comes unto the
king of Nineveh, when this word This preaching of Jonah reaches
the royal palace. He arose from his throne, he
laid his robe from him, covered him with sackcloth and sat in
ashes and he calls to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his nobles saying that neither
man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything, let them not
feed nor drink water. Oh, there is a royal proclamation. 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, he says. This is what he calls the people
to. And we see this in Scripture.
We certainly see it in the history of God's ancient people. We can
think of Jehoshaphat, a godly king. And what do we read concerning
that king in 2 Chronicles? There in 2 Chronicles chapter
20, verse 3, Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord
and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Verse 13, all Judah
stood before the Lord, it says, with their little ones, their
wives and their children. Why this? Because they're fearful
of warfare. The Moabites and the Ammonites
are coming. But what does the King do? He
proclaims the fast. And it reaches to all the people,
from the greatest to the least of the people. Or that there could be such a
proclamation made even in our poor country. It was different
once upon a time. It was different, of course,
during the darkest phases of the Second World War. We're told
how the King, George VI, would proclaim a day of prayer. The nation should turn to the
God in prayer. that there might yet be deliverance,
that there might yet be success and victory for our forces. Not
that many years ago, there are those living today, of course,
who can remember such events. Our nation needs that today. Now what we have here, of course,
in this proclamation, this call to fasting, is, I suppose, only
the externals of repentance. There's fasting, and there's
the wearing of sackcloth, the king sitting in ashes, as it
were, putting aside all his royal apparel. But it's the externals. Now, we know in Scripture that
there is fasting and there's fasting. There's a false fast,
and there's a true fast. Remember how Isaiah speaks of
such things as he rebukes the people in Israel there in chapter
58 Isaiah 58 verse 3 the people say wherefore have
we fasted? wherefore have we fasted say
they and they see us not wherefore have we afflicted our soul and
they take us no knowledge behold says God In the day of your fast
ye find pleasure and exact all your labours. Behold ye fast
to strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness.
Ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be
heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have
chosen? Asks God, a day for a man to
afflict his soul, as it is to bow down his head as a boorosh,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him, wilt thou call this
a fast, an unacceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast
that I have chosen, to lose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that ye
break every yoke, Is it not to do thy bread to the hungry, and
that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house, when
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide
not thyself from thine own flesh? What is God saying a true fast
is the forsaking of sins. Matthew Henry says it is not
enough to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin. we must pass
from sin and that's really what what the king is calling the
people to it was such a such a wicked city it was such
a wicked city and they turned from their sins
As it says in verse 10, God saw their works that they turned
from their evil way. Now Jonah is not the only prophet
who goes to speak to the Ninevites. Nahum also was a prophet to these
people. Just a couple of books later
on, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. And what do we read there? The
Burden of Nineveh. The Book of the Vision of Nahum
the Alkoshite. And Nahum speaks somewhat of
the wickedness of that city. Chapter 3 and verse 1, he says,
Woe to the bloody city, the city of bloods! It is all full of
lies and robbery. the prey departeth not, and so
forth. He says at verse 4, because the
multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, this
is a description of Nineveh, the well-favoured harlot, the
mistress of witchcrafts, that salloth nations through her whoredoms,
and families through her witchcrafts. It was truly a most wicked city. But under Jonah's preaching there
was a national repentance. Fasting was not a false fast.
It was a true fast. It was a turning from all their
wicked ways. Now I said that Jonah is a sign,
surely, of resurrection, but also, remember, is a sign of
repentance. There's no disputing that, because
that's what the Lord Jesus says. The men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, because
they repented. They repented at the preaching
of Jonas. And the greater than Jonas is
here, says the Lord Jesus. Well, what was it about this repentance? What is the evidence,
the manifestation of it? Well, there's a turning from
sin, but there's more than that. He proclaims a fast, does the
king, and what does he require with that
fasting? Verse 8, 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.
Yes, there's that, but there's also this crying mightily unto
God. The amazing thing surely is this
here, that is calling not only man but the beast also let man
and beast be covered and cry mightily unto God there are times are there not
when when men behave like beasts instead of like rational beings
and sometimes God's people are brought even to that place and
have to confess their bestiality as it were. The Psalmist there
in Psalm 73 says, So foolish was I, and ignorant I was as
a beast before them. And so he comes to confess his
folly and his sin before God, I was as a beast. And yet, really that little word
has, it's not there is it? In the original it's been introduced
by the translators, he literally says, I was a beast. Not just
a simile, you see. Not just that I'm like a beast,
as a beast. No, Lord God, I am a beast. And think of how that good king
Hezekiah prays unto God like a crane or swallow. So did I
chatter, I did mourn as a dove, mine eyes fail with looking upward. I am oppressed. undertake from
it. Or sometimes when we come to
cry mightily unto God, we can't formulate words, we can't really
articulate what we want to say, and we find that praying is little
more than the groaning or the moaning of a beast. And this is how they come, you
see, there's a blessed reality here. It's heartfelt prayer. That's the sort of fasting it
is. Remember the Lord Jesus speaks
of prayer and fasting. This forth, this time cometh
not forth, he says, but by prayer and fasting. What does he mean?
Well, I understand it like this, that the important thing is the
prayer, but the fasting indicates something of the intensity of
the praying. one is laying aside even the
necessities of life, one is forgoing any food in order to give oneself
the more earnestly to the seeking of God's face, the calling, the
crying. Wasn't this how Daniel prayed? When Daniel came to an
understanding that the 70 years of exile were coming to an end,
he's reading there in the Word of God, he's reading the prophecy
of Jeremiah, And we have his prayer, of course, in Daniel
9. And what does he say as he reads
those words that the Lord would accomplish 70 years in the desolations
of Jerusalem? He says, I set my face unto the
Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and
sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my
God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful
God keep in the covenant and mercy to them that love him and
to them that keep his commandments we have sinned and have committed
iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing
from thy precepts and from thy judgments neither have we hearkened
unto thy servants the prophets which spake in thy name to our
kings our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the
land O LORD, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion
of faces as at this day, to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, unto all Israel that are near and that are far
off, to all the countries whither thou hast driven them because
of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. O LORD,
To us belongeth confusion of faith, to our kings, to our princes,
and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee, to
the Lord our God. Belong mercies and forgivenesses,
though we have rebelled against him. What a prayer this is! And
you see, he's involved in this, he's not saying that he's better
than any others, he uses the plural pronouns throughout, worthy
of sin. He's implicated in it, and this
is how we're to pray. Surely we're to pray for our
nation at such a time as this. How are we to pray? Can we not
learn from the example of a man like Daniel and the earnestness
and the intensity of his pleadings with God? All what belongs to
God, mercies, loving kindnesses all that is the God who is good
and who does good and so here we see something of the the evidence
of their repentance there's a turning from there's a turning from sin
though it was such a wicked city and there's a turning to God
Let man and beast cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn
every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in
their hands. And then finally what we have
here is the efficacy of it all. You see, it's not in vain where
there's real prayer and true repentance. No, we're told in
verse 10, God saw their works that they turned from their evil
way and God repented of the evil that He had said He would do
unto them and He did it not. Ah, what are we to make of this
verse? It says that God repented of
the evil that He said He would do and He did it not. But isn't God unchangeable? Isn't God unchangeable? Does
God really repent? We are told God is not a man
that He should repent. God does not repent. He is of one mind, you can turn
Him. What He has purposed, That's
the thing he does. He's the great I am that I am.
That's the comfort of his people. I am the Lord, I change not.
Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And yet, we read
here in the text, the end of the verse, this 10th verse, that
God repented and didn't do the thing that he said he would do.
God has changed. He's changed his mind. Why? Are
these things written if God is the unchanging God? Well, here
God is condescending to speak to us in very human terms. He is speaking in very human
terms. He is a good God. He is a gracious
God. And though Jonah was so mindful
of that, he knew the character of his God. These Ninevites were enemies
of Israel. And so what do we read at the
beginning of chapter 4? Our Jonah was displeased, he was angry.
He prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not
this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled
before unto Tarshish, for I knew, I knew that thou art a gracious
God and merciful. slow to anger, and of great kindness,
and repentant of the evil." All judgment is God's strange work. He is so good and so gracious
of God. And what is God doing here when
He speaks in this fashion at the end of this 10th verse? Well,
He is speaking to us in language that we understand he is condescending
to speak to us in human terms he speaks to us as if he himself
were a man he speaks of repenting in order to encourage sinners
to repent he speaks of repenting himself
to encourage sinners to repent So God is the unchanging One. And God is only fulfilling His
eternal purpose in at this time, sparing that city of the Ninevites. What does he say right at the
end of the book? Should not I spare Nineveh? This was God's purpose
all along. This is why he sent the Prophet
to them. Should not I spare Nineveh, that
great city wherein are more than 6,000-4,000 persons that cannot
discern between their right hand and their left hand and also
much cattle? He spared them for a season. But it was only for a season.
Judgment did eventually come. And we see that quite clearly
in the language that we have later in that book of the other
prophets who goes to the Ninevites. Nahum, the burden of Nineveh,
the book of the vision of Nahum, the Al-Kashite, God is jealous,
and the Lord revenges. The Lord revengeth, and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance
on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. And see how he goes on to speak
of what will come upon those Ninevites. In chapter 3 and verse
7, it shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee
shall flee from thee and say, Nineveh is laid waste. Who will
be Mona? When shall I seek comforters
for them? And Nineveh, of course, is no
more. Nineveh's gone. It was once one
of the great cities of the world. And now it's gone. But God, for
a season, did spare them. God shows something of His mercy.
And journey, you know, in a sense, I think is a threefold sign. We could say it's a sign of judgment. It's a sign of judgment, as the
Lord says there in Matthew 12, 41, "...the men of Nineveh shall
rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it." all that are greater than Jonah's
present and those who are rejecting Christ he comes to his own, his
own receive him not he's a sign of judgment he's really a sign
of resurrection, we know that as Jonah's was three days and
three nights in the whale's belly so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth, a sign of
the resurrection I am the resurrection and the life says the Lord Jesus
either believeth on me though he were dead yet shall he live
and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die or believeth
so this resurrection life there is forgiveness with God certainly
Jonah had experienced it in a remarkable sense the Lord sparing him And then the Lord, after delivering
him, sending him the second time because he had a purpose, a gracious
purpose at that time to fulfill towards even the Ninevites. But he's also a sign of repentance. We're told concerning those Ninevites
they repented at the preaching of Jonas. and behold a greater than Jonas
is here who is that one who is greater than Jonas? Why the Lord
Jesus himself of course that one whom God has exalted a prince
and a saviour to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness
of sins and this is the one that we have to come to and pray to
we need repentance we need ourselves that grace
of repentance, the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. And those
that we pray for, and we must surely pray for our own nation
at such a time as this, and all we longed that there might be
a spirit of repentance, that would give us hope that the Lord
will then stay His hands. But from whence will our leaders
obtain repentance? It can only come from the Lord
Jesus. We must pray and pray to Him that he would grant that
there might be such an outpouring of that blessed gift, that spirit
of repentance, even in high places. What we read here concerning
the Ninevites might yet be true in this nation. All the people
of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from
the greatest of them. even to the least of them. Oh
the Lord God be pleased yet to spare our poor sin benighted
nation and that he might turn the hearts of many. I often think
you know of What we're told concerning God's dealings with his ancient
people when they went into exile into Babylon, there was an expected
end. I know the thoughts that I think
towards you, says God. Thoughts of peace and not of
evil to give you an expected end. Or that there might be an
expected end. Are we looking for it, longing
for it, praying for it? That it might come. And it can
only come as God is pleased to bestow it. but God will have
us come and will have us command him concerning these the works
of his hands. Oh the Lord embolden us in to
be much, much in prayer for this poor sinful land of ours. Well the Lord bless his word.