God's Mercy Reach

remain standing for the reading of the word i have been for the last monday tuesday and even today captivated captivated in a vein that i feel like god would have us to enter into tonight from the book of jonah jonah chapter 1 and the word would read as this now the word of the lord came unto jonah the son of a mitai and i will use this as my launching pad tonight verse two arrives go to nineveh that great city somebody say that great city and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me i want to preach to us teach to us for just a little while this evening on this subject god's mercy reach you're going to help me preach why don't you just right now lift your voice right now lord in the name of jesus god anoint the lips of clay and anoint every heart to receive the word tonight in the name of jesus we pray one more time clap your hands unto the lord we are so honored tonight to have with us marie we're so glad that you're here tonight welcome to the sanctuary thank you so much we pray you feel at home and we just we love you and thank you for being here tonight you may be seated i have been and i know in in sunday school you have heard the story and jonah is most known for jonah and the whale or jonah in the great fish but locked inside the book of jonah is so many so many great truths and uh it's almost an allegory of the life and the mission of the church and uh of jesus christ and so i i just want to teach to us and preach to us tonight on god's mercy reach the name jonah means dove the name amitai where he was from means truth so when you look at this great man of god this prophet of god he was known in the ancient hebrew time as the dove of truth he was a prophet in the northeast kingdom of the northern kingdom of israel he is credited for having given the word that jeroboam would regain the boundaries in second kings 14 and 25. i i when i began to study the subject i had no idea that jonah was you could find jonah in his words and his prophecies in the book of second kings 14 25. the bible would read he restored the coast of israel from the entering of hamath unto the sea of the plain according to the word of the lord god of israel which he spake by the hand of his servant jonah the son of a menti the prophet which was of gather so we know that he was jonah was an active prophet many times i think we have all been guilty of focusing on his actions in the book of jonah and never taken into account that he was a prophet that god spoke to and spoke through but it's not just limited to one book of the bible which was named after him his ministry when you read and you study thoroughly his ministry was very extensive he heard and obeyed the voice of god he was moved on by the spirit of god so now we find in jonah chapter 1 that god is calling him again somebody say again it's one thing for god to call you one time but it's also another thing for god to call you another time we find that god is trying to use this prophet again and the call would be similar or as it is recorded in scripture like this god speaking arise and go to nineveh that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me verse three but jonah rose up to flee unto tarshish from the presence of the lord and everybody say and went down and went down to chopper and he found a ship going to tarshish so he paid the fare thereof and went everybody sat down down into it to go with them unto tarshish from the presence of the lord oh hallelujah jonah had the distinction of being the only old testament prophet that ran from god he is one of the four old testament prophets that jesus refers back to along with elijah and elisha and isaiah but he alone is the category he has found in that category of a prophet who disobeyed god god said go but jonah said no i believe we can all find that a little bit in all of us from time to time somewhere now god's trying to get us to do something and god's saying go and that we say no no god i don't i don't want to do that but when you look at the story this trip to nineveh would have taken at least one month to get there it was approximately 550 miles away from where he was geographically and god said preach to nineveh but jonah does the opposite jonah border shook to tarshish why did he disobey the lord perhaps one of the most obvious reasons was the city itself when you look at the city of nineveh it was a very powerful and great city it was built by nimrod the first world dictator it was the capital of assyria it was 60 miles in circumference approximately 600 000 people in population all supported by internal crops they were able to sustain them own cells it had two walls around it the inner wall was over 50 feet wide and a hundred feet tall it had 15 gates named after pagan gods and 1200 towers around the city that were 200 feet tall it dominated the ancient world from approximately 930 bc to 612 bc almost 300 years that's a long time for an empire to be in charge but one of the many possible reasons that jonah did not want to go to israel or to go to nineveh was that he loved his country he loved the familiar he loved what he was used to what he was comfortable doing what god had placed him in that realm that god was allowing him to operate in so stepping out of possibly a comfort zone stepping out and being obedient was was something that jonah just wasn't ready to do he knows that nineveh was not only the traditional enemy but he knows that they will eventually wipe out the northern kingdom of israel because of the already prophetic words by amos and hosea so he didn't or he doesn't want them to even repent there was there was part of him that that wants them to be judged there's part of him that won't and we'll read this later on that wants them to suffer that wants them to to not receive the mercy of god and if you look at the life of jonah and you look at it from this angle suppose that you were a jew and in 1939 god calls you to berlin and preach to hitler would you be excited about your assignment that kind of brings into perspective the way jonah the position of jonah that day you're being sent into a a world power and to preach to them that god is about to send judgment assyria is known through history as the most brutal heartless sadistic of all pagan nations that was their trademark to be brutal to their captives so in his mind in the way he was thinking i i'm just paraphrasing here that what if i go there and i begin to prophesy and say these things even though i'm a prophet of god even though god has stood beside me when i spoke the prophetic what if they capture me if they capture me they're going to kill me so all of these human feelings very natural feelings were coming through his emotional processes they made pyramids of skulls of their enemies listen at this they used human skin as upholstery he was afraid that he would be helping a nation that would be used to destroy his own nation and rule over them according to prophecies already spoken so he was not excited about his next assignment god said to go to nineveh and god and jonah goes to tarshish think about this he was taking a ship to tasha's it's like the phrase we've all heard taking a slow boat to china it carries the concept of going as far away as possible in their day it was an island that was beyond the pillars of hercules which was at the right then the end of the known world in his day when i begin to when i begin to study this brother brother chris it blew my mind that a ship going to tarsus where he was a ship that was going to tarsus only made that trip once every three years it was a one-way one year to get there another trip a year to get back and another year so it took about three years for for there to be a cycle of ships going and coming when i began to look and study the con the the the context of all of this what jonah was trying to do is get as far away from god as he possibly could get it didn't matter he was willing to pay the fare the bible says he was so determined i refused to go i refused to go to nineveh and whatever i've got to do i'll go to the far ends of the world if i have to but i'm not going to nineveh he was trying to get so far away from the voice of god as he possibly could he was trying to get as far away from the will of god as he possibly could how many would say would it would agree with me that's just like us many many many times the call of the wild over overrides the call of god the desire of the flesh overrides the desire of god the voice of the world overrides the voice of god our personal will overshadows the will of god in our life but we are still here we're still staying somebody say i'm still standing we're still worshiping because why because the mercy of god there's no other way to look at it it was the mercy the reach of god's mercy i'm so glad tonight that god's rich in mercy i'm glad for his mercy this is what was happening to jonah he boards the ship he pays the fare you'll always pay the fare when you sin i said you'll always pay the fare when you sin but it'll always cost you more than you thought it was going to cost you sin will take you further than you thought it would go james 1 14-15 but every man is tempted when he is drawn away with his own lust and enticed then when lust has conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin somebody say when it's finished bringeth forth death sin will always cost you something sin will always carry you down sin well i'm going to say it again sin will always carry you down always i know the bible says that the the pleasures are are good for a season but but it's for a season it's when you wake up to understand that season is over and you're further down than when you started you're not where you were when you started you're further from the place in the presence and power of god listen at what jonah said what the book of jonah said in verse three but jonah rose up to fleet of tarsus from the presence of god and went down to joppa and he found a ship going to tarshish so he paid the fare thereof and went down everything you see is down in jonah's life down to chopper down into the ship to go with them unto tarshish from the presence of god verse four but the lord sent a great win into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken then the mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his god and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea basically the luggage basically those things that that would cause this ship to be over overloaded and possibly even sink to lighten it the bible says but jonah was down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep so the shipmaster came to him and said unto him what meanest thou o sleeper arise call upon that you're on the ship with a bunch of pagans you're on the ship with a bunch of pagans arise o sleeper call upon thy god if so be that god will think upon us that we perish not and they said every one to his fellow come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us so they cast lots and the lot fell upon jonah then said they unto him tell us we pray thee for whose cause this evil is upon us what is thine occupation and whence cometh thou what is thy country and of what people thou art and he said unto them i am a hebrew i fear the lord the god of heaven which has made the sea come awesome and the dry land then were the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him why hast thou done this for the men knew that he fled from the presence of god because he had told them it's almost as though jonah imagine this other sparse it's like when he was paying for the fair how fast can y'all get me on this ship well i got to get out of here what do you mean you got to get out of here man god told me to do something i i i ain't going to do it get me on this ship get me a ticket i don't care how much it costs double the pay i don't care just get me on this boat we got to get out of here i know it won't be back for three years but get me on this ship i'm getting out of here i just wonder what the total conversation was like when jonah was telling the men what he was doing it had to have made brother dodd enough impression that the men knew he was running from the presence of god because jonah told them jonah told him what he was doing then they said unto him what shall we do unto thee that the sea may come unto us for the sea wrought and was temptuous and he said unto them take me up cast me into the sea so shall the sea be calm unto you for i know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you nevertheless the men rode hard to bring it to land but they could not for the sea wrought and was temptuous against them wherefore they cried unto the lord and said we beseech thee oh lord we beseech thee let us not perish for this man's life lay not upon us innocent blood for thou o lord has done as it pleased thee so they took up jonah and cast him into the sea and the sea ceased from her raging then the men feared the lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the lord and made vows now the lord had prepared a fish to swallow up jonah and jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and nights but listen at chapter 2 verse 6. i went down to the bottoms of the mountains eliot's commentary for english readers describes bottoms of mountains as literally ends or cuttings off mountains were considered in the hebrews as the pillars of the world having their foundations firmly planted in the sea these hidden bases of the hills were there therefore the verge of the earth itself and one lost among them would be closing in on the underworld of death the bottoms of the mountains literally the cuttings off where the mountains seem to be cut off from the ocean floor the roots of the mountains the lowest depths of the sea that's where jonah ended up he was at the bottom but in the midst of his sin in the midst of his disobedience in the stomach of the fish he witnesses his own downward spiral he went down to choppa he went down into the ship he went down into the sides of the ship he went down into the water he went down into the belly of the fish he went down into the lowest part of the sea he says as for the earth her bars were about me thy gate by which i might return was locked behind me if he wanted to get out he couldn't the door was locked behind me he adds the word forever because he had no power in himself of returning to earth and life all of this downwardness all of this hopelessness the time of his life that was void of hope he knew he had messed up jonah knew that it was over he knew he was in a situation that was all but final but look at these words in jonah chapter 2 verse 7 and said i cried by reason of mine affliction unto the lord and he heard me of the belly-cried eye and thou heardest my voice for thou has cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas and the floods come pass me about all the pillows and the waves passed over me then i said i am cast out of thy sight yet i will look again toward thy holy temple imagine this you're in the of the fish and you're praying this kind of prayer i will look again untoward thy holy temple the waters come past me about even to the soul the depth closed me around about and the weeds were wrapped around my head i went down to the bottoms of the mountain the earth with her bars was about me forever yet has thou brought up my life from corruption o lord my god listen in verse 7 when my soul fainted within me i remembered the lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thy holy temple that situation he was in did not keep him from praying that predicament he was in he did not have a memory loud he did not forget the god that he was called by chosen by he had a word locked on the inside of him he had a purpose and a destiny over his life and that did not cut that did not stop him from pouring out his heart from to god why because he knew god was a god who was rich in mercy i said he knew that god was a god rich in mercy he would go on to write these words in jonah chapter 4 and he s and he prayed unto the lord and said i pray that your lord was not this my saying when i was yet in my country therefore i fled unto tarshish for i knew that thou were a gracious god and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repentance thee of evil we can see from this some of what he was thinking when god called him he just confirmed that god was rich in mercy he just witnessed that the mercy of god was not only going to be in his life but other lives he had watched god deliver and heal and set free he had watched god save israel when they didn't deserve it he had watched god reach a long way down in the lives of so many people and restore them now he himself is trapped with no exit he is at the bottom he is at the lowest place that you could possibly be in the natural he is trapped underground in the belly of a fish the earth's bars closed in around him choking with seaweed around his head and he concludes that it will be forever in other words jonah was at the point of believing a lie that says i am beyond mercy but then here comes this great kind loving gracious merciful god to the rescue aren't you thankful tonight that we serve a great god a kind god a loving god a merciful god jonah chapter 2 verse 10 and the lord spake unto that fish and it vomited out jonah upon the dry land jonah 3 1 through 2 and the word of the lord came unto jonah the second time saying arise go into nineveh that great city and preach unto it the preaching that i bid to you i'm so glad on this wednesday night that we serve a god of a second chance i don't know who i i don't know why i'm preaching this man i could not preach any other message but this on a wednesday i don't know what you're facing i don't know what you're feeling i don't know what circumstances of life it may be that you're facing tonight but you feel you're beyond the mercy of god you've gone beyond the reach of god's mercy but i've come to tell you in the holy ghost you're not beyond the reach of god's mercy if god can reach jonah at the bottom of the mountains of the valley floor of the sea and the belly of a fish you think he loves us you think he can still get to us you think mercy can come running into your circumstances i do i stand on this platform tonight and tell you that god's mercy reaches further than you can dream nor imagine a god result that now and here on this show brother chris i've never seen it quite like this god's mercy reached a second chance into jonah's life so jonah could step on the scene and preach an eight-word sermon eight words y'all get eight word sermons that's the kind of sermon that turned a whole country a whole city 600 000 people eight words that's the mercy of god it don't take much when you're being obedient to the voice of god it don't take a whole lot when the voice of god begins to speak and break open that fallow ground and begin to speak deliverance to the captives jonah 3 4 through 9 and jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried and said yet forty days and none of us shall be overthrown eight words and the city went into a panic they started sitting in sackcloth and ashes they started repenting they started bowing down they started acknowledging we're going to be destroyed if we don't get our act together if we don't repent if we don't turn to god listen to what it said listen at the word and jonah he preached and said those words first five so the people believed god and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least 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 noble saying let neither man nor beast hear this heard nerf lock taste anything now you tell me brother sparks you have cows is this a miracle let neither man nor beast herding or flock taste anything that means you can't get one nibble of grass now i don't know how that happened but i just know that's what the bible says the magne let them not feed nor drink let them not feed or drink water but let man and beast be covered man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto god yea let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that's that is in their hands and listen at what the king would say who can tell who can tell if god will turn and repent who can tell if god will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not a city that was the most brutal heartless sadistic of all pagan nation of that age and hour the most brutal heartless of all pagan nations repents and is spared jonah 3 10 and god saw their works jonah saw what they tried to do god saw what they tried to do god saw their works that they turned from their evil ways and god repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not oh what a merciful god we serve he saved jonah who was as far down as he could possibly go he saved nineveh who was as bad of a city as it could possibly be i believe that none of uh the cities of north america doesn't even come in pale in comparison to what nineveh was doing at that hour chicago new york detroit minneapolis atlanta l.a san fran you name it put a label on it and as bad as things are right now in these cities nothing nothing would even be a glimmer of comparison as what nineveh was doing but god reaching mercy all because of his mercy that's how far god's mercy will reach it does not matter how bad you are or how down how far down you are it does not matter what you've committed it does not matter what you have done in this life the moment that you repent there's something that activates the heart of god there's something that is activated in the very fabric of god himself the loving the gracious the kind god of heaven and earth stands from his throne and says here am i i forgive my mercy is here psalms 119 and i'm coming to a close whether shall i go from thy spirit or whither shall i flee from thy presence david saying these words if i ascend up into heaven you're there if i make my bed in hell behold thou art there if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utter most parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me in thy right hand hold me it doesn't matter how far far down or how high up we go god's there his mercy it reaches you that reach of god's mercy can find you in the midst of the despondency in the midst of the hopelessness in the midst of the turmoil in the midst of covet 19 in the midst of cancer in the midst of high blood pressure in the midst of sugar in the midst of marital issues in the midst of pain and in the midst of backslidden children in the midst of uncertainty upon jobs and in family god's mercy is already reaching you god's mercy is going to a place that's already risen there's some places already reserved for god's mercy to reach because that's just the way our god is you stand all over this house i know the last several weeks i've been there there's been a vein of the spirit that's been in this church there's been a vein i don't know what you're facing and i said this earlier i don't know the hopelessness the despondency the uncertainty i don't know where it is but i know god told me to preach this message tonight and there's more i'm going to talk about jonah from another vein this is god's mercy reach tonight some of you have got loved ones some of you have got you've got children and grandchildren and you've got people that you're praying for and it seems like things have gotten worse before but better is not even anywhere on the radar everything just seems to be totally dysfunctional right now it just seems like they're they're so far their minds are so far from god but this is where god's mercy reaches this is this is the place that god's mercy goes into this is the place that god's mercy says i can i can go there i can i can find you there and what i want you to do right now right where you're seated if you if you feel led and you want to step out of your aisle and you want to walk to this front that's perfectly fine but i just feel like opening this place for prayer right in your seat or right at this front whatever you feel god's mercies re his mercy reach is about to come right where you are god didn't send you here by accident you're not here by accident ma'am god's mercy's reaching right where you are right now every life that walked into this place tonight you're not where you are by accident that mercy is here had mercies here oh and mercy's reaching right now it's reaching to the bottom of the mountains it reaches to the it reaches to the highest mountain it reaches to the lowest valley the blood has a way of going that no other thing can go to the mercy of god oh oh god in the name of jesus god i pray the mercy of god you're not a liar is that gives me strength it reaches that's the mercy of god that's the mercy of god i want you to begin to think i want you to begin to pray this week i want you to begin to call names you may think they're beyond the mercy reach of god but i've come to tell you tonight if god can reach a prophet in the belly of a well in the depths in the lowest part of the sea there's no place that god cannot go he's already there but i want us to ask god to begin to begin to let prayers of repentance let prayers of repentance to begin to be prayed backsliders that have once walked in these doors that have been on eubank street in our former location they've tasted and seen that the lord is good but it could quite possibly be that god's reserved them god has reserved them for a purpose that hell cannot annihilate hell cannot circle men hell cannot capture and retain because the mercy of god is going to free them and lose them and deliver them whole cities are going to be delivered whole families are going to be delivered whole situations are going to turn around because god's mercy does what only mercy can do lord i thank you for what i feel i thank you for the presence of the almighty god that is in this place god those that are sick and unable to be here those that are under the those that are battling god for their spiritual life i'm asking you lord to let your mercy reach them let your mercy captivate them hold them in the palm of your hand tonight hold them and lead them by your mighty hand it's in the name of jesus we pray everybody say amen