“Intro to Jonah 3:6-10”

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2025 9:45 AM

My Worship Time                                                                           Focus:  “Intro to Jonah 3:6-10”

Bible Reading and Meditation                                                                 Reference: Jonah 3:6-10

            Message of the verses: “Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes.  And he cried out and said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, animal, herd, or flock taste a thing.  Do not let them eat, and do not let them drink water.  But both man and animal must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God with their strength that each may turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands.  Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn away from His burning anger so that we will not perish.”  Then God saw their works, that they turned from their way, so God relented concerning the evil which He had spoken He would bring upon them.  And He did not bring it upon them.”

            As been my recent practice I will quote from the introduction to these verses, and also quote the name of the chapter that I am studying, which is chapter six of John MacArthur’s commentary on Jonah.  “The Grace of Repentance, Part II (Jonah 3:6-10)”

            MacArthur writes:  “The salvation of any sinner is a miracle.  For conversion to occur, God must impart new life to a heart that was spiritually dead (cf. Eph. 2:1-4).”  “1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us”  “He grants sight to those who were blinded by sin and brings home those who were lost in darkness (2 Cor. 4:6).”  “6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  “He bestows the gift of faith (Eph. 2:8) and the gift of repentance (2 Tim. 2:25), regenerating the heart of the sinner so that it beats with love for Him.” Ephesians 2:8: “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;” 2 Timothy 2:25: “25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,”  “When just one sinner is born again, the hosts of heaven respond with joy.  As the Lord Jesus explained, ‘I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ (Luke 15:10).

 

            “There are times also when the Lord multiplies this miracle by bringing many to saving faith.  The pages of Scripture record such occasions, when God acted powerfully to bring large numbers of people to repentance.  During the reign of King Josiah, for example, the nation of Judah experienced a widespread revival. The people repented by repudiating idolatry and restoring the worship of Yahweh (2 Chronicles 34-3 5).  After the exile, when a group of Israelites returned to the land of Judah, ‘a very large assembly, men, women, and children, gathered’ and ‘the people wept bitterly’ in repentance before God (Ezra 10:1).  When Peter preached at Pentecost, some 3,000 people embraced the Lord Jesus in repentant faith (Acts 2:41).  “41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”  “Af ter Paul evangelized the Jewish population in Berea, ‘many of them believed, along with not a few prominent Greek women and men’ (17:12). God also told Paul to remain in Corinth and preach to the Corinthians, explaining that He had ‘many people in this city (18:10).  Significant seasons of salvation have also occurred in church history, including the sixteenth-century Reformation and the eighteenth-century Great Awaking.  During those periods, large number of people repented and embraced the Lord Jesus in saving faith.  Looking to the end of the age, God has also promised that the nation of Israel will repent and be saved (Zech. 12:10-131; Rom. 11:26).  “10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. 11 “In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 “The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; 14 all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves.

    1 “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.”

“26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.’”

 

            “Any list of history’s largest collection or repentant sinners would be incomplete without including Nineveh in the days of Jonah.  Bu saving the Gentile inhabitants of Assyria’s capital city, God put His grace on vivid display.  The Lord not only restored His repentant prophet (Jonah 3:1-2 (but also sent him to Nineveh to proclaim a dire warning (3:3-4) in order to prompt the people to repent (3:5).  In this passage (3:6-10), the prophet continued his description of Nineveh’s remarkable conversion by recounting four key details:  the remorse of Nineveh’s monarch (3:6), the royal mandate he issued (3:7-8), the reliant meekness of the people (3:9), and the relenting mercy of God (3:10).  Though this Gentile city was exceedingly wicked, God’s grace was far greater than the people’s sin.  The salvation of Nineveh vividly demonstrated that God’s grace revealed fully in the gospel ‘is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [Gentile]’ (Rom. 1:16).”

 

            I remember one day where I was working at my job at the Cleveland Casting Plant that I was talking to a very hard working man about his need for salvation, and he told me that he had done too many horrible things and God could not save him.  Well Paul writes that the Lord saved him and he states that he was the chief of sinners.  So anyone who is reading this and thinks like my friend did, think like Paul did as the Lord saved him to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest winner of souls ever.

 

Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today:  It is my prayer that some of those who read my Spiritual Diaries that I place on my blogs each day will come to the realization that they are sinners and that the Lord Jesus Christ has already paid for their sins, and so they should confess that they are a sinner, and then ask the Lord Jesus Christ to come into their hearts in order to save them, and the good news is that He will do just that.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today: I am trusting the Lord that the cancer that my wife now has, and the treatment she is going through will bring glory to the Lord, and that we will both trust for us what He has for us in the outcome of this terrible disease.

 

10/28/2025 10:36 AM