Please turn to the book of Jonah.
Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me.
But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
And he went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish:
so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
And 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.
So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days’ journey.
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And the Lord said, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered Him, saying, Master, we would see a sign from Thee.
But He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet:
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish; 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 Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, as we continue in Thy presence, we do look to Thee to shine Thy light upon Thy Word and shine Thy light upon our hearts. We pray that, through Thy Holy Spirit working in us, we may be drawn into Thy very thought, into Thy very mind, and into Thy very heart.
Lord, we do desire to be of one mind, one heart, and one spirit with Thee. We commit this time into Thy hands and look for Thy blessing, to the praise of Thy glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The book of Jonah is most unusual. It is listed among the twelve Minor Prophets, and yet you will find that it is really not a prophecy; it is a history.
As you read the book of Jonah, you find that it is simply straight narrative—the story of a man—except for chapter 2, which is a prayer. Yet, even though it is a history, a story, hidden in that story is the mystery of the greatest prophecy.
In its contents and style, it is more in line with what we have in the Old Testament history books: the lives of Elijah and Elisha. In 1 Kings and 2 Kings, we have the stories of Elijah and Elisha. They are prophets, and here you find Jonah. He is a prophet, and in the same way his story is being told.
Jonah is a real person, because our Lord Jesus, in Matthew 12, again in Matthew 16, and in Luke 11, mentioned Jonah. As Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so our Lord Jesus is the sign to a wicked and adulterous generation.
The very name Jonah means “dove.” He is the son of Amittai, which means “truth of God.” He is from Gath-hepher, a town about a mile north of Nazareth, of the tribe of Zebulun in Galilee.
Now, you know, it is very interesting because in John 7 you find the scribes and Pharisees, in their opposition to our Lord Jesus, did not recognize that our Lord Jesus was a prophet. They challenged Him and said, “Has there been any prophet coming out of Galilee?”
And yet, Jonah came out from Galilee. Because he was sent to a Gentile nation, these scribes and Pharisees, out of their narrow-mindedness, most conveniently forgot him.
Jonah came out of Galilee. He was a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel. From 2 Kings 14:25, we find that he prophesied during the time of Jeroboam II. It was roughly in the middle of the ninth and eighth centuries before Christ.
It was he who prophesied that God would restore the territory of Israel in the reign of Jeroboam II. So he was really a great prophet.
The Lord used Jeroboam II to restore the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel, not because Jeroboam was a good king. As a matter of fact, he was a wicked king. And it was not because the children of Israel repented. They did not.
It was because God looked upon that guilty nation and found that there was absolutely no help. He had not made up His mind to blot out the name of Israel. Out of His compassion for that nation, He prophesied through Jonah that He would use Jeroboam to restore the glory of the northern kingdom of Israel.
As a matter of fact, during that long reign of Jeroboam II, Israel enjoyed great prosperity.
Jonah probably prophesied after Elisha. As a matter of fact, it was almost as if he succeeded Elisha. Elisha was also a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel, a prophet of grace to that people. But Jonah prophesied after Elisha, and he was sent to a heathen nation to prophesy of its destruction, in order that they might repent and be spared.
The Word of God came to Jonah: “Arise, go to Nineveh, cry against it; for their wickedness has come before the Lord.”
It is very interesting if we know what Nineveh was at that time. Today, of course, we all know the news about Iraq. The areas of Babylon and Assyria are now within the territory of Iraq.
Nineveh was built by Nimrod. If you go back to Genesis 10:10-12, you find Nimrod, a descendant of Ham. The word Nimrod means “rebel.” He was a great hunter. He was the first empire-builder in history.
He built Babylon by the river Euphrates, and he also built Nineveh by the river Tigris. We know that Mesopotamia was the place where civilization began. Nimrod was the first one in history who built great cities for his own kingdom.
At the time of Jonah, about thirteen hundred years later, Nineveh was a great city—an exceeding great city. It took three days’ journey to cover that city. Some people say that the city was perhaps sixty to ninety miles in extent.
There were more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who did not know their right hand from their left hand. At that time, they figure this probably referred to people under seven years of age. If that is so, Nineveh may have had a population of six hundred thousand people. It was truly a big city, but it was a very wicked city. It was strong, but wicked.
Nineveh became the capital of the Assyrian Empire. At the time of Jonah, Assyria was a rising star. It was beginning to build its kingdom.
Later on, it was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire. But in history and prophecy, Assyria and Babylon are often named together and sometimes used almost interchangeably, because they represent the first world empire.
With the rise of the Babylonian Empire and Nebuchadnezzar, the times of the Gentiles began. In prophecy, Assyria will rise up as the enemy of God’s people. So this term is used in a general way, covering what the world empire is and what the world represents. It is always an enemy to God’s people.
When Jonah was commissioned by the Lord to go to Nineveh and cry against it, Jonah fled. He fled from the presence of the Lord. He did not want to go. Why?
Probably because he was a typical Jew. He was a very patriotic Jew, and he was greatly used by the Lord to prophesy the prosperity of the nation of Israel.
Perhaps he had a feeling that Israel was not right before God. As a prophet, he may have had a premonition that God would use some Gentile power to punish and discipline Israel. In Scripture, Assyria is called the rod of God’s anger.
When God sent him to Nineveh to cry against it and say that, within forty days, it would be destroyed, Jonah may have been glad to do that. But he knew God. He knew the character of God. He knew that the reason God sent him there was not to destroy them, but to give them another opportunity. And he did not want to see them have that opportunity.
Instead of obeying God, he fled. He went down to Joppa, the seaport, and it so happened that there was a ship going to Tarshish.
We do not know for sure today where Tarshish was at that time. Some say it was probably a seaport in Spain. Others say that, because Solomon’s ships brought treasures from afar, it was perhaps somewhere near Africa. We do not know exactly where Tarshish was.
But one thing we do know: Nineveh was on the east side of Palestine, while Spain or Africa was west or south of Palestine. Jonah traveled in the opposite direction, trying to flee from the presence of God.
Now, do you really think Jonah believed that he could flee from the presence of God? Jonah was a prophet. He was most familiar with the Old Testament. If you read his prayer in chapter 2, it is quotation after quotation from the Psalms. He used the Psalms to express his feeling before God.
Psalm 139 is a beautiful psalm:
Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there:
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall Thy hand lead me,
And Thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me,
And the light about me shall be night;
Even the darkness hideth not from Thee,
But the night shineth as the day:
The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.
For Thou didst form my inward parts:
Thou didst cover me in my mother’s womb.
Jonah was familiar with the Psalms. Certainly, he knew that he could not flee from the presence of God. So what does it mean to flee from the presence of the Lord?
Actually, nobody can flee from the presence of the Lord, because He is everywhere. What it really means is that Jonah wanted to get away from God. He was thinking of turning away from being God’s prophet because he did not want to bring that message. He was fleeing from his ministry.
Perhaps there was another reason. Knowing God’s heart, he thought that if he should go and say, “Within forty days Nineveh will be destroyed,” and they repented and God did not destroy Nineveh, what would happen to him as a prophet?
People would say, “Now he is a false prophet, because his prophecy did not come true.” He would lose his credibility. Here you find that Jonah was more concerned with his own credibility than with the character of God.
Perhaps that was another reason why he did not want to do what God commanded him to do. So he fled. And sure enough, there was a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare, went into the ship, and thought he would be incognito.
Now, brothers and sisters, sometimes we use circumstances as a guide to know the Lord’s will. It is true that sometimes the Lord does guide us by circumstances. But you cannot be guided by circumstances alone.
In the case of Jonah, he could have said, “Well, the circumstances are clear. When I arrived in Joppa, there was a ship ready for me. God provided the circumstances, so it must be God’s will.” But we know that it was just the opposite of God’s will.
When circumstances do not agree with, or even oppose, the direct command of God, then we know that we cannot go by circumstances. We have to go by the direct will of God. Circumstances can sometimes be used as a help, but they can never be used as the sole guidance for the will of God.
That is something we need to remember. But anyway, Jonah paid the fare—it was a waste of money, actually—and went into the ship.
Jonah went down to the bottom of the ship and went to sleep. But God sent a great storm, and the ship was in great danger.
The sailors tried to throw away the goods in order to lighten the ship, but it did not work. The storm was so severe. Everybody on the ship cried to their gods for help.
Then the captain found a man fast asleep in the bottom of the ship. “What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God.”
Now, brothers and sisters, is it not strange that a person who deliberately disobeys God, trying to flee from God, could go to sleep? His conscience must have been bothering him. How could he sleep?
But sometimes, you try to sleep away your conscience. Often, when a person is in great strain and stress, he goes to sleep.
You remember Elijah: he fled, and he went to sleep. You remember the three disciples whom our Lord took to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was such an important time, and the Lord said, “Watch with Me.” Yet they went to sleep. Why? Because the tension was so great.
Jonah was tired, with a weak conscience, fighting within and without, and he just went to sleep—fast asleep. So he was awakened and told, “Cry unto thy God.”
They cast lots, and you find that God actually governed that lot. The lot fell upon Jonah. They said, “Who are you? What have you done?”
I believe that by that time Jonah really realized what he was doing. I believe that even at that time Jonah repented before God. So he said, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.” He told them that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord.
That made everybody frightened. They said, “What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?” Jonah said, “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.”
Jonah knew that he had rebelled against God and should be chastised. But he had enough faith—actually, he had enough faith to believe that if he was thrown into the sea, somehow God would deliver him.
The men did not want to do that. You find the good flesh even in that moment; they would not do it. They tried their best to row the ship to land, but they could not. The tempest became even fiercer.
After all, they prayed to the Lord and said, “We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood.” Then they threw Jonah into the sea.
As soon as Jonah touched the water, the sea became calm. It was the Lord.
God prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Most likely, that fish was not a whale but a shark, because in the Mediterranean there are large sharks that could swallow even a horse. There are reports of such things. It is miraculous, of course—it is a miracle.
God prepared that fish at the right time and in the right place. It swallowed Jonah, and for three days and three nights Jonah was alive in that fish. That is a miracle, but God is the God of miracles.
If you believe in God, miracles are common. If you do not believe in God, then probably you will not believe in miracles. But our God can do anything.
Jonah was in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights. Then, in chapter 2, you find that he prayed.
When he was in distress, he prayed. He confessed. In his prayer, you find quotation after quotation from the Psalms.
It is good if we really know the Word of God by heart. If you know the Word of God by heart, when you are in trouble, you know how to express it. Sometimes we do not know how to express our inward feelings, but the book of Psalms especially expresses for us the feelings of those who fear God.
There, in the belly of the fish, Jonah had his prayer meeting. He prayed, and with faith—faith—he said, “Salvation is of the Lord.” He gave thanksgiving and made his vow that he would go back and do what God wanted him to do.
After three days and three nights, God commanded the fish to vomit out the prophet Jonah.
God is in control of everything.
The second time, the Word of God came to Jonah: “Arise, go to Nineveh, and preach what I have told you to preach.”
In Scripture, you find that if God gives you a word, a command, and you do not obey—or if you obey only half of it—then, to God, it is not obedience. God will speak the second time.
You find that in the life of Abraham. When he was in Ur of the Chaldees, God said, “Go out. Leave your kindred, leave your land, and go to the place where I send you.”
But when Abraham went out, you find that his father went with him, Lot went with him, and he stopped in Haran, in Syria, in the middle. He did not obey God.
So the second time God said to him, “Go, leave thy kindred, leave thy father’s house, and go to the place that I will show thee.”
Brothers and sisters, when God gives us a word, a command, and we do not obey, there will not be a new command. It will be the same word the second time.
Thank God for the second time. Jonah obeyed. He went to Nineveh, took a day’s journey into the city, and began to cry, “Within forty days Nineveh will be destroyed.”
The Spirit of God was really moving there. Remember, Nineveh was a wicked city—so wicked that God threatened to destroy it in forty days. Why forty days?
We know that forty is a number of trial, testing, or temptation. The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness forty years. Our Lord Jesus was in the wilderness forty days. So forty is a number of trial and testing.
In other words, God still gave Nineveh a time to repent. God could have wiped Nineveh out immediately, without giving them any warning. But God gave them forty days’ time to repent.
When Jonah went there and began to preach, the people repented. The news came to the king. Even the king got down from his throne, put on sackcloth and ashes, and gave orders that everybody must put on sackcloth and ashes.
Nobody was to eat or drink—not even the animals. In other words, they really repented of their evil before God, hoping that God would spare them.
Thank God, He did spare them.
That does not mean their reformation was permanent. As a matter of fact, after thirty or forty years, you find that the king of Assyria came against the northern kingdom of Israel, and Israel became tributary to Assyria.
Later, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked Judah during the days of Hezekiah. You find their arrogance. They became a very powerful nation, a warrior nation. They even blasphemed God—arrogant before God, very wicked.
Within a century and a half, God raised up another prophet, called Nahum, to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh. Eventually, in the seventh century before Christ, Nineveh was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Medes. Babylon then became the greatest empire in the world.
This tells us that Nineveh’s repentance was not a permanent turning to God. There was a reformation, so God spared them, but only for about one hundred and fifty years. Eventually, because of their wickedness, they were destroyed.
But Jonah was very unhappy about it.
If you preach and six hundred thousand people repent, would you not be very happy? It was even greater than the day of Pentecost. When Peter preached, only three thousand were added; here, six hundred thousand repented.
But strangely, Jonah was very unhappy. Not only that, I think he was angry with God—very angry. He could not believe it.
He moved out of the city and built a booth in a high place overlooking the east side of the city. He wanted to see what would eventually happen. He was still hoping that Nineveh would be destroyed.
God, in His kindness, knew that the weather was very hot. So He prepared a gourd. In that part of the country, there are plants that can grow quickly within a few days, but this one grew overnight.
The gourd rose up in a night and covered Jonah. These gourd plants have big leaves, so they formed a kind of shade for Jonah, and Jonah was very happy about it.
But then God prepared a little worm to eat the gourd. In a night, it withered. In the morning, God sent an east wind blowing over, and it became so hot.
Jonah again cried out and said, “It is better for me to die. I do not want to live anymore.” God said, “Art thou right to be angry for the gourd?” Jonah said, “I am right even unto death.”
What a prophet!
Then God taught him a lesson. God said, “You pity that gourd, which came up in a night and withered in a night, and it was not of your making.”
But think of this great city, Nineveh, with one hundred and twenty thousand children not knowing their right hand from their left hand. In other words, they had not reached the age of accountability. And there were also many cattle.
These were all created by God. “Should I not have pity upon them?” God left that question with Jonah, and I believe God leaves that question with us today.
Jonah is a sign. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, the Pharisees and scribes came to Him and said, “Give us a sign. Show us a sign from heaven,” as if, with a sign, they would believe.
But the Lord Jesus said that no sign would be given to that wicked and adulterous generation except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man would be in the earth three days and three nights.
One day, the Ninevites will rise up and judge that generation, because the Ninevites heard Jonah and repented, at least for a time. But that generation had One greater than Jonah and refused to repent.
So, brothers and sisters, Jonah the prophet is a sign. He was a sign to Nineveh. A sign points to something. What does it point to? It points to the character of God—the mercy of God.
Nineveh was a big city, a wicked city. It represents the world. Because of its wickedness, God, being the ruler and sovereign of this world, being just and righteous, had to punish the world.
But even so, He is a merciful God.
You remember when Moses pleaded before God to spare the children of Israel, and God spared them. Then Moses said, “Show me Thy glory.”
In Exodus 33 and Exodus 34, the Lord said, “I will pass by thee, and declare My name. Thou canst not see My face, but I will declare My name, that thou mayest know Who I am.”
When He passed by Moses, He said:
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth;
Keeping lovingkindness for thousands,
Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
Brothers and sisters, our God is a merciful God. In other words, He gives grace to those who do not deserve it.
So far as Nineveh was concerned, they should have been destroyed. But God, in His great mercy, wanted to spare them. He gave them a last opportunity, and fortunately, they repented.
In the same way, we find this generation. This generation really began from the time of Christ until our time. In Scripture, “generation” may mean a generation of thirty or forty years, or it may mean a certain period of time.
The Lord said that this generation is characterized by two things: wickedness and adultery. Wicked in relation to human relationships; adulterous in relation to God.
Because they worship idols, which are abominations to God, and in the sight of God this is spiritual adultery. What characterizes this generation is wickedness and adultery. Brothers and sisters, even in our days, this is still that generation.
This generation will not pass until everything is fulfilled. This is a wicked and adulterous generation looking for a sign. What is the sign?
Brothers and sisters, is that not wonderful? The sign is the Son of Man.
We would think that, in a wicked and adulterous generation, the sign should be fire falling from heaven. That should be the sign. But, on the contrary, God gave a sign to this wicked and adulterous generation, and the sign was His Son.
When Jonah appeared in Nineveh, he was a sign that God was merciful to that wicked city. Otherwise, God would not have sent Jonah. The very presence of Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites that there was still an opportunity.
Now, brothers and sisters, God sent His only begotten Son into this world. His very coming into this world is a sign to this wicked and adulterous generation. In other words, God wants to spare the world.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.
Jonah was a small prophet, comparatively speaking, in relation to our Lord. Our Lord is the Prophet of God. Jonah was a prophet from the northern kingdom of Israel to Nineveh, but our Lord Jesus is the Prophet of God to the whole world.
Jonah was an unwilling prophet, but our Lord Jesus was a willing Saviour. He came into this world willingly and voluntarily.
Strangely, Nineveh listened to Jonah, but this world refuses to listen to our Lord Jesus. Those who listen to Him shall be saved.
The mercy of God.
God wanted to teach Jonah and the children of Israel a lesson. This book of Jonah was in the Old Testament for the Jews to read, so there is a lesson for the Jews.
The Jews always had the feeling that they were the chosen people of God, and that God’s covenant was with them and with nobody else. Therefore, somehow there developed within them a narrowness.
They thought that God’s blessing was only upon them and not upon the nations. They forgot their father Abraham.
In Genesis 12, when God commanded Abraham to go out and follow Him, God said, “I will bless thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
They forgot that. Then, in Genesis 22, after Abraham offered Isaac and God gave him a promise with an oath, God said, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Somehow the Jews forgot that. They thought that the blessing of God was just upon them and nobody else, and they did not want to see anybody else receive that blessing.
It was true at the time of Jonah, and it was true at the time of Christ.
It was true even with the disciples and the apostles—with Peter. When Peter was in Joppa on the rooftop, he saw the vision of a sheet coming down with all kinds of unclean animals in it. God said, “Arise, Peter; kill, and eat.”
Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean.” It happened three times, and finally the sheet went back to heaven.
At that time, the messengers from Cornelius were knocking at the door, and the Spirit of God said, “Go with them.” In other words, there was a kind of natural narrowness and exclusiveness in the hearts of the Jews.
They thought that God was only for them and that salvation was only for them—a curse upon the nations and God’s blessing upon them. Even with Peter, it took a vision to deliver him, and he was not completely delivered from that prejudice.
But in the Word of God, you find that through Abraham and through his seed, all the nations—the whole family of mankind—will be blessed. God wants to bring all the nations to Himself.
God taught Jonah a lesson: he should know the heart of God. He should have the heart of God, as broad as God’s heart, and be merciful as God is merciful. It is a lesson for Israel.
In a sense, when we read the Minor Prophets, we find that they prophesied concerning four different objects. They prophesied against Judah, against Israel, against Edom, and against Nineveh—Assyria or Babylon.
Judah represents the church of God. Even though there may be things not right within it, it is still considered by God as His church.
Israel represents the apostate church—the church that has apostatized. To that apostate church, God still sends His prophets, trying to restore them. But unfortunately, they do not repent.
Eventually, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria in the seventh century before Christ. The apostate church refuses to repent.
Edom represents the flesh and how God deals with the flesh. Nineveh represents the world. So here you find God’s attitude toward the world.
What is God’s attitude toward the world?
The world is wicked. It becomes more and more wicked as time goes on. According to prophecy, one day this world will be judged.
In His first coming, the Lord Jesus came to save the world as the Lamb of God. But in His second coming, He will come as the Lion of Judah, and He will judge the nations.
Eventually, this world will be judged, and even will be burned. But you see the heart of God—how merciful, how gracious He is, and how He has suffered long through all these generations and centuries.
So far as the world is concerned, it has rejected God’s only begotten Son.
In a sense, we may feel, “Well, if they did that, what would God do?” You remember the parable the Lord told: a man had a vineyard. He rented it out, and at the time of harvest he sent servants. They killed the servants.
Finally, he sent his own son, saying, “They will respect my son.” But they killed his son. After they killed the son, what would the owner do? He would destroy those wicked men.
In that sense, the world has rejected the Son of God for two thousand years. Perhaps we would say that God should have wiped out this world long ago.
But our God is merciful and gracious. He suffers long. He does not want to see any perish, but all to come to the knowledge of the truth.
People mock and say, “Where is the coming of Christ?” The world continues today as it was yesterday. They do not know that it is the longsuffering of God, because He does not want anyone to perish, but all to repent.
Brothers and sisters, we need to see the heart of God—the heart of God toward this world. How He loves the world. How He wants to see it repent and be restored.
The preciousness of a living soul.
Brothers and sisters, oftentimes we do not have that heart. Oftentimes we are too narrow. We think that if God blesses us, that is fine; we do not care about the world.
But, dear brothers and sisters, look at the world—all the suffering—and God’s heart toward this world. God sends warning after warning to this world. All these disasters going on today are God’s warnings to this world because of the wickedness of this generation.
He desires that people will repent and return to Him. That is the heart of God.
May the church today have the heart of God. May we be filled with God’s mercy, just as He is merciful and gracious to this world.
May we not be like Jonah, an unwilling prophet, but may we be willing, like our Lord Jesus, to tell people of the glad tidings of the salvation of the Lord.
I believe these are the lessons God wants us to learn from this book of Jonah: the mercy of God.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, we marvel at Thy mercy, at Thy compassion, at Thy love toward the world.
We do acknowledge that, so far as we are concerned, there is nothing for Thee to love. The world is full of sin, full of corruption, wickedness, and rebellion.
Father God, we do want to thank Thee for Thy longsuffering and forbearance. Truly, Lord, if it were not for Thy mercies and compassion, we would already have been consumed.
But we thank Thee that Thou dost spare us. We thank Thee that Thou hast given us repentance and faith in Thy beloved Son.
Oh, we do pray that Thy merciful heart will fill us, that we too may become a merciful, gracious, compassionate people, that we will really love the world—not the things of the world, but the people of the world—as Thou dost love them.
May we share with them Thy goodness.
O Lord, we pray that in these last days, as long as Thy judgment has not finally come, many in this world will turn to Thee.
May Thou have a people out of every nation, every tribe, and every tongue, to be gathered unto Thy beloved Son, to worship and to serve Thee.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.