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The people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. Of course, God is gracious. But there’s a problem. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian people and the Assyrians were noted for their brutality, their murders, and their slave trade. They sold Israelite people in the streets of Nineveh who have been kidnapped by special slave traders.
So, you can be a killer, a slave trader and brutal… And then you get a bye when you simply repent! Is that really the case?
Paul repented of his persecution of the church. We were told that he brought havoc to the churches, throwing Christian people in jail or worse. He presided over death, including and especially that of Stephen. And then he repented.
Question: Jesus taught when someone harms His church it would be better for them that a millstone be hung about their neck and they be drowned in the depths of the sea. So, what about that? Did Paul get it bye… Where is the millstone?
When David and Bathsheba committed their sin, it led to the death of Uriah and Civil War in Israel where thousands lost their lives. It also led to the death of four of David’s sons. David and Bathsheba both repented before the Lord. So, do they get a bye? Is that it? Is that all God required of them?
When Jehoshaphat allied himself to the wicked Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel in a naïve attempt to be reconciled with the northern kingdom, he cost many Israelites their lives by going up to the battle of Ramoth-Gilead contrary to the Lord’s commands. He nearly lost his own life and when he returned back home, the prophet confronted him and said “Because you love those who hate the Lord, wrath is upon you from the Lord.” Suddenly, we read in Kings and Chronicles that he institutes reforms throughout Judah instructing the people, training the Levites in the law the Lord, and also training honest judges throughout the land. So, what about all the dead Israelites? Did this King get a bye? What happened to the “wrath” that was “upon him?”
In Deuteronomy 29:29, we are instructed that the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things that are revealed are for us and our children. But the verse finishes by saying, that is the case so that we obey the laws and commandments of God. It is clear the law of God is NOT the byproduct of a failed dispensation of the past. It is not a museum piece of a bygone era. The law the Lord – His commandments, statutes, and laws – come to us as eternal truths, designed for God’s people of all ages and eras for obedience to the Faith.
Among those truths is the eternal Truth, that we do not just get a “bye” when we sin grievously against the Lord. In all of the cases above, God demanded Repentance WITH Restitution unto Restoration.
With 70 million babies slaughtered in the womb in America, we as a nation do not get a “bye.” So, what is it that God demands of us?
What does God demand of the Church… And what is it that we must teach the nation when it comes to “Repentance?”
That is what this message teaches us. SHARE it with everyone you know!
