Mercy Before Judgement

Hi, this is Pastor Daniel Bracken. You're listening to Kings Alaska Podcast. I hope the Word encourages you and you get a touch from God that brings transformation and equips you to experience life with people, power and purpose. Thank you for joining us. Enjoy the Word.

Jonah, the Book of Jonah, chapter three and verse one. Would you stand? We do that in honor of God's word. If you're not able to. I understand.

I understand that you're not able to stand. It's okay. Jonah, chapter three, verse one. And we're going to read through 10 verses and then we'll read a few verses in chapter four as our main text. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, arise and go to Nineveh.

Go where? Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it. I love that. Preach to it. The message I tell you.

So Jonah arose, went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was exceedingly great city, three day journey in extent. In other words, it would take you three days to go across the city. Jonah began to enter the city on his first day's walk. And he cried out and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

So that's the word that he was to preach. In 40 days you're all going to be smoked. Verse 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God, what they do. They believed God proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

The word of the Lord came to the king of Nineveh, which is profound because he's a Gentile king, a pagan. And he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published around Nineveh by the decree of the of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Do not let them drink, eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily. Cry how?

Mightily to God. Yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God relented from disaster.

And he said he would, that he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. Verse one of chapter four. But it pleased Jonah exceedingly. It displeased Jonah, pardon me exceedingly.

And he became angry so he prayed to the Lord, oh, Lord, was it not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish. For I know that you are gracious, that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me. Wow.

For it is better that I die than to live. Let's pray. Father, move in great power this morning. In the moments that remain in the service, may we be ever changed in Jesus name. Amen.

You may be seated. We do have notes for you. As is our custom, we encourage you to fill those in. The blanks will be put on the screen, and then you can go and preach it to somebody else. There are people that actually take these notes by design and bring them to their life groups.

A life group is a small group in someone's home or in a cafe. Sometimes they're in the church or church lobby and things like that. They're all over. And they teach this or revisit it and just emphasize what was preached on Sunday. So I'd encourage you take this, bring it home, do some additional study.

As I was talking about an introduction. Now, the Lincoln Memorial is one of my favorite places to go. The Lincoln Memorial is filled with scripture emblazoned all over the walls. And raise your hand if you've been to the Lincoln Memorial. You want to go there at some point.

The great emancipator. The Lincoln Memorial filled with scripture. And the. The scripture, there are. The overarching theme is basically God's righteous judgment leading to repentance.

I mean, if you look at all of them and say, what is the theme going on here? It's God's righteous judgment that leads people to repentance, mercy, reconciliation, and national healing. And so you go, there it is. It's. It's very moving.

The Civil War, Abraham Lincoln saw as a judgment on our nation.

750,000Americans died in the Civil War. Brother fought against brother, and so on and so forth. It was a bloodbath, and it was horrible. More men died in that war than all other wars. I heard it said this, more men died in that war than all other wars put together.

But that's not true at the current evaluation of things. And certainly if you see 6 million Jews dying in World War II, more people died in World War II as a result of World War II than any other war combined worldwide through history. And yet there are people who say that the Holocaust did not happen because there's those who are trying to rewrite history. But our own history in the United States of America is filled with tremendous woes and shameful things like slavery. And it continues to this day.

But at the same time, in our nation, you know, there's incredible Christian history of what I would call Great Awakenings. And we've been preaching and teaching and encouraging along those lines. Why? Because that's what America needs. America needs another Great Awakening.

And I believe that's what's happening. I believe that's what's happening. I truly do understand that nations reflect the sins of its people. And so there's a lot of blood on the hands of America as a nation. But there's also tremendous righteousness, for America has sent more missionaries into the world than any other country.

Is there hope for the nations? Is there, is there hope for the US of A? In your notes now, is there hope for the nations? Is there hope for the us? Emphatically, yes.

Yes, there's hope. There's hope for you. You might have come in here depressed and bound and addicted. You can leave filled with hope and set free. There's hope for you.

And if there's hope for you, there's hope for your family. If there's hope for your family, there's hope for the nation. God's pouring out his spirit upon his sons and his daughters. That's what he does. He's a merciful, kind, gracious, long suffering God and he wants to help you.

Come on, somebody say God help me. Yes. So there is hope for America. I'm filled with hope. You say.

You always say that. That's because I read the word. Nations can turn around. There can be awakenings. And I believe that's taken place.

And we shared some of the statistics in the past about that. Look at God's judgment. Look at God's judgment. You say, was America going to be judged? Of course.

Just like you are. Smile at me says Israel going to be judged. Oh, they have their own special judgment that's coming.

Look at judgment. Turn to Matthew, chapter 11. God judges cities and nations along with individuals. God judges cities. He judges Nate.

Where do you get that from? Well, I'm going to show you. Matthew 11, verse 21. Whoa. Everybody say whoa.

Whoa. Do you corazon, whoa. And that's not like to a horse. Whoa, horsey.

It's, it's. It's an expression of sorrow and sadness. Whoa to you, corazon. Woe to you, Beth. For if the mighty works were done in you were Done entire inside and they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Hold that for just a moment. The signs and wonders that you see here, the signs and wonders that God puts on display, hopefully in your home and the highways and byways, hopefully at the job. Signs and wonders. These signs will follow them that believe. Rift your hand if you're a believer.

All right. For those of you that aren't, we hope to remedy that by the end of the service. Or maybe you're not going to lift your hand no matter what I say, but the Bible says this. Those who believe these signs follow those who believe they'll lay hands on the sick. You know, it's an interesting thing.

If you lay. If you don't ever lay hands on something, then you're never going to see a miracle. Of course, apart from God's sovereignty, God can sovereignly move and heal anybody at any moment. But he uses people through the laying on of hands. The lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

They'll speak with new tongues. It goes. It goes on to say there are signs, wonders and miracles. Jesus did signs and wonders and miracles. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews he's the same yesterday, today, forever.

So does he still do signs, wonders and miracles? Emphatically, yes. Why? So that people would repent. So that people would come to believe in him.

It's not so that your hair stands on end and now you don't have cancer. Yay. The point is so that you would be drawn into a relationship with the one who healed you. And any spirit that comes and brings healing or comes as an angel of light. Don't believe that Satan heals to to pull you deeper into his chasm of darkness and take you to a devil's hell.

But Jesus has come that you might have life and life to the full. Are there false wonders and signs and miracles? Yes. Well, how do you know the difference? We'll read first John.

It talks about that. This is not in my notes. This is bonus material.

Because any spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God. So if you see a miracle and it doesn't give glory to God and gives glory to the one who did it, that's straight from the pit. Why would. Why would the devil heal people? So you believe his lie.

You should go to verse 22. But I say to you will be more tolerable. More what? Tolerable for Tyre inside in the day of judgment than for you and you. Capernaum, verse 23. Who are exalted to heaven.

You'll be brought down to Hades. Whoa.

For if the mighty works were done in you, had been done in time in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I say to you, verse 24, that it'll be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Now, Sodom and Gomorrah were. Were turned to ash. But there's a.

There's a judgment of the nations that's coming. And that's what he's referring to. And he's saying all the signs and the wonders and the miracles. Turn to Luke 12. All the signs and the wonders and the miracles were for the purpose of bringing them into a relationship with the one who created them.

Please don't, don't. Don't miss this connection. There's connectivity between miracles that come from God and your heart turning towards him and you serving him. I got, like, one. That's all right.

From my anointed brother. Is everybody else in the room? Can you say amen?

Luke 12 and verse 48. But to the one who does not know and does the things deserving of punishment will be beaten with few blows. I just like that. Okay, the next. The next point.

From everyone who has been given much, much is demanded. And from one who's been entrusted with much, much will be asked. To who's been given much, much is required. Another version says. What are you getting to?

I'm getting to your life. I'm talking. Listen. We have more as Americans than every other country on the face of the earth. While most of the population of the world is.

Is believing for a bowl of rice, we are put out by the batteries of our remote control. Going out. No more batteries. I'm sorry. I have to plug it into my USB C. To plug it to charge it.

Oh, it's dead. Oh, God. Do you have the. Oh, I got it. I got it.

I got to get up. Suffering for Jesus to plug in your remote control.

It really brings us to the reality of a nation like ours. There's no other nation on the planet like these United States of America. Can I get a hallelujah? But there is a great responsibility there. We've been prospered and blessed.

We've been given much. And as a result, we have a responsibility. So principle is the second principle at work in judgment. So what are you talking about? Well, we read Jonah 3.

Let me just quickly review. We're looking at Jonah. Who? The spirit of Jonah is kind of what the church has Right now, but I'll get to that a minute. He's the first missionary outside of Israel to a gentile nation, Nineveh.

He runs. He avoids. He runs away. Goes to Tarshish. We read the section where he's finally obedient after he's munched by a.

A big fish. Let me say it's a whale. We don't know if it's a whale. It's just big enough to eat him.

And I'm talking about America and how America is experiencing mercy right now. And that mercy, that sign and wonder, that goodness, the grace of God, the goodness of God upon the markets and all the different things that are happening are why? So that America would turn to God. So that the nations would what? Turn to God and repent.

This is the second principle here in judgment. So there is a judgment on cities, there's a judgment on nations, There's a judgment on individuals. You're going to be judged. Bump your neighbor and say you're going to be judged. Yeah, we're all going to be judged.

Hey, wait a minute. I'm born again. I've received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Well, I'm so glad. That's fantastic.

You're still going to be judged, Homie. Jethro, whatever your name is, you're going to be judged. It's not a judgment under condemnation. It's a judgment evaluation. It's the Bema seat.

Think of the Bema seat. Raise your hand. Have you ever heard of Bema seat? Okay. Raise your hand if you haven't.

All right. It's. It's in Revelation. You can go and read that. It's a place of reward.

It's an evaluation. The Olympics, when they took place. Well, our. Our wrestling brother. Yeah.

Praise the Lord. He was a value. He pinned. It was, you know, this lineup, and he had to go through the brackets and eventually win the whole thing when he won the whole thing. I don't know if they put you on a little platform, put a gold medal around your neck, but that's a picture of what will happen in the judgment seat.

It's a picture of the Bema seat, where you as a believer are evaluated for what you've done with your salvation. I thought. I thought it's all by grace. Oh, yeah, yeah. The salvation parts by grace, but the evaluation part is by what you do.

You got to get in the ring. We were not against flight. You got to pin him with the authority that. Come on, somebody say, man. With the authority of the blood.

By the name and you'll be evaluated by what you've done with the time has given to you. So just talking a little bit about judgment, the second principle in judgment, not only for individuals, not only for nations, and not only for cities. The second principle is a principle of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping.

And we have sowed some horrible seeds as a nation, but we've sowed some phenomenal ones, too. As I told you, we're the number one senders of missionaries worldwide. No one sends more missionaries into the nations than America. That's great. However, we also have those who have endorsed trans.

The transgenderism movement, which at best. I'm pausing to make sure I say this because I could care less if I get in trouble.

Transgenderism as at best, mental illness, and the core of it is demonic, and it's demonically inspired that you would be able to change your gender. You are not God. You can't change your gender, no matter what anybody tells you. Tells you. And you know what?

They never do? They never do the interviews of people. I can feel my blood pressure going up right now. Never do the interviews of people who've actually gone through the. The change.

Now they're miserable, they're hurting. Many take their own lives and they talk about pain in areas that they never had before, that never leaves. And they're never able actually to enjoy a healthy life, if I can say it that way. And they're tormented.

Abortion. I think we killed 70 million babies. Thank God it's been overthrown at the federal level. May Alaska get with the program. Do you know that we have one of the worst abortion laws in the.

In. In all of America. Alaska does. I declare that thing changing. And I pray that every person running for office would make it a part of their main party platform to change that in Jesus name, because it's murder.

Same sex marriage. On and on and on. So we've sown some horrible seeds, but thank God that there's some good ones too. They balance each other out. I don't think it works like that, but everything is the principle of sowing and reaping.

Say with me. Say, oh, Lord, help me to sow good seed. Yeah, because your whole life's about sowing and reaping too. All of ministry is about sowing and reaping. Your business is about sowing.

Everything you do is sowing. Seed I've shared before, but my beautiful mama on the. On the device, streaming in her home right now, she said to me, son, listen to me. You have sowed some bad seeds. Now you're going to sow good seeds from now on.

Do you hear me? I'm like, yes, Mom. She said, good, and we're going to pray for crop failure. And she reached across and take me by the hand. Oh, God.

You see the horrible seeds of my son float. Lord, cause that crop to fail. We speak death on those heart. I think that's a powerful prayer, but there are consequences. Come on, somebody say, whoa.

All right. Then there's covenant, curses and blessings. Covenant what? Curses and blessings. Deuteronomy 28 is this illustrated sermon.

I so enjoyed Pastor Josh's preaching with the. The sledgehammer and the cinder blocks. It was an illustrated sermon. Illustrated sermons are powerful. Jesus did it all the time.

He told stories to illustrate truth. He told parables to hide truth from people who didn't really care. And then he revealed truth through parables through people who did covenant, curses and blessings. There's this Deuteronomy 28. It's this powerful illustrated sermon where Israel is walking between two mountains, Mount Ebal and Mount Garaz.

I've seen them. I've been. There it is. Or seen. And they proclaimed all the curses.

If you don't obey God, go read Deuteronomy 28. It's a covenant. It's a contract. If you obey God, bum, bum, bam, bam, bam, bam. All of these blessings on and on and on and on.

If you don't obey him, then you get all the curses there are. But that's the Old Testament. Let me educate you a little bit. You can live in the blessing of God, but it's not automatic. Just because you came to church today.

You've got to. You've got to appropriate them. Not feeling the love. I only got one. All right.

From my anointed brother once again. So I'm coming a little closer. You have to appropriate them. You married my daughter. I'm so grateful.

What a great man you are. My daughter's blessed now. She's blessed now because she, you, the Johnson family, are choosing the blessing of God. You know why she was blessed early on in her life? Because she was a part of my house.

This precious little boy right here. Come here, young man. Come here. Come here. Come around this way.

Come around this way. Hey, what's up? Say hi to everybody. Hi. Okay.

You're blessed, right? Yeah. Do you know why? No. Because you live with them.

Because your daddy and your mommy serve God. The blessing of God is on your life. But you know what happens? You grow up. Say, I grow up.

I Grow up. Yes. And when you grow up, you have to do. You've got to choose to serve God yourself. And you know what you're going to do?

You're going to do that. Say I'm a serve God. Unless they're gone. Would you put your hands together for this little man? Okay, so the blessing of God is on him because he's in the bloom quest.

Nice haircut family. That's why. There's no other reason. When he grows up, like my daughter did. My daughter received the blessing because she was a part of the bracken home.

Then she left and she went to college. By a miracle of God, she continued to serve the Lord. And she met this handsome young man and they both chosen to serve the Lord. Now in ministry, the blessing of God is upon them because they choose it. There is covenant blessings and covenant curses, and the same is true for nations.

I would highly advise that you choose the blessing. And I've had people with this error, theological error, to say, well, now I'm in Christ, I'm just blessed. No, no, no, you. You have to. It's still appropriate.

You have to obey his word. If you love him, you'll obey him. Yes, forgiveness comes. But then you walk in the blessing day in, day out. By choosing to turn the other cheek, by choosing to reject greed, by choosing to reject lust, by choosing to not lay your eye upon something that would bring a defilement.

By. By telling the truth and not telling lie, by all the blessings of God are true contingent upon your obedience. I don't like that it makes me responsible. I know, but that's the truth. How can he so blessed?

Favor ain't fair. Bump your neighbor and say favor ain't fair. So there are covenant blessings and covenant curses. And it was spoken over Israel, and the same is true today. And because you've received Jesus, he became a curse for us.

So that you're not a curse, but you have to apply that. You have to appropriate that. And then you have to live in obedience to his word and the obedience to his word. You don't. Don't live that way because you just want the blessing and then you're trying to work to get it.

I obey God, not because I have to. Let me see if I can say this rightly. Lift your hands to heaven while I get my thoughts together. Jesus, help.

I serve God because I'm radically in love with him. I do have the fear of the Lord and I pray that God continues to cultivate that and let it go deeper. Because the fear of The Lord is a beginning of wisdom. Idiots. Go where angels fear to tread.

Let me say that. That's my Bracken version. Fools Go where angels fear to tread. You can't just do whatever you want to because you're a believer now. You love God, you live for him.

You love him. I obey him because I love him. I don't obey him because I want his love. That's performance. That's.

That's religion. That's. That's a performance orientation. As they say in Elijah House. That's.

That's a way of getting God's favor. Because I obeyed him, I'm doing the right thing. Yeah, but your heart could be far from him. And you could be doing all the right things, but your heart's far from Him. Now he's after our heart.

So this illustrated sermon. Go, go read Deuteronomy 28 and imagine priests standing on either side of these on two mountains, and you're all of Israel's walking between. If you serve him, you're blessed. If you don't, you're cursed. And they walk through into the promised land.

Wow.

Purpose. A twofold purpose of judgment.

To purge evil. Firstly, Genesis 15, verse 16.

In the fourth generation, there should they shall return. Here. This is a prophetic word spoken to Abraham. Father. Abraham had many sons, and many sons said father.

Okay, Genesis 15, 16. And the fourth generation, they should return. Here. He's talking of Israel. He's prophesying that you're all going into slavery.

400 years, fourth generation, you're coming back here, coming back to the promised land. Listen to this next verse. For the iniquity. Iniquity is another word for sin and the effects of it. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

What does that mean? Completeness is not yet full. It's a picture of time, but it's also a picture of moral decay. In this case, God's outside of time, but we're in time, and he's saying that things are not yet full yet.

So it's this picture that God's waiting. Go to. Go to Ezekiel, chapter seven, Ezekiel seven. It'll also be on the screen while you're turning. There.

Romans 2, New Testament. Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you're storing a breath for yourself. That's a. That's the New New Testament, Paul's treatise. And to Rome.

Romans. A church in Rome. You're storing up wrath. Why are you being so intense about that? Because it is my responsibility before God, and I will stand before him to give an account for how I've taught you.

And I'm just not into TED talks and, and I'm not just into sharing a little bit of leadership and a little bit of anointing. Just put a little seasoning on you. I want you to fulfill God's plan. To hear. Well done now, good and faithful servant.

And you need to be. I need to be. We need to be aware that our nation will one day stand before God. Nations are made of families. Families are made of people.

You and I will stand before him to give an account. Ezekiel 7 and verse 2. And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel and end. The end has come upon the four corners of the land. Wow, that's intense.

There were others that were saying, in Ezekiel's time, bro, everything's okay. It's a little intense right now, but it's going to be all right. And Ezekiel saying, no, it's not going to be all right. There is judgment. And you look at Noah.

Noah preached. It says that he's a preacher of righteousness. So from that scholar say that he preached pretty much the whole time he built the ark. 120 years. So he constantly shared the truth in a wicked and perverse generation.

So he preached for a long time before the flood. When before the flood? When before the flood? There is always mercy before judgment, he said. What are you saying?

I'm saying that we're in a time of great mercy right now. Will that come to an end? Huh? When? I don't know.

We just need to make sure it has its perfect way in us. The purpose of judgment is not just to purge evil, but it's to bring redemption. It's to bring redemption. Here's some scripture. For the sake of time, I'm going to encourage you to read it on your own.

Amos 4, 6, and Amos 8 through 12 says:5 times the Lord's saying, you know, I brought. There's famine, there's all these problems, yet you've not returned to me this. And this. And this has happened, yet you've not returned to me this. And this.

And this has happened, yet you've not returned to me. Over and over and over. And the Lord said, you've not returned, you've not returned, you've not returned, you've not. Five times the difficulty and the. And the.

When we go through times of difficulty and painful, painful things, it's to bring us. It's to bring us to God and to cause us to wake up, come on bump your neighbor and say, wake up. All right, all right. Revelation 2. Lots of scripture.

Revelation 2, Revelation 3. It's in your notes. Go study this at another time. I need to catch my clock, if you don't mind.

Revelation 2 says, I gave her time to repent.

Over and over and over you see God giving opportunity for repentance. That's a New Testament. Why? Because God's heart. Back in your notes.

Point 3. God's heart is that none would be lost. None would be lost. In second Peter chapter three and verse nine, the Lord is not slack. Another version says slow.

He's not slow concerning his promise as some count slackness or slowness. But he's long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. Hell was not created for you. Oh come on. You might think it was created for your mother in law, but it wasn't.

Hell was not created for your mother in law. Your father in law was not created for you, your ex wife, your ex husband. Hell is not created for any individual. Hell is. Hell is created for the judgment of Satan and his.

His minions is his demons. So why, why do people go there? Well, you can go to hell if you want to, but you don't have to go there because God is a God of justice. God's intention is that we would all be born again, that we would all be saved. And we see this fact and that God gave his only son.

For God so loved the world. John 3 and 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. That's all an introduction. So let's move through this text.

God gives. Look at the text here. Roman Numeral 3. God gives Jonah a calling. Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh.

And moving quickly, Nineveh is Assyria. They currently weren't attacking Israel, but later they. 70 years later, they wiped him out. But he doesn't obey the calling. He doesn't go.

Jonah disobeys. Jonah disobeys and he boards a ship that's headed for Tarshish. He's going to go lie on the beaches of Tarshish and just forget about it.

He disobeys. He's with some pagans that are. Well, they're good pagans. Why do you say they're good? They're pagans.

How could they be good? Well, they. They didn't want to just kill him. When they realized that the Storm. Jonah's under the deck.

There's a storm. It's a storm that God send. Not all storms are from the devil and not all storms are from God. You got to understand which one you're in. It's hard to rebuke the devil.

Hard to rebuke God. Easy to rebuke the devil based upon the authority we have in Jesus. The finished work of the cross. Jonah wakes up and says, it's my fault. I serve the God of all creation.

And the storm. He's like, throw me over. And you all survive. And they're like, no, we're going to wait. They were good.

They didn't want to just kill him. But in the end they tossed him.

And not a whale. We like to say it's a whale. And there are stories about people being swallowed by whales and then being spit out. There are stories about that. It's a fish, a big fish, much larger than the one I caught.

Ever.

And God gets his attention with the storm, and he gets his attention with the fish. Can you imagine finding yourself on the belly of a fish? Oh, God, I'm so sorry. Oh, God, where am I? You're in the belly of the fellow.

I'm sorry, God. I want another chance. You need to. I'm sorry. I repent.

Got three days. It's a picture of the resurrection. And three days later. I love the fish. Swims towards the net of a God.

Come on. God controls the fish.

I was in Hawaii and I was. What's doing what's called dunking, it's surf casting with squid ika in Hawaii. And I. And you, you go to get aluas. And your hope is an alua is a is.

It's like a big tuna. Your hope is that you get like a hundred pounder. I've got my slide bait for those of you know that it's out there. And I. It's like two in the morning, Monday morning after a long weekend of ministry.

I'm like kind of dozing off. I have a little bell. Does anybody know about fishing and all that? I got a little bell on there. And your hope that it's going to ring and you're bringing this giant fish.

Well, I'm done. Because all I can think about is Pastor Karen back in the master bedroom sleeping. And I'm like, I'm tired. I don't want to fish anymore. I like catching.

I don't like fishing. I don't know about you. I want to catch fish. I got like 80 day, you know, fishing four or five cast. I'm like, let's go somewhere else.

And so I'm, like, dozing off, and there's this brother Kavika sleeping in the dirt in front of me. I said, I'm done, guys. He says, pastor, why don't you pray? Why don't you pray? Why don't you pray for a fish?

I'm like, okay, Lord, you prepared a fish for Jonah. You could prepare fish for ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And my. My rod just arcs from the reel like they're screaming. Me get it, I grab it.

I fight the fish for, like, 35 minutes. It's just. You're seeing the flashes of it. It's just coming in. And my line broke.

I'd like, dude, that had to be 100 pounder. They said, no, it's not a fish unless you land it. I'm like, okay, whatever.

God. God gets his attention through a storm and a fish. And God knows how to get your attention. And God knows how to get the attention of nations. By the way, we must see this battle with Iran.

Please hear me. You must see it for what it is. A power, a principality. It is a ruler. It's a prince of Persia.

We must deal with this thing the way that it is. It's not just a normal battle. We bind the prince of Persia now in Jesus name, let there be no more loss of life. Turn things around. Expose evil in every area, in every nation.

In Jesus name. Come on. Someone say amen. It's a prince of Persia. It's the same blasted demonic principality that Daniel dealt with.

Jonah obeys, preaches what I love. He says, go and tell him what I said. So he doesn't even know what the word is till he gets there. And he's his original turn and burn. He might have had sandwich signs on Turner burn.

Actually, they say that he was probably dyed white from the gastric juices of the fish. And he had. Probably had, you know, seaweed in his hair. And they. You know what?

You know what they did? They worshiped the. The fish God. Can you imagine someone coming up who smelled like fish, looked like fish? And they're saying, repent.

Turn to God. I mean, they, they, they, they, they. The people repent. God spares the city. And Jonah gets angry.

Jonah gets angry. God speaking to us very simply this morning in the closing moments. Worship team, would you come? God's merciful. Come on.

Someone say, God's merciful. God's merciful. He is. He's a merciful God. He desires mercy rather than judgment.

But don't miss this next point. The church. The church has had a Jonah spirit. The church, by and large, you're like, just smoke them, God, deal with them. Show him your mighty hand.

Yeah, what do you know what he wants to show him? He wants to show him kindness and mercy and grace. Yes, there's judgment, but there's always mercy. So the church must go to Nineveh. Come on, somebody say the church, I gotta go to Nineveh.

What does that mean? What does it mean? The church goes to Nineveh. We must go reach the lost. What are we doing to bring in a harvest of souls before it's too late?

Have you shared with your neighbor? Have you told your loved ones I shared with you a few weeks ago? Look at your. Look at the contacts on your phone and make sure every one of them has heard your testimony. Well, what if they don't like me?

Listen, there's only two or three people statistically that like you anyway.

I'm sure that's not true, but it sounds good. Who are you living for?

Yeah, Don't be a Jonah. No, no, no.

Don't be a Jonah. No, no, no. Don't be a Jonah.

Why did Jonah hate them so much? Well, they were wicked people. Sometimes with wickedness.

Good godly Christians don't really understand why they're still here in the earth. You know why you're still here? So that you could carry the message that he gives you, which is Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead. You know, God is the ultimate missionary. There's a time that we're in, in our nation, in the nations of the world.

God is a missionary. This is. Jonah is the first missionary outside of Israel. All the other ones, they were just dealt with God's people. Jonah goes outside.

So why are you saying this? Because we must have a vision of reaching people.

Don't be a Jonah. No, no, no.

You might get swallowed by a fish.

We have a responsibility, understand that. The blessing of God, the goodness of God resting upon you, resting upon me, resting upon this house, resting upon our nation. Even though there's been many seeds sown by our nation that are evil. We must reach the lost, my dear friend, as a way of saying it, reach the lost at any cost. That's why we built this church.

We built this church to reach the lost, to house the soon coming revival. Maybe we're in the beginning stages of it. I don't know. I hope so. Reach to your family.

I said, I think two services ago, everyone reached one. Would you say that everyone reached, Would you? I'm just challenging you because that's why we're here. We're here to reach them, but not just reach them. And it's not about praying the sinner's prayer and pray the sinner's prayer and go right back.

Actually, that's horrible. It's kind of like an inoculation, if you will.

What are those? Measles. I remember measles. It's measles, right? Where people go and have little measles parties with their children.

Am I right? Chickenpox. I was like, a polio party. No, it's not a polio party. No polio parties.

Chickenpox. Okay, thanks. Chickenpox were.

Some kids were having chickenpox when Hannah was a little baby, and they. They literally had a chickenpox party. So you could get a little bit of chickenpox and get rid of it. If you just lead people to Jesus and you don't disciple them and teach them about eternal judgment, about baptism, about the power of the Holy Spirit, you don't. You don't disciple people.

Then really what I think is we inoculate them. The Lord spoke to me and said, you must disciple people, son. You can't just lead them into the sinner's prayer. It's not enough. Of course.

It's enough to be forgiven. But if you were just to be forgiven and then. Then you just. That was it. Then you drop dead.

Raise your hand if you're still here. So why are you here? You're here for a reason. You're here for a purpose. And I. I challenge you.

And I, early on in my times of witnessing, and I'm a soul winner. I have been since I got sick, I sat in services like this where I understood that the reason that I'm on the earth is to reach the loss, to love God and to be a deliverer of men. That's what my life's about. My life's about loving God and delivering men. That's.

That's what my life's about. And raising up a generation that does the same. Can America turn to God? Please say yes. Yeah.

It's not too late if you're here. It's not too late if you're still cognizant and aware of the time and the hour in which we live. Judgment will come, but we're in this moment of mercy. There's a great outpouring. There's a thing called the fullness of the gentiles, a time period called the fullness of the gentiles.

I preached it recently. Well, within the last year. Go to YouTube. Go. Look at that.

There's a time frame when there will be no more time. It'll be over. Lift your hands to heaven. We must have a vision for reaching people. Ask God.

Put a hand on your heart. Say, God, give me a vision for reaching people.

Give me ever. Come on, say it. Give me a vision for reaching people.

Well, I hope you were encouraged by God's word. Thank you again for listening to Kings Alaska Podcast. God bless you. For more great content, go to case Dalaska.com and may God's face shine upon you and give you peace.