In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the story of Jonah in the Bible. He highlights how the preaching of God's word can have a profound impact on people's lives, even those who initially scoffed at the idea of God. The preacher emphasizes that the Holy Spirit's hand was evident in the results of the preaching. Despite this, Jonah himself is tormented and expresses a desire to die. The preacher then delves into Jonah chapter 4, where God questions Jonah's anger. The sermon concludes with the message that God has prepared a place for each individual.

This message is one of the Times Square Church Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. You're welcome to make additional cassettes of this message for free distribution to friends. However, for all other forms of reproduction or electronic transmission, existing copyright laws apply. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Can't forget. Won't forget. Hallelujah. Praise God. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Jonah, the book of Jonah, chapter 4. Praise God. While you're turning there, I have an announcement that the women's prayer ministry on this Wednesday has been cancelled. This Wednesday, women's prayer meeting has been cancelled. Jonah, chapter 4. Praise God. If you'll pray with me. Father, I thank you that this message is not written on paper, but God, this message is in your heart. Now, Lord, I declare it is the Holy Spirit that needs to bring it forth, make it real to our hearts. So, Lord, I lean heavily on you and I praise you, O God, that by the Spirit, Lord, you are going to bring something forth for your glory and your praise. Lord, a living word that, Lord, you may be magnified and, Lord, we may hear what it is that you're going to say to us. Lord, take your glory and for that we'll give you all the praise and the glory in Jesus' precious name. Amen and amen. The message this afternoon is called, God has prepared a place for you. God has prepared a place for you. A few weeks ago, on a Tuesday night, a very powerful message was preached on Jonah and those dealt with Jonah in chapter 1 and 2 and 3. This afternoon, the Lord has a word out of Jonah 4. The name Jonah means dove. And as many of you know, dove is a symbol for the Holy Spirit. And I believe that what is being said through his name is, Jonah is a man that the Holy Ghost has placed his hand upon, a man whom the Holy Spirit is uniquely dealing with. And in chapter 3, the scripture tells us that the word of the Lord came a second time unto Jonah. Because chapter 1 and chapter 2 talks about how a man, when God called him to go to one place, he went another. How a man ran from God. But the story tells us how God captured him and how God dealt with him, deposited him in the belly of a whale. And when he had done a work in him, in getting his heart and speaking to him, the scripture tells us that the whale deposited Jonah on the shores of Nineveh. And the plan of God went forward. And a man who tried to run from God was captured by God. And the scripture says that he went into that city and he preached. Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh. Jonah, the reputation of that place was a wild, a wicked and a violent city. He didn't want to go there. But I believe there are many reasons why Jonah didn't want to go there. Deeper than he knew himself. Hence, the struggle. Hence, being a prophet of God and a man of God, he would bold-facedly run in another direction. Because Nineveh meant something far deeper to him than he knew, but God knew. And God had sovereignly called that man to this place, Nineveh, for more than he knew when he first arrived on those shores. And the scripture says in chapter 3, verse 9, that after Jonah preached with an incredible anointing, I believe when you've been in the belly of a fish for three days, there is a new perspective. Something's burned in you. There are things you know that others don't know. And he came out. And he was now in the place of God. God was going to make sure Jonah went to Nineveh. And God made sure that the Ninevites got the message. And under an incredible anointing from a disobedient man, God turns a whole city to himself. And the scripture says in Jonah 3, 9, that the Ninevites said, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? In other words, these people, through God's messenger and God's message, heard what he was saying about how God was his wrath was upon them unless they repented. And yet they could hear something that if God's bothering to send someone with a message, maybe it is so that we will turn and in our turning, he will grant us mercy. Is that why he was sent? Beloved, they could hear the whole message. And scripture tells us in Jonah 4, where we start this message, it says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And when these people repented and Jonah saw that the tide has turned, there's something in him that rose up. I wonder if it surprised him. I wonder if he had an idea of himself or he thought that he had no idea to the depth of what happened in Nineveh stirred in him. But the scripture uses very strong words that Jonah was displeased exceedingly. He was very angry at this turn of events. And it says in verse two, it says, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore, I fled before undictatious, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentance of the evil. Therefore, now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Beloved. What kind of heart is that? Well, what kind of heart is speaking? This is God. I'll tell you why. Now, he's not telling God the whole reason why God knows the heart. But what he understood was I'm going to tell you now I ran in the other direction because God, you are merciful. You are gracious. You are slow to anger. You are great kindness and you're willing to give people a new beginning causes me to want to die. Now, that's a strange one of the strangest prayers I've ever read in the Bible. And yet, beloved, there is something about Nineveh. There is something about this place that God has brought him to that is driving up something in this precious man of God. That God alone knew was there from the beginning and that God now has to deal with him, his heart. Beloved, you see, his heart resembles many who find themselves in Nineveh. Because Nineveh is a God appointed place. Nineveh is a place you and I don't go to in our flesh. Nineveh is a place we have to be brought there by the spirit of God. Nineveh is a place where those that have a heart for God and have been used by God are brought to. You see, Nineveh is a place where you don't want to be, where I don't want to be. A place where we find ourselves deeply resistant to the circumstances we find ourselves in. It's a place where God puts us and we are never pleased. In fact, it's a place we are brought to where there is a deep-seated anger that may even surprise us to the depth of it, to the violence of it, to the boiling of it. God in his great mercy knew it was there all along. And yet God has brought this prophet not just to preach deliverance to the Ninevites, but to bring deliverance to himself if he can hear it. Nineveh is a time of great inner turmoil. Because beloved, for every sincere, honest heart, desire to be used of God, for every man and woman that the Holy Spirit has his hand upon, like Jonah, will be brought to their Nineveh. What? When the Lord wants to work powerfully through you and I, he must work powerfully in us. And beloved, we see that on one hand Jonah was powerfully used. I believe that the astounding results that happened because of his preaching, the astounding results that who could have predicted that the entire city of three days journey, that there would be such a hearing of him. There would be such a gracious working of the Holy Spirit in and through him that it would absolutely bring the city from the king down right to the animal kingdom. A sense that God was real, that God would punish. And yet God in his mercy spoke to them and it turned their hearts and it was like one cry came from a wicked and a violent time and place. People who one day thought, scoffed at the idea of God, ridiculed God, formed and worshipped gods of their own making in one day. Under the preaching, this kind of preaching could turn to such a degree. It was astounding results. Beloved, proof that the Holy Spirit hand was on this man. And yet this man is tormented. Beloved, as we read chapter four, we're going to see that he was at a worse time mentally, I believe, than perhaps he had ever been in. The whole situation in Nineveh is God prepared. And in Jonah 4.4, after Jonah prays, it's better for me to die than to live. God says to him in verse four, then said the Lord, doest thou well to be angry? Another way of saying is, are you greatly angry? Are you absolutely disturbed to the core, Jonah? And the interesting thing is that Jonah doesn't give him an answer. In verse five, it says, so Jonah went out the city and sat on the east side of the city and made a booth and sat under the shadow till he might see what would become of the city. And maybe he's thinking, who knows this God that repents, maybe he will bring judgment. Maybe I will have some satisfaction. Maybe what I preached will come to pass. But then in verse six, it says, and the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd, but God prepared a worm when the next morning rose the next, when the morning rose the next day and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass when the sun did rise that God prepared a demon east wind and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and he wished in himself to die. And he said, it is better for me to die than to live. If there is one consistent word in this chapter, it's the word prepared. And we can see from reading this, that Jonah now in the worst time, mentally, I believe that he is, he has found himself in. God has sovereignly chosen him to be in this place to face what he must face. And God has prepared a fish and a gourd, that's a plant and a worm and an east wind. God has prepared everything that is now in this tormented state and in his life, it's all been prepared by God. There is a Nineveh for every man and woman that will be used of God. There is a Nineveh. It's a God-appointed Holy Ghost place. When I was praying and I was saying, Lord, what, what, what is Nineveh? What is Nineveh to us? Nineveh is a place where God on the surface looks like he's dealing with the gourds or the plants in our life. Where Jonah, it says in verse nine, God said to Jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry even to death. He's willing to admit his anger over the plant. Verse 10, then God says, thou has pity on the gourd for which thou has not labored, neither madest it to grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. Beloved Nineveh on the surface, it seems like here is this man mourning a loss of a fast growing plant that brought him comfort. He's put his energy and he's put his time and his passion into something so temporary. Something that came up in the night and perished in the night. Beloved, something that springs up in the dark, that seems to have a great hold over us in our dark time, in our times of confusion of soul, in a time of those that love the Lord, but find themselves in mental torment. Beloved, things can spring up and these are diversions. And we can wrap our whole being around them. Because Nineveh is a God appointed place and Geneva is God going after something. It is the Holy Ghost evidence, the evidence that God has something incredible for us. But he has brought us to a place. Where everything in our being is rebelling, where everything is saying, I don't want to be here, I don't want to go there, I don't want this anymore. Yet I love you, Lord. And how can these two things be? And so a diversion can spring up and we wrap all our energy, our time, our talent, all around something that sprung up in the night, in the turmoil and confusion of our soul. And we wrap and we give it our strength. We give it our passion. We give it our energy. We give it our time. Because these diversions have the power for a season to make us exceedingly glad. But beloved, there is no release in Nineveh. If we are in a God appointed place like Jonah, there is no release in our Nineveh. Because God is going after something so precious. He says, I do well to be angry even about that gourd. Beloved, I'll tell you, these diversions that can come up where we're looking for comfort in a Nineveh dealing time has a power to keep us rebellious in our sin. But saying, God, you know, that was the only comfort I had in this place. What kind of God are you? You know how rough it is. You know what I'm facing. Why would you touch the plant? Why would you prepare something of comfort and then prepare an east wind to bring it down? It became a big thing in his life, beloved, that didn't deserve his energy or attachment. God does not delight in our torment. He is delighting in our deliverance. And God is liberating. His heart is to liberate Jonah just like Luke. Jonah was used to liberate Nineveh. But God is going after such deeply embedded things in our lives for a reason. And so Jonah is miserable now and his anger is real. Jonah still feels it was not wrong to disobey God in a certain. In that certain hour when he asked him to go to Tarsus. He tells us in chapter four, he says, God, was it not my saying when I fled that country, did I not tell you the reason I don't want to go is because if I preach those, I don't want to see blessed, though those things I don't want to do. Oh, God, you're going to force me to do and I'm going to be faced with something in my heart. When you work the way you work in my life. Beloved, I think that Nineveh represented something that Jonah only had an inkling of. Sometimes when God is asking us to obey us in a certain area, we find ourselves very resistant. We find ourselves finding any excuse and every excuse not to obey and not to go there because somehow we sense it is tied to something so much deeper. Now, beloved, God could have rejected Jonah. He could have said, you know, you have such a totally, totally wrong response. To the gourd. You have such a a totally wrong response to my making a demand on your life. You have such a totally you will say that I am the God of heaven and earth. And yet you will have such a revulsion. And a fighting for what you know in the center of your heart, I am calling you to. But, beloved, God is chaining him to his circumstance. He's chaining him to his circumstance. God brought him to Nineveh. God, he didn't go there of his own volition. God knows that Jonah has a history of running from Nineveh. Beloved, we do too. But there are times we are brought there. God asked him in verse in chapter four, verse 11, he said, should I not spare Nineveh, that great city? I found that a heart wrenching question to him because I hear the cry of God in it. And should I not spare you, Jonah? What is going to be your answer to me as I begin to peel away layers of what you really are and who you really are? When I brought you to a place, does it surprise you, Jonah, what you what what's coming out of your heart or will you defend it to the death? You know, out of Jonah's own mouth. In chapter two, I was thinking about what did Jonah say he learned from the lessons in a prepared fish. In Jonah chapter two, in chapter two, Jonah realizes that God himself has brought him to the in the belly of the whale, a place of hell itself. And he says in verse four, I am forsaken more or less, but he says, yet I will still look to you. Somehow, when he got beyond all hope, what was what was in him? God in him, when there was no hope, yet God was stirring him to cause him to hope. When there was no mercy, when there was no hope, yet God in him was being faithful. When he was at the very bottom, at the very end, God himself began stirring and saying, your only hope is me. It says in verse six, I went to the bottom, but out of Jonah's own mouth, his testimony would be, but I found you there, my God. When I couldn't get any lower, when I went to the bottom, my God, you were there. You were there, I found in the famous words of one woman, when no pit is so deep that you are not deeper still, my God. I found at the very bottom, my Jesus, you are there. And then he says in verse six, I also found the lifting power of your presence. And it says in verse six, that thou has brought up my life from corruption, that there was a corruption in me. And yet your life in me was greater than the corruption in me. And the lifting power of your spirit was able to lift me up. And the scripture says in verse nine, I will be thankful and I will pay my vows. And beloved, when he was ejected from the belly of the whale, this burning message was in him. And he knew who he was. And he knew who his God was. And I believe in that place, there was a total surrender. There was God, anything you want, anything you need to do in my life. But beloved, what has changed? And I believe that Jonah is getting to the place where you and I are. That that cry is not a one time thing, but it's a lifetime response. Now, I want to get to the heart of this message. I believe the most loving thing in the world that has ever taken place was a crucifixion. The most loving thing that has ever taken place in the history of man on this earth was a crucifixion. When Christ broke the power of and penalty of sin over your life, over my life. But beloved, the most loving thing that God ever does in our lives is that a prepared time is to bring us to a place where something in us, we come to the realization, God, I've got to offer you something. Something has to die. Only the Holy Spirit can take us to this understanding. Only the Holy Spirit can make us willing. Only the Holy Spirit can search us out and show us what it is. You know, for Jonah, when his cry was, take my life, it's better for me to die than to live. He gave that response when God was giving him the most incredible revelation. But Jonah couldn't hear him. And yet, I believe by the end of the story, Jonah is going to hear something. I pray we will. What had to die in Jonah's life? You know, yes, he was, we could say, you know, that desire for comfort that represents the gourd. But beloved, the selfishness that represent that root there and that consumed with self-preoccupation, where he had no heart for the perishing, where God wanted his life to have such an influence that God wanted to have to proclaim his mercy to so many people. And yet now, after doing that and seeing a heart response or something in him that is so frightening. Beloved, God tells him, he knows that God is gracious, that he is merciful, that he is slow to anger, that he is of great kindness, that he wants to give a new beginning. And he wants to die over that revelation. Beloved, he has a heart that the Holy Spirit is going after something so deep, I don't think he could explain it. I don't think I have the words to explain it. I think that when the Holy Spirit is upon us and there is a call in our lives, that the Holy Spirit to bring us to a place where we can say, God, whatever you have to do in my life, do it. Lord, let there be a crucifixion in my Christianity. Lord God, there's got to be a time and a place where you can speak to me about things I don't want to hear and places I don't want to go. And yet in the end, I will bend my knee to it because, oh God, there is something so sown in me that you are a God, that you will be merciful to me. You will be kind to me. You will be slow to anger to me when I fail. Lord, when the fear wants me to back up, when I in my flesh want to say no to you with everything I've got, I'm going to remember, God, how merciful, slow to anger, how kind, what a new beginning you give to me every time I need it. That God, you're going to give me a heart that's going to want to say, lead on, not my will, but thine. But will there, will we allow God finally to bring us a place where something in us has to die, that we offer by the spirit for crucifixion, that we may say yes, or we won't say it any other way. And we won't do it any other way. Jonah had this boiling anger and an inability to admit to God the truth. When God says, are you very angry? He couldn't bring himself to say that because you're not supposed to be really angry over what he's angry about. He couldn't admit to what was really going on in his heart. He couldn't admit that perhaps the vengeance and the unforgiveness raging in his heart towards those he's supposed to speak to, those he's supposed to bless, that through his light he could see a turnaround in their lives. That was hard for him. It was hard for him to bend his knee because there's a side that wants to so stubbornly cling and say, yes, I have every right to be angry. Like Jonah said to God, we all have an in of the blood. But beloved, you see, the Holy Ghost is upon us to reveal sin and the strongholds. And when he does that, he is going to be faithful to remind us of the kind of God we are dealing with. God says, I'm going to be for everyone that will be open for everyone that will open their heart and agree with me. God says, I'm going to be nothing but merciful and kind and gracious and slow to anger. Every time you will admit what is really going on in your heart, in your Nineveh, in your mental torment, when there's a place that you don't want to be found in dealing with people you don't want to be dealing with, where Christianity has moved beyond the bless me club, where the Christ in us by faith who went to a cross that was buried, that the resurrection life forever may stand. That's the life he offers us. Beloved, there's got to be a crucifixion. We do it by faith. We come to him by faith and say, Jesus, you're the crucified Lord in my life. And you alone can give me the power. If I keep coming to you and I will admit freely what is in my heart, you will be merciful. You will be slow to anger. You will be of great kindness. And you will give me a new beginning if I will, but say it. And then God, what you're asking me to do, what is immense and impossible for the flesh to do yet by the spirit, Jesus, you will bring me there and I will know the power to do it because you are merciful. When I fail, when I'm not praying, when I lose the prayer battle this week, God, you will be merciful to me. You will be slow to anger. You will be a gracious God to me and you will pick me back up on my feet. Mind me that I'm being distracted. I'm giving my strength to a gourd, something that wants to spring up in the nighttime of my soul, that my strength may be given to it and not to you, my God. Because, oh God, you are so merciful and gracious to me that you can speak to any part in any corner of my heart. And I will know you to be nothing but forgiving. And kind and a new beginning, if I need it a hundred times a day. Beloved, this is how the fear gets taken out of our serving God, because beloved, when we hear a message about giving our all and God has planted our desire enough to give our all, there is also another fear that I'll never be able to do it. I will never be able. I know who I am. And almost in unwillingness, there's a side to our flesh that does not want to be in Nineveh and will run. But beloved, if we're going to be called by the name of Christ, there is going to be a crucifixion in our life so there can be a resurrection. So that what flows through us is the spirit, not flesh. We, in this church, we have a junior high group. We have many groups that are in need of spirit-filled people. People who will be willing to say, God, use me to confront the creeping death that wants to overtake our young people. And there'll be a flesh that'll say, no, that's too hard. Let me serve in another place. There'll be a flesh that'll say, I don't want that burden. I don't want their kids. I don't want their lip. I don't want that attitude. I've got enough to deal with. But beloved, if the spirit of God is in us and he's calling us to follow him, some are going to be led into that group in that classroom. We're going to be led into situations at work. We don't want to speak. We don't want to live the life. We don't want to know that crucifixion in our life. No, we don't. We're flesh. But as we begin to say, God, my faith is grounded in a merciful God who is gracious, who is slow to anger with me, who offers me a new beginning. God, I'm going to open my arms wide. And I'm going to let you take me to that place of my Nineveh. And I'm going to let you deal with it. Because beloved, the mental torment and the anguish is rooted in the fact that we are resisting him, is rooted in the fact that we say, I do well to be angry in this place. The Apostle Paul once cried, he said, who shall deliver me from this body of death? The Apostle Paul, a man greatly used, a man who led a transformed life that his generation felt his impact and every generation that followed felt the impact of this one surrendered life. It was a life that stretched forth its hand and said, lead Holy Spirit. And who will deliver me from this body of death that will say no to you, a flesh that will stand up. And yet he knew that an indwelling Holy Spirit would always triumph over an indwelling flesh and sin. And so he could stretch out his hand. And he knew that a God who was gracious and merciful and slow to anger of great kindness, full of new beginnings for everyone that would stretch out their hand. And beloved, that's where our testimony begins to come. There is life in this. There is none that trust in the Lord that shall be left desolate, not one. Psalm the enemy has painted a picture. If you fully surrender, this is what your life is going to look like. No, I say that if when we fully surrender, that our freedom and our power and a release to a God who is gracious, who is full of mercy, of great kindness and new beginnings will give us a life we could never even begin to hope for. Hallelujah. It is in the revelation. You know, Jonah despised that revelation when God says, this is who I am, that I'm a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger and great kindness. He said, let me die. I don't want to live. What kind of response is that? That's a flesh response. That's the mind of man that's being animated by the devil. That's all that's against Jesus Christ speaking, because that kind of revelation, when it grips us, when we live under that revelation and we move and have our being that a gracious God who is so merciful and kind that will at every step of the way reveal himself in ever increasing depth of his glory, his mercy, his kindness of slow to anger. He is beloved. We are transformed and those lives we touch will be transformed because we have a true message. That's the revelation that God gave to Jonah. In our flesh, we take up the gourd, bang him over the head with it. No, that's the revelation God gave to Jonah. He says, this is who I am. And you initially despised it. You are afraid of that kind of revelation. You didn't understand it. Beloved, because we think ministry or what we're doing for God, we understand success. Jonah preaches, you know, and people minister and they don't get the kind of response they want. It doesn't happen the way they think. And there becomes a deep resistance. God, I don't want to do this anymore because it's the flesh intertwining with the spirit or it's God testing. It's God saying we have to be led by the spirit. But beloved, the scripture says they that are Christ have crucified the flesh. We have been given that power because a crucified Christ and a resurrected Christ lives in us. And we have the power to say flesh and this what I don't want to do, where I don't want to go, who I don't want to speak to. I have the power to offer it up to you through the spirit. I have the power to offer it up to you and Jesus, you will take it and you will become in that time so sweet, so deep, so real to me. And beloved things change so deep. At a level so deep. We couldn't describe it. Jonah needed Nineveh because he had no idea what was resident in the bottom of the depth of the resistance, the depth of his know, the depth of his mental torment, the depth of his ability to despise the goodness of God. And yet God still was using this name. That's the mercy of God. And until we know the incredible depth of the mercy of God for me and for you, beloved, we can't be turned out on a world because we'll become like Jonah. We'll be everything but merciful. We'll be quick to anger. We will be everything the opposite of God says he will be to us and transform us to be. We can get in ministry and be quick to anger. So uncompassionate, cold, hard, another spirit upon us. We will get to a place, beloved, where God absolutely cannot send us to certain people in certain times at certain places. And we have a never decreasing and diminishing capacity to minister. God says, no, in Nineveh I go to the core. In Nineveh I go to that place only I see. And in that place, you will find me so slow to anger and merciful and kind and gracious to you. And ever shall it be when every deep resistance to us is offered and we, the words of Christ, come back to us and that's who he will be to us at these times when we do offer up where the flesh does not and will not go. Beloved, it's an open-ended book in the sense that we never know Jonah's response. We never know what decision he took. And I believe that because in this valley of decisions, so many get stuck here. So many are not understanding, Lord, to fully walk with you, I have to face this. There's going to be a death of something in me that your life in me may flow. And that, Lord, I'm not going to be condemned when my flesh rises up. But I'm going to experience you like I have never experienced you before. That you're going to reveal and I'm not going to let the devil shut down like Jonah was shut down at that time in his life. That revelation wasn't good enough for him. He didn't realize that everything he ever wanted to be in God was found in that response of God to him. That when you know how merciful and slow to anger I am in your life, you can open up every part of your life. When you step forward and you fall down, you will get up when you remember that. When you step forward and fear plagues every step of the way, we'll throw up our heads and say, God, who is gracious to me, slow to anger, merciful, kind, and bold new beginnings for me. I walk your way by the spirit. Your spirit is bringing me this place and I'm not walking it in the flesh. And every time the flesh wants to get behind the driver's wheel and take me in another direction, God, by your spirit, you will judge it in me. You will reveal it to me and you will keep me on that path. Oh God, that allows me to make a difference. You know, God could use Jonah and Nineveh that one time for that. He could be not, I believe, to show how much he wanted to use him and what he could do in his life. God saw Jonah and what was at the depths of his heart, but it did not prevent God from stretching out his hands saying, I can use you. I can still use you if you'll walk my way, but it's an open-ended book and we never know his response. Because there was a, it's a place he does not want to be. But beloved in that place, we don't want to be, we don't want to go with people we don't want to be ministering to and loving in the name of Jesus. He is going to remind us of who he is and that revelation is going to humble us. It's going to break us. It's going to fill us. It's going to empower us. It's going to change us and we're going to move in the spirit and it is the spirit that makes all the difference. Nineveh was a deposit. When the Holy Ghost came upon Jonah, Jonah saw what the Holy Ghost ministry does. Astounding. And he was saying, let me do that work in you. Let me do that work in you. Because when you invite the Holy Spirit into our lives in the sense that he is there, but take over and let me offer to you every place of resistance and the know that I am saying, God is going to be astounding what you're going to do in my life. Beloved, you know, for many years, I was deeply resistant to the things of God. I was so afraid because the little I knew of me, it discouraged me. The little I knew of me, it caused me to doubt. And so I was limiting God. But when I saw that he says to reason, throw your arms wide open to me and receive me as a merciful, gracious God, full of kindness, slow to anger and full of new beginnings for you and let it attack your fear. Let it attack your doubt. Let it lift your eyes higher than yourself. Don't be afraid where I'll take you because I'm merciful. Don't be afraid where I'll take you. I'm kind. And we'll begin to make that difference because there'll be a cross in our Christianity. There won't be places X out because we're not trying to go there in the flesh. We can't. But we'll be taken there as surely as Jonah was taken there. We'll be taken there. But by the grace of God, we leave that place of unsurrender, surrendered by the spirit with a new revelation. That shatters the power and the stronghold of fear and doubt and no and rebellion and sin. It alone has the power, that revelation to root out the sin. That's why the Holy Spirit can all work in full measure with us, because there's deep pockets of sin that God must reveal so he can heal and replace by his spirit. And we move forward. That's the kingdom of God. One of my favorite lines is the gospel is the story about dead men living. And that's got to be our testimony. That every area of death that is sin, a stronghold of sin, might know my deepest knows God by faith only by your spirit. And hearing who you are, I'm trusting you to give me the power to lift it up. And I'm believing, O God, that you are going to so transform me in this my Nineveh for your glory. Will you stand with me? Please. Hallelujah. As the musicians come, God is creating a desire in this body. I know it's creating a desire to walk all the way to be found that people of prayer and fasting in your place, that your God appointed place. Those who are saying, God, I'm going to have to trust you now for this biggest battle of my life, for the mental torment in my life, the resistance stops. I'm going to take your merciful hand. If God is speaking to you about that, would you come for those in your heart that have made that step forward into the grave and time of great rejoicing? This is a joy and you're going to experience it. When we make that step forward, he comes rushing like the father and he throws his arms around us and he gives us all that we need. And beloved, it's a great day because the power of the enemy to oppress us with fear and the power to oppress us with a sense of failure is broken because we're coming to a God who is merciful and kind that when we surrender, he says, I'm going to be so merciful and kind to you. Your testimony is going to change forever. When we live under that canopy of his gracious favor to us and his mercy, beloved, we are changing. The fear is broken. The fear of failure. We are going to fail at times because we are flesh. That's why he says I'm merciful. That's why I'm so kind. That's why I'm so slow to anger. And beloved, when we receive that deeply in our hearts, we're going to rejoice and go forward and say, throw what you will at me. How there is a God that is resurrected that lives in me and he's taking me through. Hallelujah. There's many are saying I'm tired of my fear, robbing me of my faith, but I know who I'm coming to now. And God, you're bringing me to a place that I never thought I could come to a place where my flesh always ruled me, always told me what was going to happen and why that would never happen. Why God couldn't do this and God couldn't do that and God couldn't use me. But beloved, the flesh. The flesh is going to know that crucifixion where it's going to be rendered useless, where it's going to be rendered voiceless, because every time we call on the spirit is voice renders the voice of our flesh and the enemy useless. It loses its voice and it loses its strength. And this is a great day. And now we can go forward, God, knowing that when I fall, you pick me up when I need to confess something. You hear me when I can tell you the worst, the darkest part of what's going on in my mind. I'm finally just admitting it to myself. And God, you will not condemn me that you forgive me and you give me a new mind. Beloved, the enemy oppresses us because there's places we we have not let God's light and love and mercy and forgiveness enter. But today it changes. Today, it changes. And every power of hell is broken as we give him what we in our flesh could never do, but we do it by the spirit. And we say, God, we thank you. You've made us a willing people. Lord, it is only by your spirit we are made willing to walk this path. But Lord, your glorious resurrection life will flow through us. God, you're going to make us a people of prayer. You're going to make us a people able to fast. You're going to make us a people able to step outside our self-consuming thoughts. God, you care for us. God, you understand the depths of our struggle. God, you know what it is we face in our hearts alone at night. But God, you will be merciful and kind and slow to anger. And you will speak new beginnings into our lives every time we need it. And God, you're going to break the power of the enemy over our mind, the tormented thoughts, the torments, the anger, the uncontrolled anger. God, everything where we have found ourselves saying we belong to you, but no peace, only anger, only despair. God, by faith, we lift it up to you now. And we thank you, O God, that you who sought all along has never rejected us. But you have sent this word of how merciful and gracious and kind you are so that we may have the power of the enemy broken over us. Now, Lord, we leave this place under the power of the spirit, able to offer up every resistance of the flesh because Jesus died and Jesus gives us the power to walk in the spirit, not in the flesh. Lord, this victory is all yours. And we declare you to be our victorious God, a resurrected Christ who lives in us by the power of the spirit. And we thank you, God, that you're going to take us places we could never go to in the flesh. But God, you're going to be faithful to bring us there. And we're going to know a joy, a power and a liberty that's going to affect our generation. God, we believe this. You are merciful. You will be with us every step of the way. And it is in you we stand. We stand by faith and by grace and your mercy alone. Lord, now we give you the praise. We give you the praise for hearing you today. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We praise you. We praise you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Beloved, don't back down. Don't back down. There's no reason to back up or back down because we're not doing it in the flesh now. We're calling on the Holy Spirit of God and he will do this work in us. And that's why we praise him and give him all the glory for it's of him. Hallelujah. Amen. Praise God. Thank you for that wonderful word. I will sing unto the Lord. He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider are thrown into the sea. God bless you. If you'll make an effort to come back this evening, I'm sure it's going to be worth your while. If you can, find a friend and bring somebody to the house of God with you tonight. If you have to go, God bless you. Take a moment, fellowship, as we go singing today, as we go rejoicing. God bless you. This is the conclusion of the message.