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Written by CYNTHIA LUTHRA   
Sunday, 06 February 2011 16:47

                       GOD’S WAY’S NOT OUR’S

 

As I was spending time with the Lord, he lead me to read the book of Jonah, and as I was reading it, He started to share with me the correlation between Jonah’s time and what we are living in today. The Lord desires for the nations to come to deep repentance. Just as in the case of Nineveh.

Jonah 1:1, 2. “The word of the Lord came to Johan ‘son of Amittai’ Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim Judgment upon it, for their wickedness has come before Me.”

Johan’s disobedience which I see as the church’s disobedience, especially among   the prophets, the failure to call the nations unto deep repentance,-instead of running after Revival. There must be a strong word coming from the Pulpits and the prophets. Nations are not going to have Revival without repentance. God clearly stated in Chapter 3 VS:1, that He wanted to call them to repentance in order to save the nation, remember also in 2 Chronicles 7:14  it says, ’ If my people ,which are called by My name, shall  will humble themselves ,and Pray, and seek my face, and  turn from their wicked ways, then  will  I hear from heaven, and  forgive their sin, and will heal their land”

We also are reluctant, just as Jonah was when God directed him to prophesy to Nineveh. God is calling many of His Prophets not just a few, to go to the nations to call forth repentance to bring forth God’s pardon. I believe we are facing severe consequences today for our unfaithfulness to God’s purposes.

Jonah 3:1-9 “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it what I tell you”. Jonah went at once to Nineveh in accordance with the Lord’s command. Nineveh was “an enormously large city a three days walk across. Jonah started out and made his way into the city the distance of one days walk, and proclaimed;”Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and great and small a like put sack cloth. When the news reached the King of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he had the word cried through Nineveh;”By decree of the King and the nobles; No man or beast- of flock or herd- shall not drink water. They shall be covered with sackcloth-man and beast- and shall cry mightily to God. Let everyone turn back from his evil ways and from the injustices of which he is guilty, who knows but that God may turn and relent? He may turn back from His wrath, so that we do not perish.”

I believe, if both the Priests and Prophets would lead the people into righteousness, and call the people to repentance, and we will follow the pattern of Nineveh, we could avoid the chastening of the Lord. The message of Jonah is that God’s judgments, even if already prophesied, can be averted by genuine repentance.

We read in Jonah 3:1, that when Jonah finally agreed to obey, and proclaim what the Lord said “What I tell you”. Jonah responded and went immediately to Nineveh as to the Lord’s command, I believe the Lord is speaking to us today, that we must respond and proclaim what He is telling us, nothing less, or nothing more, if there was such a need for that enormous large city of those days to repent, how much more for nations and cities of our days.

See something is wrong in our hearts, as it was in Jonah’s, Jonah wanted his way not God’s ways, he was not yet ready to Prophecies as God had said, we cannot just prophesy what we want, it has to be what God says. Remember He told Jonah “I will tell you”, therefore God was forced to bring chastisement and persecution not only upon Jonah, but also upon the whole ship he was on- The point is this , that they suffered the consequences, because of the Prophet Jonah’s lack of obedience to the word of the Lord. Whole cities and nations suffer because of the lack of obedience, of today’s prophets and Priests reluctancy  to  prophecy and teach the true word of the Lord. It is not even in their mouths, their hearts are far from calling the Church to repentance, never mind the nations.

I know of only a very few Prophets these days that obey the word of the Lord, and are paying a great price for doing so, see we have had the cart before the horse, repentance should be first, then restoration will come.

As Jonah prophesied what the Lord said to him, the people of Nineveh believed God. When truth is prophesied it is light to a man’s soul- and it will always cause man’s heart to turn to God. The anointed word of the Lord in a Prophet’s mouth, carries the purposes and intents of God’s heart- perhaps we need to do-what God says- rather than what we believe?

We see that as Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and prophesied the people of Nineveh repented to the extent that it says in the word” the  great and the small alike, put on sackcloth- even the King took off his robe, came off his throne and sat in sackcloth’s and ashes, and they called out to God, and turn away from the evil ways and from the injustices of which they were guilty off, see we need some of our Prophets and Priests to come off their thrones and sit in sackcloth’s  and ashes, so that the judgment  of God may not be like it happened in vs10 God renounced the punishment he had planned  to bring upon them.

Jonah4:10, 11 it says”. Then the Lord said’ you cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight. And should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand person who do not yet know their right hand from the left, and many beast as well” Many don’t understand the times that are upon us. Just like know one in Nineveh knew their right hand from their left, but as soon as a willing hearted prophet, prophesied the direction of their heart was changed, just as God cared about Nineveh, I believe He cares about the nations today.

God’s dependent upon the true prophets who will prophesy what God is saying in these times, so that the nations can be brought into repentance. Grace was meant to give man ability to repent and come to God- not so he could live his life in sin, to keep dependent on Grace to make his heart right.