Jonah 3:1-5 – The Power of God’s Word
On the day Jonah began preaching, the people began believing. They heard, they considered, and they fully accepted the truth of it.
This is astonishing when you think about it. Here is this ‘exceedingly great city’, the global power of the day, renowned for its brutality to foreigners, not only receiving this message of impending judgement at the hand of a foreign God but responding to it. It would be like someone going to Kabul in Afghanistan and publicly declaring a message of judgment against the Taliban. They probably wouldn’t get to see the dawn breaking on their second day in the city. And yet it happened in Nineveh. How? Because the voice of Jonah carried an exceptional power. Not a power intrinsic to him personally, but an unction, a filling of the Spirit of God which meant the voice of God Himself was being heard. It is the same power which makes the gospel powerful unto salvation today. It is a power which opens the eyes of the spiritually blind to see and the spiritually deaf to hear. It is a power that renews the mind, convicts the conscience, breaks and regenerates the heart, and gives the will a God-ward desire. It’s a power that no soul can resist. It’s a wonderful, life-changing power and glorious in what it achieves.
I grew up in Northern Ireland, where there was a mighty outpouring of the power of God in 1859. There are numerous accounts of thousands of lives being changed for eternity in different villages, towns, and the city of Belfast. Yes, there were false professions and excesses of so-called ‘spiritual behaviour’, but nonetheless, a phenomenal work of God’s Spirit took place, deeply impacting the province.
You should crave to see this power each Lord’s Day morning and evening when the Word of God is preached. It is a power you should give yourself to praying for each week (Ephesians 6:19,20, 2 Thessalonians 3:1).
Question
- What should our attitude be to the power of the gospel?
Prayer Points
- Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to go forth in the preaching of the Word.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.