Day 13: Effective Sermons
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Jonah's sermon to Nineveh is the shortest recorded message with the most evangelistic impact in Scripture. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4).
So short a sermon in so short a space of one day moved so great a number – an entire nation, from the king down to mere animals, who began a fast, seeking peace with an offended God. What was the secret? That message was God's word at that time for that congregation. It was the word that God had given to him.
Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee (Jonah 3:2).
Jonah preached to Nineveh “the preaching that I bid thee.” When we preach what He gives; when we say what He says; when we deliver His message as He has given it, we can have His results. The power of a sermon does not necessarily rest in how long or how loud; not in how intelligently crafted it might be. Sometimes we do not go where God has sent us with the word that He has given us. We go to Tarshish instead of Nineveh. Sometimes we do actually get down to the people and the place to which He sends us, but we do not always preach His word after getting there, probably for fear of the people, or for love of an advantage from them.
Imagine Jonah preaching in Nineveh the love message of Hosea... A good message never makes sense to the one it is not meant for. If you got a phone call saying, “Hello John, kindly give the key to my wife and ask her for the bag of money I left for you,” you might ask, “Who's speaking? What key? Who is your wife? I'm not John. Sorry, wrong number.” However, the one for whom that message is meant will jump to the high heavens for the message about the bag of money. That is what happens when we take to a people a different message than He sends to them, beautiful though the message may be. It may entertain, like a good story; it may furnish them with some tips of life, but it never prepares them to avoid the dangers for which the word could have been a warning. Imagine a world-class orchestra singing flawless carols to a city that should be hearing tsunami alarms for a coming disaster… good singing, good voices, good presentation, very satisfying, but…. That a message is from God does not mean that it is for everybody.
It is one thing to take all the trouble to get to Nineveh; it is another thing to preach the message of Nineveh to the people of Nineveh when we get there. May it be quickly said, however, that even when we have preached God's word to a people, the result may not in every case be like the mass conversion that greeted Jonah's sermon. It could be the stones they throw because they are unwilling to receive that word. Case in point: Stephen. The measure of the anointing on a preacher is therefore not always a guarantee of how massively and agreeably the people may respond to his message. Also, how generously a people receive a message may not always be a measure of the messenger's approval by God. Stephen got so anointed that he glowed in the face like an angel, yet his congregation opposed him and stoned him to death. That was the anointed man for whom even Jesus stood to His feet (Acts 7).
From The Preacher's diary,
May 21, 2011