DCLM Daily Manna Saturday 27 August 2022
TOPIC: God’s Mercy On The Penitent
TEXT: JONAH 3:1-10
3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
KEY VERSE
“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not”
(JONAH 3:10).
DCLM Daily Manna Saturday 27 August 2022 OUTLINE
President Abraham Lincoln of the USA, on 13th March 1863 set aside the 30th of April 1863 for national humiliation, fasting and prayer. Among other things, he said – “It is the duty of nations, as well as men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon…
We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity… And we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient… it behoves us to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness…”
Jonah’s re-commissioning after his three days’ experience in the fish’s belly made him to go to Nineveh with a message of impending judgment: “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”, he said. The message moved the king to declare a day of national fasting and repentance for all, including animals. They were to turn away from all their wickedness and “cry mightily” to God who saw the genuineness of their works and forgave them.
READ: Joyce Meyer Daily Devotional 27 August 2022 – No More Guilt or Condemnation
When leaders realise that they have deviated by living contrary to God’s expressed will, they should humble themselves in prayer of repentance. Repentance and genuine godly sorrow for wrongs done to man or God is pleasing to Him. God honours it. Turn away from sin and God will lead you in the path of righteousness.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Genuine repentance pleases God.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: ZEPHANIAH 1-3
