Please turn to Jonah, chapter 3. We know that at the end of verse 4 Jonah had gone into the city and proclaimed, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Then it says in Jonah 3:5-10:

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. 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. 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: 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. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 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.

I will stop reading there. Before we begin, I want to go back to a couple of things we talked about in the prior two studies and that is to note two corrections to understandings we have had for some time. It is based on our vantage point of living on the earth in the present Day of Judgment and having lived beyond dates like 1994 and May 21, 2011 (and we continue to live on this earth). And this is an advantage to us when we look back at doctrines that were developed in times past, even after 1994 and up until 2011, and certain information that was not known. It was not known that we would still be here in 2017 and that helps us to make correction.

We have had to correct two things, so far. If any of you are familiar with the time paths that Mr. Camping laid out in his book “1994?”, then you are already aware that we have had to correct our understanding regarding the “half hour of silence” spoken of in Revelation 8:1 and regarding the sounding of the trumpets. Previously, we had thought the trumpets sounded throughout the entire 23 years of the Great Tribulation. But, we are helped by Joshua, chapter 6 which speaks of blowing the trumpets of the Jubilee (the ram’s horn) and the fact that the walls of Jericho fell after 13 times around the city. So, we now know to look for the beginning of the judgment process at the point of the first Jubilee after the 13,000th year (of earth’s history) in 1994.

What this means is that, yes, the Great Tribulation was 23 years from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011, but there is a distinction being made between those first 2,300 days and the next 6,100 days where God is focusing on September 7, 1994 as this final period of judgment, which appears from the scriptures to be pointing to a 40-year overall judgment. It is a 40-year period, inclusively, which goes from 1994 to the year 2033 A.D.

So, when we read in Revelation, chapter 8 that there is “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,” God is speaking of the period from 1988 to 1994 (2,300 evening mornings) and the seven angels with the seven trumpets are doing exactly what the seven priests with the seven trumpets did in Joshua, chapter 6. Regarding our prior understanding that had been in place for some time regarding the 2,300 days of “silence in heaven,” we now know that right after that came 1994, the Jubilee Year, so the seven angels are doing the same thing as the priests in Joshua 6. The emphasis is on the Jubilee and that is the first correction.

The second correction involves the timeline from Ezekiel, chapter 4. Let us turn there. Previously, the way it was laid out in Mr. Camping’s book was that the 390 days represented one time path from 1907 B.C., when Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel,” to 1994, which was 3,900 years. That part of our understanding is still intact. The correction involves the second timeline of 40 days that Ezekiel laid on his other side. Mr. Camping had this 40 days as a separate timeline that went from 2007 B.C. to 1994, so when he looked at the 390 days that Ezekiel laid on his left side and the 40 days he laid on his right side, Mr. Camping was looking at it as two separate time paths that both led to the same year of 1994. Again, he came up with this prior to 1994 and at that time he thought that the year 1994 would be the end. I am not aware of any correction that he made after 1994 or as we began to look at May 21, 2011. Our understanding became that instead of a time path leading to the end of the world in 1994, it was just a time path that pointed to the beginning of the Latter Rain. That was the correction to our understanding at that time, but the two separate time paths remained in place.

But the correction we are making is that when Ezekiel laid on his left side for 390 days and then on his right side for 40 days, it is not two (separate) time paths, but one continuous time path that points to the beginning of the final judgment in 1994 and the second part of the time path then going to the completion of the judgment, which would be 40 years later in 2033.

Let me read Ezekiel 4:4-5:

Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

That number “390” is interesting because it is “3 x 13 x 10,” which points to the 13,000th years of earth’s history or the end of the world, just like the 13 times around Jericho.

Then it says in Ezekiel 4:6:

And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

The word “accomplished” is very important. After Ezekiel had laid on his left side for 390 days, he immediately laid on his right side for 40 days. So, you see, we are now following that directive more closely. Mr. Camping went from 1907 B. C. to 1994 in arriving at 3,900 years, but then he backed up and went from 1907 B.C. to 2007 B.C. in arriving at the 40 years, which he had understood as 4,000 years leading to 1994. But now we are following the consecutive nature of this historical parable: the 40 days are added on to the 390 days to total 430 days, to complete the task.

The word “accomplished” is the same word used in Ezekiel 4:8:

And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

So, when God says, “And when thou hast accomplished them,” God is instructing him to do the 390 days and the 40 days consecutively, finishing only after 430 days. In case anyone was not listening earlier, the way to understand this consecutively (as it was given to Ezekiel) is that it is one single time path with two parts: 3,900 years from the formation of “Israel” in 1907 B.C. through 1994 A.D. and then 40 years would lead us to 2033 A.D., inclusively. There is other Biblical information that allows us to count the years “inclusively.” Then the task given to Ezekiel was completed, as the time of bearing the iniquities of Judah. I do not want to get into the topic of “bearing the iniquities.” It can point to a couple of things. But it is interesting that the Lord focuses on Judah regarding the 40 days because it was over the course of that 40 years that began in 1994 that God saved the great multitude and completed the salvation program of all the elect, which can be typified as Judah. So, the entire timeline would 430 calendar years from 1907 B.C. to 2033 A.D. Of course, we are interested in these last 40 years. The first 3,900 years takes us to 1994 and the last 40 years would take us from that point to the end. It is just like how Jonah going to Nineveh the “second time” identifies with 1994 and the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit (the dove) and then God causes Jonah to declare that it was yet 40 days until Nineveh would be destroyed. We will talk about how Nineveh is a picture of the world and God saved the elect out of Nineveh, just like He has saved the elect out of the world, but He is not going to spare the world itself. Historically, Nineveh was later destroyed and no city on earth will be spared at the end, so we will look at the difference between the people of Nineveh and the city of Nineveh. The people picture God’s elect, but the city pictures the world.

Let us go back to Jonah 3:5:

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.

Would it not be nice if people would read this verse that have decided there are not to be preachers or teachers, but just the Bible? God did not go to Nineveh, did He? It was Jonah that went to Nineveh. God did not say anything audibly to the Ninevites. It was a man who spoke and Jonah was as much a sinner as any man. We talk about the spiritual pictures, but Jonah was still rebellious when he failed to go to Nineveh the first time, but got on a ship going to Tarshish. And, yet, Jonah was sent by God the second time to Nineveh and God caused him to proclaim a very specific message: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” As far as we know, that is all he said and he probably was not too eager to proclaim it. We do not know his attitude or how loudly he said it. He may have walked into the “Time Square” of Nineveh after one day’s journey. And how many people would have been present around him? There could have been thousands around, but they all would not have heard him. He went there and declared, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Did he say it twice or 10 times? For all we know, he said it once and, beyond that, we would be speculating and, yet, the whole city eventually repented. Again, it says, “So the people of Nineveh believed God,” and it does not say they believed Jonah, but they believed God.

Then it says they “proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” This is something incredible. What a response. Just think of our own feeble efforts to be like Jonah. Remember, we had our “Project Jonah”? We would go out with the Word of God and we might hand out 100,000 tracts in downtown Philadelphia or New York City. Did we see reaction like this? Did we see everyone weeping or renting their clothes and sitting in sackcloth and ashes? No – it is not something typical of people in the world. But for God’s own purposes, He was the One who got Jonah’s message going like a snowball rolling down a mountain – it kept growing and growing until it was a huge boulder. The report went into the city of Nineveh and soon the entire city repented.

We see that God uses His people, like He used Jonah, and it is the same today. The Bible says that Christ would break the bread and give it to the disciples and then the disciples would give it to the multitudes. This is how God has always worked throughout time. He uses His people to share truth and the people of God listen for the truth, the voice of Christ: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” We follow the Truth and that is why it was always a false criticism of the true elect of God that we only listened to whatever Mr. Camping said. That was never true. We followed the truth that God was revealing to a man; that is how God works when He opens the eyes of this man or that man. Then God gave Mr. Camping a platform so the truth could be widely proclaimed. The people of God are never followers of a man unless the man is following the Lord, as the Apostle Paul said: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Then we follow along with what we are hearing and we check out the information in the scriptures, with the ability God has given us to understand. Is it correct and following what the Bible teaches? We follow along only to the point that the individual teacher is faithfully proclaiming the truth of the Bible.

God really put us to the test after May 21, 2011. This is a time of severe testing and God always tests us with His doctrine. I am using Mr. Camping as an example and I only say this because Mr. Camping was such a public figure and he proclaimed the Word of God faithfully, but toward the end of his life he was ill and he was not the “same.” So, there came a point when one asked, “Would you say that no man can know the day or hour?” And he responded, “Yes, I guess nobody can know the day or hour.” And, yet, there was no in-depth study put forth as Mr. Camping had done throughout his life and he would correct himself as needed. Therefore, some people claim, “Well, Mr. Camping corrected himself at the end.” No – he did not, because when he would make correction, he would put forth a study that would answer all the scriptures that had to do with the topic, but that never happened in this case. We look to the Bible for what a conclusion is based upon and we would ask, “What about Ecclesiastes 8:5-6 or Daniel 12:10 or Amos 3:7? What about all these scriptures? What about what God revealed to Noah?” There was no response through a teaching that went to all these verses and, therefore, we did not follow what Mr. Camping said when he made that one statement. We continue to follow what the Bible teaches.

It is just like when God says to be obedient to the governor. We follow the laws and we are law-abiding citizens up to the point where the government tells us to do something unlawful (in the Bible) and then we do not follow it. It is that way in government and it is that way for the relationship between a husband and a wife, and so forth.

The people of Nineveh believed God. Actually, they believed Jonah – they did not see or hear God. They believed Jonah and the message he brought and what they believed was that the message was from God. God has set up a system that is referred to in 1Samuel 8:6-7:

But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto JEHOVAH. And JEHOVAH said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

Perhaps a better verse would be Luke 10:16:

He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.

Jonah was “sent” by God. They heard Jonah. What does Christ, who is God, say here? He says, “He that heareth you heareth me.” God sent him and they believed that God sent him and that this was a true message from God, so they believed God. They did the right thing. All the other blessings that came upon them preceded from the point that they believed God. They did not fight against God. They did not argue. They were not critical.

Is it possible to be critical when you hear a timeline? Is it possible to fight against it when you hear a Biblical date? We are very much aware of how many people fight against this idea. We saw the entire corporate church respond: “No man knows the day or the hour.” It could have worked out in Nineveh that certain individuals that are like professed Christians today were in that “Time Square” when they heard Jonah proclaim, “And yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” these people responded, “No man can know that God will overthrow Nineveh in forty days.”

Perhaps, no one did so because this did not take place in Israel, but Nineveh, because there were many in Israel that had outward identification with the Word of God and, yet, they were not truly God’s people. As we know, during the history of Israel there were many Israelites, but few “true” Israelites. At one time, out of the entire nation there were only 7,000 people that had not bowed the knee to Baal.

But this historic event was not taking place in Israel, but it was taking place in the capital city of a foreign land of Assyria, an enemy of Israel.

By the way, why did it take place in a foreign land and a place removed from Israel? Why was it not in Jerusalem? Why does it not apply to the people that identify with God and His Word? We would expect that if God was going to perform a tremendous work of salvation, it would have been the Jews. After all, this is the Old Testament. And Jonah was a Jew. Perhaps, this was his problem and he may have been one of those individuals that was saddened that God was not saving the great multitude within the churches and congregations. We had to go outside of the churches and into the world to find that great multitude that was to be saved. But, here is Jonah and he loves his people, but he must bring the Word of God to an enemy nation that did not follow the law of Moses. They were not circumcised. They did not observe the sacrifices or feast days. They did none of these things. Remember what it said in Jonah 4:2:

And he prayed unto JEHOVAH, and said, I pray thee, O JEHOVAH, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

Jonah had to bring the Word outside of his own city and country and away from his own friends and family. He had to bring the message to the “world,” just like the elect were called to come out of the churches and bring the Gospel to the nations of the world and it would be there that God would save that great multitude out of Great Tribulation.

You know, there was not one Christian saved under the hearing of the churches during the Great Tribulation period, just like this great salvation in the book of Jonah was not taking place in Israel, but in Nineveh. When we read the Old Testament, we read of “meager” salvation. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, but after he preached for 120 years until the date of the flood, how many people came onboard the ark? There were eight people out of what was possibly a million, or more, people. Then we continue in Biblical history and we see Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob or this individual or that individual, but we do not read of great numbers of people except the 7,000 people that were saved out of the entire nation of Israel. That is the greatest number you read about of the nation of Israel, so what happened in Nineveh just stands out. It shines forth like nothing else in the Old Testament. It is the “great multitude” of the Old Testament. We do not know exactly how many were saved. God mentions 120,000 at the end of chapter 4. Let us say that there were 120,000 people saved. It could be more than all the number of individuals saved in the Old Testament, including the 7,000, and it would probably not be as large a number as those saved in Nineveh. Why? When we find these curious things in the Bible, we always ask, “Why?”

Jonah was commanded to go to Nineveh the “second time” and how have we understood that? We have understood it as representing 1994, a Jubilee Year, and the point at which God began to save that great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation. The great multitude was not found in the churches (not one), but they were all found out in the world, which is typified by Nineveh. So, we find further confirmation that this is representing the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit beginning in the Jubilee Year of 1994 when God stretched forth His hand the second time.

Again, we see the response in Jonah 3:5:

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.

Then it says in Jonah 3:6-8:

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. 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: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God…

The word somehow reached the king and this passage explains how all Nineveh repented. Jonah went into the “Square” and God controlled and arranged the events so someone with access to the king heard Jonah. It was unlikely it was the king himself because if he had been there all eyes would have been on him and no one would have heard Jonah. But, perhaps, a prince or noble that had the “ear” of the king heard Jonah proclaim his message and God would have given that individual the ability to know that this was the “voice of God” and it was true. It seriously impacted that individual and he returned quickly to the king and he entered the court and gained audience with the king of Nineveh, explaining, “I just heard a prophet say that in forty days Nineveh would be overthrown.”

They did not go through a “vetting” experience regarding the prophet and they did not try to find out everything they could about this prophet, or anything like that. There is no way to explain their response, except for what it says in John 10: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” This is the only way, whereas those who are not sheep do not hear and do not know. What struck that person who had the king’s ear also struck the king and he received what Jonah preached the same way; he received it as truth from God and he needed to do something about it. Then it said in Jonah 3:7:

And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh…

Jonah had only gone a day’s journey into the city, but the city was a three-day journey, but now it was the power and force of the king behind the message that would go to all the inhabitants of Nineveh. This message was coming from the king, so would anyone just “write it off” or dismiss it? No – not in that day. It was a serious matter when the king said something. In our day, kings are basically token and they are kings in name only and lack the authority of kings of old. Kings of old could issue an immediate order for someone’s death and the order would be carried out just as quickly. So, when the king caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, the people responded. They began to do as the king said and they did not eat or drink and they covered themselves with sackcloth. They appropriately responded to the message that God had sent.

You know, if I were to ask you who was the greatest king (outside of the Lord Jesus Christ) in the Bible, you would probably think of King David or King Hezekiah or King Jehoshaphat or good King Josiah, the last king of Judah. And you probably would not think of the king of Nineveh. He is “nameless.” God did not give us his name. But what resulted was the salvation of a great number within his city that truly repented. Again, if the king commanded them to do these things, they would have done them, but Christ said in the New Testament that the Ninevites would rise in the judgment, so true repentance and salvation had taken place. And it all flowed from God through Jonah (the dove or Holy Spirit) and then it reached the ears of the king and went city-wide. A king’s role is to serve the people, although this was not normally how kings conducted themselves, so this king was probably the greatest king in the Bible.

As a consequence of his humbling himself…and this is what he did. If you do not think he humbled himself, think of Pharaoh, king of the Egyptians. God sent his Word through the prophet Moses to Pharaoh, commanding, “Let my people go.” What did Pharaoh do? He hardened his heart and he would not let the people go. Again, and again, God had to command him and He brought plagues upon Egypt. That is a typical reaction of the kings of the nations of the world – they are arrogant and proud, like Nebuchadnezzar who was ruthless and cruel. He could not care less for his subjects and he would cut them to pieces and make their houses a dunghill. What about King Ahab of Israel when he heard the word from Micaiah? Did he repent at that point when he was warned not to go into battle? His response was, “I told you he never speaks well of me. He always speaks evil of me. Put him in prison and feed him bread and water until I return.” Micaiah said, “If you return, then JEHOVAH has not spoken by me.” What about King Jehoiakim, the wicked king of Judah, when Jeremiah came to him with the Word written down and the king took his pen knife and cut the scroll and burned it in the fire? You see, those are typical and worldly responses to the Word of God.

But look at this king of Nineveh, as it said in Jonah 3:6:

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.

There does not seem to be any hesitation. This is just one verse in the Bible, but what a tremendously humble response. It must be that God saved him “on the spot,” historically. He was very likely saved instantaneously through the hearing of the Word, for the Bible says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” His reaction was immediate submission to what He had heard. He did not fight against it. He did not question it and he did not come up with 100 reasons why he should not listen, but he simply believed God.

Of course, that is the nature of the child of God and the nature of the spirit that God places in His people – it is to believe and to trust the truth that God has given us to discern through the hearing of His voice.