In Season and Out of Season

Guest (Male): Behold, I stand at the door and knock. This is In Season and Out of Season, a Bible teaching ministry with Father Tom DiLorenzo.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Good day, it's Father Tom and I'm glad to be with you today. We do this broadcast live. I'm looking at the prophet Jonah today. Jonah is running away from the presence of the Lord. Maybe you are running away from the presence of the Lord. How do we do that? Our work can become our god, our ministry can become our god, and we forget the Lord and we forget what the Lord has done for us. The only thing we do is we give him our work because our work can become the most important thing in the world rather than the Lord himself. It's easy to run away from the Lord.

Jonah is in the belly of the fish and this is what he prays: "I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Thank you, Lord. Out of the belly of hell I cried, and he heard my voice. Thank you, Lord. For you cast me into the deep, into the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about, and your billows and your waves passed over me. Then I said, 'I am cast out of your sight, but I will look again toward your holy temple.'

"The waters compassed me about even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The seaweed wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottom of the mountains. The earth with all her bars was about me forever. Yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto you into your holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord."

And the Lord spoke unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Now Jonah has a second chance. He's called to go to Nineveh. He's called to preach repentance to the pagans. That's why he ran away. He felt that he was too good to preach repentance to a pagan town. He felt like, "I am too good. Who do you think you are?" I'm going to tell you, no one's too good. No one's too good. If you're looking down on anyone, I'm telling you, you've got the wrong perspective.

I don't care what God has done in your life. If we are looking down on people, I'm going to tell you the Lord looks down on us. We need to look eye to eye. I don't care who the person is, I don't care what they've done, no one is worthy of looking down at. If Christianity looks down at people, I'm going to tell you we're going to be ineffective. Jonah looked down on the Ninevites because they were pagan. It was too good for him to go and proclaim repentance. He was too good. And God let him endure much suffering.

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time saying, "Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid you." Again, if God is speaking to you once and you do not do it, he will not change his message until we do what he calls us to do. Do you understand what I'm saying? He doesn't give you a new message until we do what he calls us to do. It's as simple as that. Jonah did not do what God called him to do. Now, out of the belly of the fish he's out, and the message is the same: go to Nineveh and preach what I will give you.

So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, three days' journey. It took three days to walk through Nineveh. 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." Oh, he loves it. He loves it. "Forty days and you're going to be just whittled down to dust."

I'm going to tell you, if we cannot preach to sinners with compassion, we better not preach. We better not preach. You have to remember where you came from. We're all the same. We're all the same. All of us. God brought us out of the pit. God gave us a new life in Jesus. We don't ever want to preach to people and let them feel like the scum of the earth. We want to tell them repentance is necessary, but the Lord will not reject one, no one who comes to me will I ever reject.

Here is Jonah. He loves this message: forty days and you're going to be destroyed. The Lord's going to destroy you, you pagans. I'm telling you, there's no one better. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are in absolute need of the mercy of God. I need his mercy. I cannot speak unless I have his mercy. I cannot continue unless I have his mercy. There is no one that is worse than I am. The Lord wants to save his people. It is the will of God that none perish and that all come to the saving knowledge and experience of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

For so the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. Even though Jonah preached with hatred, the people of Nineveh, the pagans, they believed the message and not with their heads, but they proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and he covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

Would that the believers would respond the way that the pagans of Nineveh responded. Would that believers would respond and just cry out for mercy. Would that believers would respond as the pagans did in Nineveh. Sometimes we start getting a little too big for our britches thinking that we have an upper hand on people. I have no upper hand. Remember what God said to Israel: "Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. You were born on the wrong side of the tracks, and I chose you out of love."

I tell you, friends, the Lord has chosen believers out of love. Not for anything that I can give him, not for anything that I can do for him, but he has chosen me and you out of love. And he caused it to be proclaimed by the king and published it through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying, "Let neither man nor beast nor herd nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water." So he's calling a fast upon all the pagan people. This is a king. This is a king who believes. Imagine.

I'm telling you, prostitutes and sinners are entering the kingdom of heaven ahead of believers. That's what Jesus said to the Pharisees. Prostitutes and sinners because they know that they are in absolute need of God. Do you understand what I'm saying? We can never take that position that we're better than anybody else. It's because of his love we are where we are, because of his love.

"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 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. Not because of their words, but because of their actions.

I'm going to tell you, my friends, we in the United States are in a spiritual vice right now. We are in a spiritual vice right now. We have forgotten the Lord. This is a covenanted country. We have become the kingdom of kingdoms. We have thrown God out of our schools. We have become an agnostic, atheistic people. Even if we say we believe in God, it says that God saw by their actions that they repented. It is so important that we now are in a vice and the Lord is waiting in the United States for a repentant people. The same with the church; the Lord is waiting for a repentant people.

Yesterday I was speaking with somebody and they went to Mass some place, and the priest was downgrading being born again. Isn't it funny that the reading yesterday was that the disciples said to Jesus, "We saw someone casting out demons in your name and they don't belong to our company. We should tell them to stop." Jesus said, "Let them alone. If they are not against us, they are for us." There is no time for us to be bashing one another. There is no time. This is the time for us to join together because we are in a vice. And the vice is going to become more and more difficult to be in because God will squeeze us, either that we will repent or we will just dissolve.

Imagine this great nation dissolving. Let me tell you, other great nations have dissolved. Other great nations have dissolved. Today my friends are at Planned Parenthood offering people there an alternative that they could leave that place and have their baby and that they are giving them help during the pregnancy and after the pregnancy. We have killed 60 million children. God counts each child. Have you heard about the little boy that died and went to heaven? And when he came back, he said to his mother, "I have a little sister." And his mother said, "No, you don't have a sister." He said, "Yes. You never gave her a name." The mother had had a miscarriage, and the little boy saw the little sister in heaven.

My Lord, the blood of 60 million children cry out. They cry out to the Lord and we have no right to be proud and arrogant. And we have every right to ask for mercy for what we have allowed. Now they repented in Nineveh, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry. Isn't that sick? Isn't that sick that the pagans repented and called on the name of the Lord and Jonah is displeased and angry? Rather than saying, "God did his work through me. Hallelujah. Isn't it wonderful that they repented?" But you see, Jonah had the attitude that he was better than the pagans. That's why he wanted nothing to do with Nineveh. It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry.

And he prayed unto the Lord and said, "I pray you, Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before you unto Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repentest you of evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech you my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." It's better for me to die than to live because Nineveh changed. What a sad thing. He did not want to go to Nineveh because he thought he was better and he knew that God was merciful. So he fled. And now he preaches repentance and the pagans change. And now he wants to die because the pagans changed.

Oh my Lord, how sad. And I'm sure he feels justified. Imagine feeling justified, experiencing that he wants to die because the pagans have changed. He feels justified. Then said the Lord, "Do you well to be angry?" So Jonah went out of the city and he sat on the east side of the city and there made him a booth, and he sat under it in the shadow of the booth till he might see what would become of the city. He's still waiting for the city to be destroyed. He wants the city to be destroyed.

And the Lord prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad because he was in the shade of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day and it smote the gourd and it withered. And it came to pass when the sun did arise, God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat down upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished himself to die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

And God said to Jonah, "Do you well to be angry for the gourd?" And Jonah said, "I do well to be angry even unto death." Then said the Lord, "You have had pity on the gourd for which you have not labored, neither made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" It's kind of a joke, "and also much cattle."

To have the mind of Christ means to be merciful, to be merciful to people and not to be arrogant. That's why I've heard of people that go into a nursing home where there are Jewish people and they start preaching Christ. That is not mercy. Those poor people, that is not mercy. If we cannot bring people to Christ through love, then I'm telling you, you don't do that. You don't preach in a nursing home like that where people are sitting in wheelchairs that are Jewish. That's not the way you do things. You do things out of love. You do things out of love, one to one, and you love people, and you visit people, and you bring them things. And even if they never receive Jesus, you love them. You want to love people into the kingdom. You don't want to force people into the kingdom.

This is so important. That's why a lot of people think that Christianity is something that people think that they're better than others. Jesus said, "I have come to serve and not to be served and to give my life as a ransom for many." That's what Jesus said. He has not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. We do not have an upper hand on anyone. We are called to love people into the kingdom. Yes, through our preaching, through our witness, through our caring. We never want to be hateful. Jonah was hateful. "Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed." And yet the word of God acted in the hearts of the Ninevites and the king called a fast and they sat in sackcloth and ashes.

Prostitutes and sinners and tax collectors can enter the kingdom of heaven ahead of the so-called believers. The Lord always calls us to look where we came from, to know where we came from, to know our roots. It was out of mercy that he chose us. And he chose us for himself. It is out of mercy that he called us and he calls us to himself. It is out of mercy that he loves us and he loves us so that we can love him and touch other people with that love that comes from him. No one does it perfectly, I know that. But never are we to look down on people. Never are we to think that we have an upper hand. Never.

Saint Paul went from synagogue to synagogue preaching Christ. He endured stoning and being shipwrecked. After the people in the synagogues would not hear of Jesus, he went to the Gentiles. But he would always tell of the mercy of God, what God did in his life, that at one time he was a persecuter of Christians and even led them to death. Beloved, if you have anything, it's a gift and it's been given by him. Don't boast.

Let's ask the Lord to teach us how to love and how to care for people. That is what is lacking. Lord, I ask for the grace of love to really love people with your grace, with your love. Lord, I need you. We need you. And we call upon your holy name that we would never think ourselves better than anyone else, that we would call upon your name and always know that if anything happens, it's because you did it, not because we did it.

Give us grace, Lord, to continue to follow you and to love you. And give us grace to love people and to call them into the kingdom. Give us grace not to threaten people, but to be examples of the flock. We ask this in Jesus' name.

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Spirit. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to your word. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

I thank you for listening. I'm on every day at this time proclaiming the word of God. I do need to hear from people. The mailing address is Father Tom, Post Office Box 602, East Boston, Mass 02128. That's Father Tom, Post Office Box 602, East Boston, Mass 02128. I need to hear from people. If you go to PayPal, www.inseason.net, and leave a donation, I'd be very grateful so we can pay our bills.

I've been doing these broadcasts for 27 years. It's important that I hear from you because I cannot continue unless I hear from you. And I ask you to keep me in your prayers. That is so important that I would be able to proclaim the word of God with great love and compassion. Read the four chapters of Jonah. Read the four chapters of Jonah and never think yourself better than anybody. Never forget that. God bless you.

Guest (Male): This has been In Season and Out of Season with Father Tom DiLorenzo. And remember that this ministry is supported only by the donations of listeners. So please help as the Lord leads you. Father Tom DiLorenzo, P.O. Box 602, East Boston, Mass, 02128. In Season and Out of Season.