Sermon Tone Analysis

! Jonah: A Surprised “Silly Dove”

 

Preached at Skillman Bible Church

July 11, 2004

 

 

Sermon Manuscript

 

<Thank Jacob>

 

<Thank worship team>

 

<Dismiss Children to Munchkinland>

 

Sermon Text

For those who are visitors today, I am not Terry Boyle, the pastor here.

For those who are regulars, there are two very distinct things that give it away completely – first the English accent and second the facial hair.

No facial hair on this face today and you will just have to deal with my Midwest accent.

For those who are born and raised in Texas, that’s NorthEast of the border.

My name is Rick George and I am a member and deacon here at Skillman Bible Church.

My wife, Summer and I moved down to Dallas from Ohio in 2002 to attend seminary and last summer had our first baby, Caden.

When we were looking for a church home, we spotted this little building on the corner, came inside and instantly fell in love with the people here at Skillman Bible and praise God for bringing us to this church.

Again, if you are a visitor, I welcome you to our family here at Skillman Bible Church and if you’re wondering why I am up here, Pastor Terry, who is attending his daughter’s Drum Corps International competition in San Antonio today, has asked me to fill in for him so I ask you to please… come back.

\\ *A.

*

*Jonah… poor Jonah.

If you have ever read this short little book in the old testament, you feel sorry for the guy and not in a way that you wish he had better luck, but in a way that you wish he would have just trusted and followed God.*

I mean, God would have protected him and cared for him on his journey.

He wouldn’t have allowed the Ninevites to hurt Jonah.

So why did he run?

Why didn’t Jonah get it?

*Jonah, by the way, is literally translated as “silly dove”.

A dove is symbolic of a bringer of peace.*

So I guess that means that Jonah brought God’s peace to the Ninevites in a silly manner.

His name is very fitting for the story of a prophet who, after running away, was swallowed by a big fish before relenting to God’s will and call on his life.

*But before we make too many judgments and condemnations towards Jonah, let’s look at the life and times of Israel during this period of history and maybe gain a little insight into why Jonah failed in God’s call on his life.*

*B.*

*The Bible does not give us a whole lot of information on Jonah.

The introduction to his book leaves us wondering a little bit.*

Verse one only states that he was the son of Amittai and verse nine gives us a little more by saying that he is a Hebrew who fears the Lord.

So who is this Jonah?

Let’s look at the book of 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 23 – 26.  2 Kings is right after 1 Kings in the old testament, right before 1 Chronicles.

If you take your bible and divide it into thirds, it is right around the end of the first third of the Bible.

Verse 23 states “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and reigned forty-one years.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin.

He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.

For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, which was very bitter; for there was neither bond nor free, nor was there any helper for Israel.”

*We see here in 2 Kings that Jonah was a prophet, called by God to minister and prophesy to Jereboam who was king of Israel.*

Jonah ministered to a king who did not follow the ways of the Lord, but yet God blessed Israel with more land and territory, and God entrusted Jonah to give Jeroboam the message that He would give Israel more land.

If God could trust Jonah with this mission, then Jonah must have been a Godly servant, a Hebrew who “worships the Lord the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

*Matthew and Luke, in their gospels, record Jesus’ words on Jonah.*

Jesus, while teaching to the crowds gathering around Him, compared His preaching to that of Jonah’s to the Ninevites exclaiming that if the Ninevites repented at Jonah’s preaching, then shouldn’t this generation repent at the Son of Man’s words, which are greater than Jonah’s?

Jonah must have been a great prophet who could speak in powerful ways for Jesus to have mentioned him by name.

*Jonah was no weak prophet.

He had the guts to stand up in his time to speak and minister to an evil king and be a true prophet of God.*

This sounds like a prophet who would never balk at God’s calling… a person of noble character and boldness who would stand out on the line even when everyone else around him deserted him.

What happened to this tough guy?

Why did Jonah fail and not only just fail, but failed miserably?

\\ *C.

*

*The time period is around the 790s BC, about 150 years after Israel split into two separate nations – Judah (the southern kingdom) and Israel (the northern kingdom).*

As we read earlier, Jeroboam is the king of Israel, living in the capital city of Samaria.

Jonah is a prophet in this northern kingdom of Israel.

Now all around to the north, east and some places to the south of Israel, Assyria is conquering nation after nation enlarging the Assyrian empire into one of the largest empires in ancient history.

The Assyrians were making a circle around Israel and the Israelites felt the constant threat of the Assyrian empire on their heels.

*Now the capital city of Assyria was Ninevah “that great city” where, at the time of Jonah, reigned Adad-nirari III.  *This king, and his predecessors, practiced brutal battle techniques that rivaled the Romans and they were proud of them.

They wrote their accounts down in their history books and many drawings give us an idea of the extent of their cruelty: <pg.

28 in commentary> “Records brag of live dismemberment, often leaving one hand attached so they could shake it before the person died.

They made parades of heads, requiring friends of the deceased to carry them elevated on poles.

They boasted of their practice of stretching live prisoners with ropes.

They commissioned pictures of their post-battle tortures.

Those who survived the sack of their city were tied in long lines of enslavement and deported to Assyrian cities to labor on building projects.

Tens of thousands in hundreds of cities suffered this fate over the two hundred and fifty years of the Assyrians’ reign of terror, including the cities of Israel in 722BC (70 years after the time of Jonah).

*Did the Israelites have the right to be afraid… I think so.

*

 

*D.*

*As we hear more about Jonah’s day and the context that he lived in, we can understand a little bit more about why he ran from God’s calling.

He was scared to death!*

He had no desire to go into Assyria, much less to the heart of their empire, Ninevah!  *He was surprised by God’s calling to have him go to this evil place to preach His word to them*.

Why in the world would God want a Hebrew, one that was supposed to be separated from the evil practices of the world, to go to such a wicked place as Ninevah, a place where not only came reports of torture and cruelty, but also immorality and sinfulness.

*Jonah was not only scared and surprised, he was ultimately full of hatred for the Ninevites.*

And he knew that he served a God of love, a God of creation, not destruction.

A God who had the grace to save a wicked people from destruction and would do anything to divert it.

*Jonah is no average, run of the mill, prophet.*

He knows his stuff.

Jonah knew God had enormous grace because of the stories his ancestors had passed down to him and because of the scriptures he studied and read so well of how God saved the Israelites from destruction many times, even when they turned away from God. 

 

*Yes, Jonah hated the Ninevites so much that he could not stand to do what God called him to do.*

He could neither stand in God’s presence nor do what God required of him, so he did the only thing he could do.

He fled in protest.

And fled he did.

Tarshish, located in modern day Spain, was considered, in Jonah’s day, at the opposite end of the known world from Ninevah.   *It is also interesting as we see in chapter one Jonah’s downward spiral as he runs from God.*

The text records in verse three that he went “down to Joppa” and then went “down into the ship” where he slept.

When the sailors figure out that it is Jonah’s fault that the storm has come upon the boat and have no other options, they throw Jonah overboard and he goes “down into the sea” and then goes “down into the belly of a fish” where finally he reaches the bottom of bottoms.

*Sometimes that’s where God reaches us best, when we reach the bottom of bottoms.*

We become completely helpless, having no control over our own lives.

We are in murky water, the stench is high and we are scared to death.

All we can do is turn to the loving Creator who we have been running from and rely on His help to get us back on our feet and running again.

*And God has promised us His help.

Before Jesus was crucified and during the time that Jesus spent with His disciples after the resurrection and before His ascension into heaven, He told them that He would send a Helper, a Counselor, in the form of the Holy Spirit, to aid us in our journey and to convict us of our wrong doings.*

God has not abandoned us.

If we believe in His Son and that He has the power to forgive our sins, then the promise has been given to us.

The time we spend on this earth will not be alone and without God’s aid.

And He has not only promised His help, but also salvation from spending an eternity outside of the presence of our Creator.

God is a God of love, not destruction, but because of that love He lets us make our own decisions, but He is there to receive us when we do make the right decision.

*About six years ago I had reached the bottom of bottoms emotionally and spiritually.*

All through my life up until this time I had struggled with relationships.

I had put my faith and trust into these relationships, instead of where it really needed to be - God.

I knew that He was calling me into a deeper relationship with Him, but I turned and ran.

I got involved with a emotionally and spiritually destructive relationship with a girl who was not very spiritually strong.

This relationship went on for months and even turned into an engagement before I had reached rock bottom spiritually.