Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

There are two types of stories in our lives - Those we want to remember and those we want to forget.

Illust - saving the girl from the deep end

Illust - falling asleep while driving to the hospital

Jonah is a bit like this as well.

If you turned to , you'd find a story of Jonah he would want you to remember.

Jonah was a prophet in Northern Israel around the 8th Century BC and God used him to deliver a message to King Jeroboam II.

The message was for the king to push forward in the northeast and restore the northern border of Israel.

Ever since King Solomon, after whom the nation split into two, the Syrians and later the Assyrians began capturing the towns and villages and basically shrinking the nation of Israel.

Jonah came to the king and delivered the message that God was going to help him retake that area - something they hadn't seen since the days of Solomon.

The borders were expanded and fortified to protect them from their arch enemies, the Assyrians.

Jonah was a national hero.

God called him and it made him famous- successful.

But that is not the story Jonah is most known for.

He would probably wish we remembered the previous story and not the one we'll be studying over the next several weeks.

Jonah is a story about:

 running from God. 

being far from God.

 being stuck in sin.

failure

hypocrisy.

failing

mercy

redemption

Maybe you can identify.

You've had stories of which you're proud, stories you'd be happy to be remembered by.

And perhaps you've had stories you hope everyone forgets - stories that you're afraid will define your life.

Your story will a big story if you let God be the hero.

Jonah is a BIG story.

There are very few things in the story of Jonah that are small - that is part of why captures the imagination.

It uses the Hebrew word for "big, great" 14 times throughout the four short chapters of the book.

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!”

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”

The Lost

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The Religious

And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water, 

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?

You

The story is larger than life and because of this many tend to think that Jonah is a tall tale, is a fish story, an allegory to tell an important lesson, but not a true story.

Most of this because of the fish.

Here are the reasons to believe Jonah to be historical:

Jonah is mentioned in :25

Jonah's father and birthplace is mentioned

Apart from the fish story, most of the other historical data in Jonah seems accurate.

Jesus referenced Jonah as a historical event.

If God can make a fish, he can use the fish however he wants - there are plenty of other miracles in the Bible that are difficult to understand until you meet the Creator.

Jonah is a BIG story with four main characters.

God

This is a story about God - first and foremost.

It's not primarily a story

 The sovereignty of God

God's in charge.

We don't like to hear it, but it's true.

You can't run from God - Maybe you don't have a relationship with God and you're running from his nudging and his call to come clean, stop sinning, repent, and accept his mercy through Jesus.

Or maybe you are a believer, a child of God, and you're running from God - something you know he's telling you to do, but you think if you ignore it enough, he'll go away.

The story of Jonah shows us that God is in control - you can't outrun him.

One of the most common themes you'll find throughout all of the prophets is that of the sovereignty of God.

The whole point of the books of the prophets is that God knows the hearts of his people, he sends men to warn them of coming judgment, not because he is guessing it might happen, but because he knows it will happen.

The heart of God

For some, this kind of God sounds scary.

But the story of Jonah also shows us the heart of God.

You have a knuckle-headed, religious prophet and violent, idol-worshipping pagans, and God loves them both.

He doesn't where they came from.

He doesn't care about their history (These pagans actually hurt his people, the Jews), He doesn't care how much or little they sinned, he offers mercy freely to them both.

The mission of God

The story of Jonah is one episode in the grand story of God's mission to save sinners.

The story of Jonah is astounding in it's picture of the lengths of which God will go to accomplish his mission.

He uses people - willing or not, he uses people's obedience and disobedience, he changes the weather, commands sea life, he works behind the scene over thousands of miles and chases down people who want nothing to do with him and even those who are actively running from him.

God will do whatever he can to reach you - even giving the life of his Son.

The Lost

(as pictured by the people of Nineveh)

 The expanse of sin

The city of Nineveh:

- capital of Assyria.

- Nineveh was seen as the center of the arch enemies of Israel and Judah.

The Assyrians were idol-worshipping pagans who were known to be very violent and harsh.

They were a military nation bent on conquering vast portions of the Ancient Near East.

The Assyrians preferred to win their battles with psychological warfare.

They believed that was safer than a battle in an open field and faster than sieging a city for months.

But in order to intimidate their enemies, the Assyrians needed to be especially cruel and vicious to those they did conquer in order to set an example.

This meant they were known for torture, rape, mutilation, skinning people alive, etc.

You don't get much more distant from God and his ways than that.

The extent of the gospel

There is no sin the gospel cannot cover, and there is no sinner the gospel cannot reach.

Whether a terrorist targeting the innocent, a gunman taking aim at concertgoers, a parent horrifically abusing a child, the gospel can save - the story of Jonah shows us this.