Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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Hide and Seek
We invented this game in my house.
We call it: hide and seek.
I am the worst at the game.
Not because I am bad at hiding.
When we play at youth group I do pretty well.
Because in our house, we have this cheater.
Vin.
No matter where I go, no matter where I hide, she gives me away.
She follows me, sniffs me out, checks in between where I am and where the seeker is.
Even if I put her outside first, the cheater kids know, and they let her in to go find me.
There’s no use running away from Vin.
Any guesses who our next prophet is?
Jonah!
Jonah
Love this movie, well worth a rewatch, or a first watch if you haven’t seen it.
Who’s up for church movie afternoon!
A few decades after Elisha, maybe 50 years, a few sinful kings who were worse than those before… the prophet Jonah arrives on the scene.
Jonah was kind of a big deal!
He prophesied the restoration of Israel’s borders… and now it was happening.
Wealth and prosperity and the Kingdom is growing!
Ninevah, built by the “great hunter” Nimrod mentioned in Genesis.
It would later become the capital city of Assyria but was already a major city.
Beyond the Biblical text, archaeology confirms the “wickedness” of the Assyrians.
Ashurbanipal was famous for tearing off the lips and hands of his victims.
Tiglath-Pileser flayed victims alive and made great piles of their skulls.
This is “Murder City” of the ancient world.
God takes sin seriously, even the sin of people who don’t acknowledge his name… or even maybe know his name.
He is King of all the earth, and this city “stinks to high heaven” (as one paraphrase puts it).
“The word of the Lord” spoke, as it says 7 times here in the book of Jonah.
Jonah knows where he’s supposed to go and why.
So… Assyria is to the East and North.
Jonah tries to run to the “opposite ends of the earth” from his perspective.
Pretty much the bottom end of Spain, and 10 times further West than he has been asked to go East.
You want me to go to 700 miles East.
Like from here to Chicago.
I’ll go 3000 miles West.
That’s from here to Hawaii.
3000 miles West.
And it’s a Mediterranean Cruise.
Nice!
And every bit as expensive as that might imply.
And he is “fleeing from the presence of the LORD.”
Ummm… dumb.
This guy’s a prophet of YHWH, right?
He should know better.
And I think he does know better at some level… that part just isn’t in charge.
He tries to flee from the presence of the Lord.
That’s worse than trying to hide from my dog.
And… God’s not too happy about it.
This wasn’t a volunteer mission.
This was “the word of the LORD” said and now you, Jonah, go.
“Arise and go” which means “go right now!”
What happens when the Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of the storm wants to show you that you are heading in the wrong direction?
Jonah’s just been keeping quiet.
He had to know!
But the dice called him out.
Jonah knew he done messed up.
He has some level of honesty and responsibility here.
This is my fault.
I’m the dummy trying to flee from the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being.
If God wants my life, my life is his.
Or… more cynical, maybe Jonah would rather die than go to Nineveh.
Either way: “Toss me over.”
That would be it for me.
“Okay, bye!”
They try harder first.
And Jonah just about drowned.
Oh… but also:
(More about the fish next week.
But… gross.
And… ouch.
And… really?
And… gross)
Running Away from God
Jonah knows where he is supposed to go and why, and he runs the other way.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't go well.
Running away from an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being is the definition of foolishness... and yet everyone of us has been on a ship to Tarshish.
You can’t run from God, can you?
Answer: You can’t run from God.
And yet we try, don’t we?
Where is Tarshish?
How are you running away from God?
When we don’t like what God is saying, we run away.
Maybe literally, physically, on a boat.
But at least mentally.
Emotionally.
Like a kid trying to hide behind a curtain.
Maybe if I pretend I can’t see God than God won’t see me.
Distraction/Escapism
It can be as “innocent” as escapism.
I’ll read a book, watch tv., pursue work or hobbies so hard that I can busy myself and make “life” loud enough that I drown out the voice of God.
That’s a strategy that most of our world seems to be pursuing as hard as it can.
Sleeping, like Jonah in the boat.
Satan will help that if he can, the demonic lullaby, keep the Christians asleep on the boat heading the wrong way.
Welcome to Nineveh.
Sin
We can run away into sin.
God can’t see me so I’ll do what I want… or at least pretend that He doesn’t care.
Or maybe pretend that He doesn’t exist just long enough that I can do what I want.
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