Sermons
Dreading to Proclaim Grace
Series: Man Overboard: Jonah In JeopardyDREADING TO PROCLAIM GRACE
Pt#1 / Man Overboard: Jonah In Jeopardy
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / January 10, 2016
This morning I want to begin a new sermon series on the book of Jonah.
I am going to work from the assumption that most of you will take time to read this Old Testament book.
It is brief - - just four short chapters (17 vs + 10 vs + 10 vs + 11 / a total of 48 verses).
Surely all of us can make time to read this short story.
It is relatively simple to read - - of all of the OT prophets it might be the easiest to comprehend.
Unlike many of the prophetic books in the Old Testament it is not couched in language that’s hard to understand.
It is a short story loaded with suspense and intrigue … full of drama and unexpected twists and turns …
it even comes with some “special effects” (stormy seas & sea monsters, a plant on steroids & a really hungry worm).
It’s kind of a blend of “The Perfect Storm”, “Jaws” and “The Little Shop Of Horrors”.
As a child I grew up reading the historical fiction series titled, We Were There.
This “Grosset & Dunlap” collection consists of thirty-six titles published between 1955 and 1963.
I have almost a dozen of these in my private collection (they are hard to come by and I’m always on the hunt).
We Were There At The Boston Tea Party … We Were There At The Battle Of Lexington And Concord …
We Were There At Pearl Harbor … We Were There At The Battle Of The Bulge
The series was not just about war.
We Were There With The Pony Express … We Were There On The Oregon Trail …
We Were There With The Mayflower Pilgrims … With Lewis And Clark …First Airplane Ride
I found and bought two additional titles while on vacation recently at a used book store in Bryson City, NC.
Landmark Books published a similar series about the same time. I have about two-dozen of them.
The We Were There series is not really “fiction” in the purest sense - - each book is based on historical events.
The story of Jonah reads like it could be a part of the “We Were There” series.
It is an exciting and colorful story but its not historical FICTION, it is genuine Biblical HISTORY.
Matthew’s gospel (Mt.12:39f) and Luke’s gospel (Lk.11:29f) record Jesus’ stamp of authenticity regarding Jonah.
Jack Lewis in his book, The Minor Prophets (pg.39) makes these observations:
Jonah is the only minor prophet in whose career the miraculous plays a prominent role,
the only one whose major activity is on foreign soil, and the only one who preaches exclusively to a foreign people.
Jonah is the only Old Testament character represented as taking a trip on the Mediterranean.
Jonah is also the only minor prophet mentioned by Jesus and is the only Old Testament character likened by the Lord to Himself.
Among Jewish communities, yet today, the book of Jonah is read annually on Yom Kippur, The Day Of Atonement.
Open your Bible to Jonah chapter 1 - - as we read together from Jonah 1:1-3.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,
‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.’
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which
was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
For this morning’s sermon, we will plan to camp out (briefly/20 minutes?) on these first three verses.
I want to urge you to try your very best to be in attendance for every lesson in this series.
While each lesson in this sermon series will hopefully be helpful standing alone,
a much greater impact will be had if we hear each and every sermon in the entire series.
Here again, I am entrusting you to read this short book and become familiar with its contents.
The story of Jonah is best understood - - not in the fine details, but when we see THE BIG PICTURE.
The book of Jonah is not just a biographical sketch about Jonah the prophet.
While we have titled this series, Man Overboard: Jonah In Jeopardy, it is not just about Jonah.
At the heart of the story of Jonah is this matter of the GRACE OF GOD.
In our message this morning, we want to focus on three important questions.
WHO WAS JONAH?
Vs.1 notes that Jonah was the “son of Amittai”.
This brief reference lays down a historical marker that allows us to place Jonah in the period in and around 780BC.
Most likely, Jonah lived in the days when Jeroboam II governed the northern kingdom.
2Kgs.14:23-27 provides a snapshot of the historical time in when Jonah lived.
Jonah was a servant of God and a prophet (seer) of God.
His immediate predecessors in the prophetic ministry were Elijah and Elisha. Jonah appears on the scene as a member of what was referred to as “the sons of the prophets”. cf. 2Kgs.2:3, 5, 7 & 15; 4:1 & 38; 5:22 and 6:1
He was very likely an early contemporary with Amos and Hosea.
The prophecies of Amos and Hosea reveal the conditions in Israel in that general time period.
2Kgs.14:25 notes that the word of the Lord was spoken through His servant Jonah the prophet.
Jonah was a prophet of Galilee, a native of Gath-hepher -- located 4 miles NE of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up.
WHAT WERE GOD’S DIRECTIONS TO JONAH?
Vs.2 states that Jonah is told by God,
Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.
Nineveh was an ancient city which came to its heyday under Sennacherib in a period following Jonah’s lifetime.
It was the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire.
Historians tell of a city in the shape of a trapezium, which was the largest city in the world in that day.
Jonah 3:2 speaks of it, a second time (1:2) as “the great city”.
3:3 states, “Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.”
4:11 notes that the great city was home to 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left.
One scholar reckons this to be a reference to young children and estimates an overall population of 600,000+.
It was later destroyed and its ruins are marked by two mounds in Iraq just across the Tigris river from Mosul.
It was located approximately 250 miles north and slightly west of Babylon (modern-day Baghdad).
It was about 500 miles east of Palestine (as the crow flies) and about 700+ by land travel routes.
The primary reason Jonah was sent on such an extraordinary mission - - Nineveh was wicked (Jonah 1:2b)!
This leads us to our third question.
HOW DID JONAH INITIALLY RESPOND?
Perhaps the hardest thing to grasp about the story of Jonah is Jonah’s initial (and eventual) response.
Is he not a prophet of God? Is he not driven and motivated to simply speak God’s will as God directs?
Is he not charged with speaking the truth in love, even in the face of difficult assignments?
I’m convinced that the answers to these questions are, “Yes!” … “Yes!” … and “Yes!”
BUT, in the mind of Jonah (a human prophet) this assignment defies all logic.
It’s not the distance (500 miles). It’s not just that Nineveh is a great big city. It’s not even that Nineveh is wicked.
It’s that Nineveh is WICKED (with a capital “W” - - in all caps, bold-faced and underscored with seven !!!!!!!).
The Assyrians were the lords of the massacres. Assyrian kings “bragged in stone” (carvings) about their atrocities.
They were Terrorists in every sense of the word. They were noted for their powerful bows and battering rams.
And they were notorious for their brutality. They butchered their enemies and mutilated their prisoners.
Some were stabbed to death and beheaded - - pyramids were made of human skulls.
Many captives were made a public spectacle - - skinned alive, run thru with stakes, impaled on poles.
These humans spoils of war were dragged back to Nineveh barefoot and malnourished with fish hooks in their lips.
Hands were cut off … tongues chopped off … eyes gouged out - - they were the very epitome of brutality.
Cf. F.W. Farrar as quoted in The Minor Prophets by Homer Hailey, p.251)
A Unknown to Jonah, Nahum would later reveal God’s judgment against Nineveh (614BC) - - cf. Nah.2:13 & 3:1-3 & 19
Vs.3 tells us that (perhaps for the first time in his life) Jonah runs from God!
In a premeditated plan, he “flees” to Joppa (by the Great Sea) and attempts to run as far away as possible.
He heads for Tarshish - - some 2,000 miles away in Spain.
We can speculate all day about as to what drove Jonah to think he could run away from Jehovah God.
But the point is clear, he wants no part of this assignment. Why is this?
Perhaps the key to understanding Jonah’s dilemma is found in the opening verses of chapter four.
But first, note 3:3-4, Jonah arose, went to Nineveh…and cried out: yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
And sure enough, Jonah 3:10 records that Nineveh repented and God relented, at least for the time being.
Read from Jonah 4:1-2.
Jonah knew the heart of God well enough that he dreaded to proclaim God’s grace, knowing that it was real.
“I knew it!” “I knew that if I preached and they responded that You (God) would actually extend them grace.”
This story could not be more timely for us as a nation.
I shuddered to think of my response if God were to tell me to go to Syria and preach to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi & ISIS.
Reading the story of Jonah is very much like looking at ourselves in a mirror.
We might not especially like what we see, but if we look objectively we know that what we’re seeing is really US.
The really sad aspect of this is that it doesn’t take a Nineveh to make us run from our assignment to share Christ.
Sometimes all it takes is the color of someone’s skin, or a religion that is different from our own, or their upbringing and their strange (to us) customs. Or it might just be a neighbor, workmate or relative who turns us off and silences any talk of grace.
How often we see ourselves in Jesus’ parable of the laborers (Mt.20:1ff):
“Is you eye envious because I am gracious/generous?” (vs.15).
The Jews could not tolerate the notion that God could reward the Johnny-come-lately Gentiles just as He did them.
But it’s is not just the Jews of the first century who have trouble accepting the grace of God for others who seem undeserving.
This is a problem of human-kind. We Christians have also become wrapped up (as is our culture) with a sense of entitlement.
