Sermon Tone Analysis

Call To Worship Scripture:

Sermon Scripture:

HEAR The WORD of GOD - This Is God

In this world,

There are those who sit embittered, arrogant, confused, or passive towards God.

There are those who are dependent, hopeful and striving to rest in God.

There is at times a complex and even strenuous relationship between the two.

There are those who mock and put on a irritated disposition towards all who would dare bring up the topic of God to them.

There are those who sit in judgment and write off those who have rejected God or chosen a life of bold sin.

There are those who simply don’t want to talk about it.

They just want to get along, let each do their own thing.

If one needs God - then that is good.

If one doesn’t - then good for them.

They don’t hold anything against God and just ask that God not be held over them.

There are those, who truly believe, who belong to God and desire only to be obedient to God.

Go where He says go, say what He says to say and by obediently loving God, they love even those who would and do reject them and God by preaching the wrath and love of God.

The question when studying prophesy is not one of, defining God.

God is self defined and is unchanging in who He is.

The question, “who is God” is not “who do I see God as?”

No matter who you see God as, it does not change who God is, but it does answer, who you are.

You see, the hardest thing about discussing God is that it forces us to take an honest look at ourselves.

What are we really accepting or rejecting?

Are you self reliant or God dependent.

The answer to that says more about you than we would often care to admit.

I come to you desiring to one simply seeking obedience to God, speaking what He says to speak, to those who He says to speak it, and therefore display sincere love to you that you might have every opportunity to escape the wrath of God and abide in the love of God.

As we read the Minor prophets we see all of the before discussed types of people represented.

There are God’s faithful, those who claim to be God’s but do not obey Him, those who reject God, and those who thought they are wicked, in hearing God’s message they turn to Him and are forgiven.

These minor Prophets will highlight that the coming “Day of the Lord” is certain, that the Word of God abides forever and that God desires your salvation and not your destruction.

However, in hearing of God, we learn of ourselves and wether we will soften our hearts to His love or harden our hearts and face His wrath.

In learning of ourselves we learn what the unchanging God can change through the power of His love and must change within us if we are to be saved.

The battle within all of us is between the spirit of pride and the spirit of the repentant.

The Prideful:

Have their own kingdom, their own standard, their own establishment.

They build their house upon the shifting sands of how they view things, what they determine to be right and wrong.

They live in the chains and blindness of their own depravity.

Pride is unrelenting in it’s grip upon them.

To bow to the creator who created them would destroy the standards that they themselves have created.

So they live as rejecting of the creator.

The Repentant:

Turn to He who created them and observe His ways, learn from His decree and serve Him in sincerity and love.

This message lines every page of scripture.

The Day is Coming when Jesus will be seen by all as King.

Every ruler, tribe and nation will bow to Him.

But on that day, where do you stand?

Well, today, where do you stand.

To the Christian I want you to hear this encouragement:

Obadiah.

848 and 840 B.C.

Israel has been devastated by foreign posers.

Edom though related to Israel through Esau had participated and gloated over Israel’s devestation.

Though Edom feels secure, this practice of arrogance will bring upon them the judgment of God.

When we operate by pride and self security, we walk blinded as to our true circumstance.

Theme: PRIDE OF SELF SECURITY

Obadiah 1:3-4

In 21 verses Obadiah packs a punch to the proud and a victorious song to those whose help is the Lord.

Saviors - or, “those who have been delivered”.

The Day of the Lord is coming, and God will overcome in our behalf.

We must stay true to Him.

Unlike Edom, we must not be self righteous, but abide in Christ and be willing to help others in times of need.

Our heart in this present day should be to be a part of God’s salvation and not His wrath.

That day is coming, but today is the day of salvation.

Pride is sin.

We have nothing to be proud of except Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.

Thus we, in our humble postion preach Jesus crucified and resurected and in that we preach life.

We preach Jesus, the Messiah, the King of kings who is coming again to establish His throne.

We preach this so that all, no matter how great, how deep their wickedness may be, in Jesus the can turn from their sin, be liberated and have life and forgivness in Him.

Jonah.

793 and 758 B.C.

Israels traditional boarders have been restored to Israel and Jonah is now called to give a warning proclamation to Nineveh.

His pride however caused him to run from God. Jonah did not wish repentance upon such a wicked people but destruction.

This is a self-righteous pride that one would plead for the mercy of God themselves but then turn and desire wrath over mercy upon another should they repent.

PRIDE OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

Indeed after 3 days in the stomach of the fish Jonah went and proclaimed what God had spoken and Ninevah repented.

Pride & wickedness are two things that we often see and point out in others, but don’t much care to admit or have them pointed out in us.

However, to preach the Gospel faithfully these things must be pointed out.

Did you know that confessing Christ as Savior is an admission of our own pride and wickedness.

Did you know that when we go to a people in love to preach salvation we are not called to hide pride and wickedness but to expose it.

It must be exposed if the light of God is going to be truly preached.

Listen to what God told Jonah to go and say to Ninevah:

Jonah 1:

In the book of Jonah we have pride and wickedness displayed in Jonah as well as in Ninevah.

The pride of Jonah wasnt that he was willing to go and speak of Ninevah’s evil, but rather that he would not do it, because he feared that they would repent and that God would forgive.

Though Jonah saw himself and his people as worthy of God’s forgivness, he did not give that same right to Ninevah.

As a church we don’t point out wickedness in order to condemn another but rather to save from the condemnation that the wickedness has already brought.

We don’t look upon a lifestyle, upon one’s sinful choices and in hate keep the gospel from them and wish death upon them.

No, rather, we put aside pride and position, that we might speak the truth in love.

The truth is that the evil of this world goes up before God and the wrath of God will come.

The truth is that today is the day of salvation.

When Ninevah heard this, they believed and repented.

They cried out in sackloth and ashes, they fasted and sought God’s forgivness and God forgave them.

However, in Jesus day their was another display of self-righteous pride.

It had not to do with who deservered forgivness, but who needed it.

Friends, before you this morning I tell you of one that is greater than Jonah.

It is Christ the Lord.

Friends, before you this morning I tell you of one that is greater than Jonah.

It is Christ the Lord.

Micah.

735 and 700 B.C.

Israel is in a apostate condition.

Micah stress that God hates idolatry, injustice, rebellion and empty ritualism, though He delights in pardoning the repentant.