Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Through the various events of the last 18 months, we have come face-to-face with the reality of God’s sovereignty in a way that we never have before.

Who would think that in all our bigness and technology that we pride ourselves with, that a small microscopic virus could shut down the world!

Much of the time when we talk about God’s sovereignty, people become nervous and don’t like to discuss the subject because it seems to create a flurry of unanswered questions.

Such as, is God sovereign over pandemics, death, evil, politics, abortions, and the Taliban?

Is He sovereign over Christian’s being martyred, earthquakes, and tsunamis?

If we do talk about God’s sovereignty, we limit our discussion to those events that bring personal benefit and welfare, like how God brought us to meet our wives, or put us in the right place at the right time to purchase our home or land our job.

But the truth of the matter, according to scripture, is that God is truly, and absolutely sovereign over everything and everybody, past, present, and future without exception.

Our series for the next four weeks will be viewing God’s sovereignty from the perspective of the life of the prophet Jonah.

Jonah was a man very much like us, when things were going well, he was praising the Lord, but when life didn’t go his way, or when he was asked to do something he didn’t want to do, he ran away and wanted to die and became angry as if he thought that life somehow revolved around him and his dreams.

We will split this series up into the following sermon titles:

The Prodigal Prophet (Chap. 1)

The Praying Prophet (Chap.

2)

The Preaching Prophet (Chap 3)

The Pouting Prophet (Chap 4)

My hope and prayer is that by the end of the series, we will have a greater understanding of how God’s sovereignty affects every area of our lives, and that as a result, we would be filled with hope in and praise for our incomprehensible God and His perfect unchangeable plan!

Text: Jonah 1

Main Idea: God has the sovereign right to command, and we have the responsibility to obey.

Background:

Unlike most all the other prophetic books, the book of Jonah is more concerned about the prophet rather the the prophet’s message.

Jonah takes place during the reign of Jeroboam II, King over the 10 northern tribes of Israel, while Uzziah was King over the 2 tribes of Israel in the south.

Jeroboam II was one of the strong military leaders of Israel’s history.

According to 2 Kin.

14:25–28, he imposed his authority on the territories of Damascus and Hamath, thereby restoring Israel’s northern frontier to where it had been in the days of Solomon (1 Kin.

8:65).

It is clear that Jeroboam’s reign, together with that of his Judean contemporary Uzziah, ushered in a period of remarkable peace and prosperity.

As both Elisha and Jonah had prophesied (2 Kin.

13:19–25; 14:25), the northern kingdom enjoyed territorial expansion at the expense of Syria.

By the outward appearances of population growth, territorial expansion, and commercial activity, Israel was indeed blessed by God.

As a result, Jonah, along with many of his countrymen, had responded with a national pride and ethnic bias that blinded him to the grand scope of God’s grace.

Jonah was to learn, along with the nation, that Israel did not have a monopoly on the redemptive love of God (Acts 10:34, 35; Rom.

3:29).

The story affirms the words of Ps. 145:8: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

In the New Testament, Jonah’s theme of God’s mercy on the nations is used by Jesus as a rebuke to unrepentant Israel (Matt.

12:38–41; Luke 11:29–32).

If the Ninevites repented at the preaching of the prophet Jonah, who was rescued from confinement in the huge fish, how much more should Israel repent at the preaching of Jesus, the Son of Man, who will be resurrected from the tomb.

In a sense, then, Jesus magnifies God’s mercy on the Gentiles in order to rouse Israel to envy and repentance; the apostle Paul would do the same by his preaching to the Gentiles (Rom.

11:11–14).

1. God’s Sovereignty Commissions Jonah (1:1-2)

a. How: By the Word of the Lord

Lit: the word of Yahweh, which is the most holy name for God…the covenant keeping, protector of Israel, who commissioned with the same word, Moses at the burning bush.

With some variations, wording like this is used some 112 times in the Old Testament to describe the giving of a divine message to a prophet.

Like Moses, Jonah was given a commission directly from Yahweh, and therefore was called to unquestioningly follow His command.

Jonah the son of Amittai - This designation identifies Jonah as the historical character we read about in 2 Kings 14:25 (in reference to Jeroboam II), “25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.”

Being commissioned by God is no small thing!

Note that God has always seen fit to commission his weak, faithless people to carry out His commands, for we read in the Gospel of Matthew, these words from Jesus:

b.

What: To Call Out Against Nineveh

The wording of this phrase (call out - imperative mood indicates a possibility, not a reality) indicated to Jonah that this pronouncement of the Lord’s judgment on the feared and hated Assyrian Empire was reversible, and offered an opportunity for repentance.

Note the difference in the wording of Nahum’s pronouncement of judgment on Nineveh just 100 years later:

Which reminds us that though the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, there will be a day of reckoning.

Paul speaks to this in his letter to the Corinthians (cited from Isaiah 49:8):

c.

Why: Because Their Evil Has Come Before God

A statement of the omniscience of God.

God sees, hears, and knows all:

2. God’s Sovereignty Oversees Jonah’s Flight (1:3)

a.

When He Flees From the Presence of the Lord

Jonah, a prophet of God, somehow thinks he can flee from the presence of God (2x in v. 3).

We don’t know at this point why Jonah attempts to flee from the Lord and not obey His word.

However, in 4:1-3, we have a hint.

b.

When His Plan Works Out In His Favor

Note that Jonah’s plan to go to Tarshish was not prevented by God, in fact, Jonah was actually able to find a ship going there.

BTW, Tarshish location was difficult to pinpoint…some scholars think it was in the southern part of Spain.

Other scholars think the term designates distant Mediterranean coastlands in general (on the other side of the Mediterranean sea).

3. God’s Sovereignty Pursues Jonah (1:4-16)

a.

By Calling On His Creation To Chastise Him (4)

the Lord hurled - note the obedience of God’s creation to His directives.

Unlike human beings, the height of God’s creation, all creation obeys His commands!

hurled - the subject of the verb (God) in the hifʿîl stem causes the object of the verb (wind) to participate in the action of the verb as a sort of ‘undersubject’ or ‘secondary subject’

b.

By Using the Unregenerate To Rebuke Him (6)

God’s discipline on your sin, my sin, will always affect those associated with you.

These experienced mariners were frightened, even understanding that aa god was responsible for this travesty.

Though each person will experience God’s discipline and judgment for their own sin and not others, this verse informs us the the affects of God’s discipline and judgment will be felt by those around the sinner.

c.

By Controlling the Lots to Indict Him (7-10)

There is no “chance” with God.

All things are controlled by Him, even down to the smallest lot or dice.

d.

By Receiving Worship From the Gentile Pagans (14-16)

Here we see that the unlearned, pagan mariners recognized God’s power and glory as God revealed it to them.

As a result, they worship Him!

Oh that God would wake us, who are His people from our lethargy and Spiritual stupor and see Him in all His glory, even when things are going well!

4. God’s Sovereignty Preserves Jonah (1:17)

a.

In Appointing A Great Fish To Swallow Him

the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow - In Biblical Hebrew, ‘stem’ refers to the relationship of the verb’s subject to the action of the verb.

That is, stems convey grammatical ‘voice’ relationships.

The piʿʿēl stem expresses the bringing about of a state.

The object of the piʿʿēl verb’s action “suffers the effect” of the action; i.e., it is put into a state by the action.

In the sentence “the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow” the direct object [fish] is put into the state of swallowing by the subject of the verb [LORD].

All creation is at God’s command...

God commanded the Ravens to feed Elijah.

Note that God not only commands His creation, but the creation He commands has been prepared by God for the task He appointed for them.

b.

In Keeping Him Alive In the Great Fish

God’s sovereignty has made the laws, and He can change their outcome at any time He chooses.

In Jonah’s case, God keeps Jonah alive, changing the normal digestion process of food into a place of preservation.

We’ve seen this before: