Minor Prophets Major Message: Fear Series

Minor Prophets Major Message: Fear

Jonah 1:1-2:10

#minorprophets

INTRODUCTION… Jesus on Jonah

READ MATTHEW 12:38-41 (ESV)

“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

This passage happened during the life of Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus references someone who lived about 800 years before Him. The religious leaders are asking for a miraculous sign and Jesus references historical Jonah in His answer… which tells us that whatever happened to the prophet Jonah must have been real, miraculous, and significant.

This morning we are continuing our journey in the last twelve books of the Old Testament which I have called “Minor Prophets Major Message.” I want to focus each week on one of these specific prophets and the message that he brought to the people of God because those messages are also important for us. Today we focus on the prophet Jonah.

TRANSITION

We begin by looking at one of the central emotions in Jonah specifically in Jonah chapter 2. One of the focuses in Jonah chapter 2 is fear.

ILLUSTRATION… Bats in the Belfry (p)

I don’t know if you have ever come face to face with a bat, but it is not a happy situation. When God dreamt up the bat, He came up with one of the creepiest non-insect animals on the planet. One day, while living in Pennsylvania, I heard my secretary scream from the hallway outside my office. Right after the scream I see her shoot quickly past the window in my office door and run into the front office and shut the door.

She proceeded to tell me that there was a bat in the church and I was the one who had to go investigate. I am pretty sure that question words like “there’s a what… where… you want me to what… with what… how” came out of my mouth as she explained what she saw and where. As I crept down the hallway, I did not see anything flying around. I saw no movement. I saw no vicious blood-sucking animals hanging from the ceiling. I imagined myself walking down the hallway and being accosted by this flying animal of death, but that didn’t happen. I did, however, turn around to find a bat clinging to the wall. I remember it being quite large, but I am sure that it wasn’t… the bat grows in size in my nightmares and when I tell this story. Once I saw the bat, I must be honest, I might have been a little fearful. I might have begun to sweat a little and maybe peed my pants a little. No… that’s not true, but I did have a twinge of fear.

It just so happened that the custodian was on vacation who normally dealt with bats and it fell to me to remove the bat. I had plenty of excuses: Maybe it will just fly out of the building. Maybe we could wait until someone else comes. Maybe it is no big deal and this bat doesn’t have rabies. Maybe real men love bats. Maybe bats are like tigers… if you leave them alone they leave you alone. Maybe it was a bat that took after most people and only entered a church every so often and wouldn’t be there on Sunday. I had all kinds of excuses in my mind as to why I didn’t have to do anything about this bat.

I do remember going back to the main office with my heart pounding a little faster. I recall asking her if I understood her correctly that I (emphasis on “me”) was the one who had to do something with the bat. I asked her what the custodian normally did. She explained to me, as she escorted me to and from his office in a hurried step, that he had invented a stick with a nail in it and he would stick the bats in the back of the head and then throw them out. That is what she expected me to do!

So, I stood there… heart racing… javelin in hand… ready to stick the bat in the back of the head and I realized that I just flat didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be near the bat. I didn’t want to kill the bat. I didn’t want to hear the bat. I didn’t want to touch the bat or bag it up or hear it die or anything. The twinge of fear had been replaced by full-blown “petrification of my innards.”