Jonah - The Back Story

You know, I’m not sure about my colleagues out here… but for some pastors, like me… a lot of times when we come up here to deliver a message, sometimes this can be kind of like free therapy for us. We can come up here and speak our minds and talk about some issues and troubles that we might be having, in the hopes that maybe you’re sharing similar issues… and possibly take some solace in that fact and find some comfort and direction.

So, with that being said, the issues at work continue and have gotten a little bit worse.

• Last week – Levac walked off post in DeSoto / Worked a Double Shift

• The same day, Dark Post in Rockwall

• I got home after midnight

• Next Day – Rockwall Sup NCNS – 13 hours

• Saturday morning swim

• Tried to get a nap – 5pm call – 7pm call

• Sunday 6am – church – 10am CO

• 2pm to 6pm – finally fitful sleep

Now as I mentioned before… these are not complaints, this is a praise report!! I’m viewing the issues that I’m going through as growing pains, because God has something bigger and better in store for me. And I know that every trial and tribulation in my life, God has a greater meaning behind it. Although I do accept the fact, that some of these issues that I’m having, might be Satan trying to bring me down.

I received a phone call from Pastor this last week, and he knows how busy I’ve been and how I’ve been kind of struggling… and he reached out to me and asked if I was ready for this morning, to which I replied, “Nope… haven’t even written a single word… not even the title”. Pastor reassured me that he’d have a message ready to go as back up, just in case I wasn’t ready to deliver the message today.

Pastor went on to say that he understood how crazy things have been for me at work and he offered to let me take a break from preaching for a while… at least until things at work settled down. I was actually driving home from a particularly hectic day, and I considered his offer briefly… then I told him “No, I don’t want to do that… I’m not going to let Satan win”.

I’ve said many times before… if Satan wants to pick a fight with me, he’s in for a world of hurt. Now, I don’t know exactly why work has been so crazy lately… maybe it’s God’s blessing in disguise… maybe Satan’s attacks… maybe a little of both, I’m not sure. But one thing that I am absolutely sure of, no matter what it is… it shouldn’t stop me from doing what I’ve been called to do. God does not call the equipped… He equips those that He calls. And the Bible is FULL of examples of that!!

The main example that comes to mind is Jonah… every kid in Children’s church has learned the story of Jonah and the whale… but how many of us as adults have actually delved into the specifics of that story?

In Jonah 1:2, God told Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” God sent Jonah… one singular man to Ninevah and straighten them out!! The fact that Jonah receives a Word from God isn’t unique. What is unique though, is the content of this Word from God… Where it sends him… and what is asked of him.

Nineveh doesn’t mean much to us these days, but it sure would have meant something to Jonah. Nineveh was a great city of 120,000 people. Which for its time, in 8th century B.C., was massive. This city had reached its size, because it was the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrians were known for their brutality… murdering and pillaging their way throughout the Middle East. They’d burn their enemies alive and decorate their walls and pyramids with their bodies —along with many other cruelties. So, Nineveh was basically the symbolic home of everything evil, hateful, and idolatrous. This is the equivalent of Azkaban in Harry Potter… or Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. Black smokestacks… and human sacrifices... It’s the last place that anybody would want to be sent to.

And to top it all off, Jonah’s people were some of their worst victims. The Assyrians ransacked both of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel… wiping out ten of the original twelve tribes. There’s a great Hebrew scholar and Bible translator by the name of Robert Alter… and he compares God sending Jonah to Nineveh… like sending a Jew to Nazi Germany, Berlin back in 1940, demanding repentance. It’s kind of an insane request... Nineveh was the last place anyone would want to go. And the Ninevites were the last people that any Jew would want to go to. It’s basically an impossible request.