12. The Assyrian Empire and Jonah

so we're working through the I'm calling this the Assyrian Empire we're not there yet but as serious as their call have basically divided Assyrian history up into various eras we looked at the first four of these at least to some degree last week and so just in the spirit of a little bit of review here to remind you of what we've talked about Assyria began begins really with just a city and the name of the city was Asher and Asher is in the north of Mesopotamia on the Tigris in the region that today would be part either of Iraq or possibly Iran but that's the general vicinity in which we would find it the ruins of that city as far as I know are still there and you can visit them but there's no major population there at this point so it begins as the story of a city the city is able to establish its independence after the fall of the third dynasty of or that took place around 2000 BC that story we went through last week we notice that the next era is called by Assyria lodgest early Assyria and this is that 200 years or so in which now we begin to see Assyria extending itself and becoming not simply a city but a region that was to some degree influencing and indeed in some cases dominating the regions that surrounded this and this would be the era that we refer to as the period of the judges and so you recall last week we were saying that the Assyrian the king of Assyria allied with supalen Lumis the king of the Hittites they were able to squeeze out the Mitanni this is all review so it should ring a bell in your mind if you were here last week and on the basis of that they were able to expand their domains to some degree into at least you might say the backyard of Israel but that didn't last for too long in Assyria kind of goes into a period of decline along with the rest of the ancient world in what's sometimes called a kind of Dark Age and so this is a pretty well attested aspect of ancient Near Eastern Studies that for a couple of hundred years you just don't hear much you don't hear much from the Assyrians you don't hear much from the Babylonians the entire ancient Mediterranean world seems to go dark at least to some degree with the notable exception of course of Israel and we were saying last week that at least appears to be an illustration of proverbs 17 6 when a man's ways please the Lord he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him and in some grand sense that seems to have been what was happening in the ancient world during this timeframe that brings us now to this period that's called the period of recovery which begins about 911 somebody asked last week of 911 do you think there's any correlation with that and 911 I don't think so but anyway about the year 911 we have this kind of reimagine snow of a Syria and this is the time frame that leads toward Empire we still haven't seen an Assyrian Empire yet that's the last of these eras but this is the period that's heading toward Empire it begins in the year 9-11 BC and there's several kings we've looked briefly at each one of them so I'll just remind you again the first one is edad nur re this is where the recovery begins this is when Israel now divides into two kingdoms you have Rio Boehm and judo you have Jeroboam in the north we talked about that last week then we have to quilting to Naruto who is the one who is distinguished mainly is rebuilding the walls of the capital of Assyria then you have astronaut Paul who is the one who really establishes a new paradigm for Assyrian conquest namely ferocious vicious brutal gratuitous violence they really just wanted to terrify their enemies into submission and they were pretty successful at it and the descriptions that we have of the particular tactics that they used really will be pretty convincing I think to any casual reader that people would just have a tendency to go weak in the knees you know it just simply allow these Assyrians to bully their way in and this is the guy that really distinguished himself as establishing that as in an almost in a new kind of Outlook altogether this sort of violent kind of methodology the guy that we left off with was shall manis are the third he is most famous from our point of view because he leaves us this a this really impressive artifact from the ancient world known as the black obelisk and the black obelisk is is is really well known and interest to us and people interested in the Old Testament because for the first time we have a pagan nation leaving an image of an Israelite key and so it really is very highly confirming of the basic narrative of the Old Testament because it fits so nicely with what's otherwise known from the Old Testament point of view and that Old Testament King of course was Jehu that we're going to be considering again just for briefly so shaman is the third that's where we left off I want to pick up the story there and press forward basically to the time of Jonah so you notice shall manisa rules until eight twenty four as I said earlier Jonah probably came to town about 780 so we're about fifty years prior to Jonah so I want to in some detail talk about what's going on here that leads us to the time of Jonah this is a image a statue of shaman Deezer that's found at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum he left quite a few of these pictures there's some at the British Museum as well I mentioned last week in 35 years he launched 31 campaigns that's a lot of war that's what he's doing and the effect of that was to greatly expand the Assyrian holdings now this doesn't become an empire yet but this darker green region is simply to say all of the places that are within that dark outline were paying tribute to Assyria to keep out of further trouble with them in other words they were willing to pay money to not have the Assyrians come to town and do horrible things to them it's not quite straight up rule yet but it's very close to it so we don't quite call this Empire but it certainly is heading in that direction and shaman ease or the third is the guy who was able to establish that much broader kind of region under which they were exercising that kind of trol there are two occasions when the Assyrians came specifically to Syria now I didn't clarify this last week and someone asked the question after class and I thought to myself I need to say this there are two words we're using here Assyria and Syria and they're not the same thing right Assyria is this Imperial presence in the ancient world that we're really focused on right now Syria is a small region a country north of Israel with which Israel had ongoing relationships over the years sometimes combative sometimes allied but Syria is a fairly small area just to the north of Israel Syria continues to exist to this day as you know the capital is Damascus and it still shows up in the news these days so Syria has continued to exist throughout history Assyria is gone there is no Asiri anymore it's been swallowed up largely by Iran and related countries and so I'll try to pronounce clearly and distinctly so you'll catch the difference between the two I know sometimes that can be a little bit confusing so my arrow here on the map is to say that the Assyrians came in and attacked Syria a Syrian annals indicate that and we also have corroborating evidence of that from the Old Testament itself that attack took place it's one of those 31 attacks in the year 853 that would be the same year by the way that a hab the king of Israel a wicked King married to Jezebel that's the same year he died but it wasn't in that conflict the other time that the Assyrians come and attack is in 841 so two times two of those 31 campaigns really come into the region that we're interested in into Palestine generally and especially there is an attack on Syria that second attack in 841 the king in Syria was a guy named hazy aller hot CL and he had just assassinated predecessor been hey dad both of these guys are mentioned prominently in the Old Testament they are both also mentioned in Assyrian records Ben hey dad was a Syrian King who had ongoing battles with a hab the king of Israel had Ciel assassinated him and took over and was immediately confronted by this attack from the Assyrians and basically the result of that was he wound up under siege in Damascus psalmanazar did not actually take Damascus but it did take control of the surrounding area Jehu the king who was at this time ruling in Israel decided the better part of valor at this point was simply to agree to pay the tribute which he did and that gave rise to this black obelisk that we looked at a little bit last week the last few years if shall moniece's rule were tied up in civil war back in Syria itself so he kind of goes dark the last few years as he's trying to do some damage control in his own region now what's happening during his reign what I would like to do as best we can is while we're thinking about these Assyrian Kings also ask what's going on with the people of God so we're going to keep our eye on two different balls here's we're proceeding and will notice the intersection of these two stories from time to time but during the reign of Shalmaneser we have a fairly complex series of events that take place in Israel and in Judah the divided Kingdom this is the only good chance the only good excuse I'll have to cover this so I'm seizing it right now so you may recall this from Sunday School lessons you had a hundred years ago maybe you went through some of this stuff but at least now we'll have a chance to try to put it into its context so in judah who's ruling Jehoshaphat I always thought that was a funny name when I was a kid Jehoshaphat I don't know anyway he's a good king gets a good positive review in the Old Testament with the one exception that he allows his international alliances to align a little bit too closely with the king who was ruling in Israel whose name is a habit and you know the story of a hab he's married to Jezebel Jezebel is a Phoenician woman princess she by the way is attested to outside of the Old Testament and she brings her pagan religion to Israel and really greatly influences a hab so Jezebel and Ahab get very negative reviews as you know in the Old Testament Jehoshaphat permits himself to become allied with Ahab through marriage in which the daughter of a habbit Jezebel a woman named FA Leah or at Alya you may pronounce it becomes married to Joseph at son Jehoram and that does create a little bit of an interesting story that unfolds here in Israel during those years a hab is killed in 853 as we indicated earlier in a battle that he has with vin hey dad so he dies this was predicted by Elijah the Prophet at the time because of his wickedness because of his manifest idolatry and so on he is going to be judged by God and he dies indeed in this battle it's that famous incident where it says an archer shot an arrow at random and of course it struck a had simply to say there are no random events you know and that arrow was aimed very precisely by a God of Providence even though the guy that shot the arrow didn't know what his target would turn out to be the successor to Ahab is his son a has a ax a has ayah this is a very odd story I think in itself was working on his back deck and fell through a lattice I think it was a pergola he was trying to put up there he just fell down and he injured himself pretty badly and so he actually dies of his injuries this is also just about the time that Elijah who had been the great prophet in Israel the first great prophet is taken up into heaven you know that whole story swing low Sweet Chariot well he's taken up in a fiery chariot that would be about the timeframe that this takes place during the reign of Ahaz ayah of course the successor to Elijah is Elijah and he will play into the story a little bit more as we go along and as I indicate right here all right back at the ranch in Judah we have Jehoram who is the son of Jehoshaphat he is married to a falaya the daughter of a habbit Jezebel and she is cut out of the same mold she is a vicious woman and is every bit as wicked I suppose you could say as was her mother Jezebel jehoram shows the influence of his wife by doing what was prohibited to Jewish kings but was commonly practiced in the ancient world otherwise and that is once he became the king he wipes out the entire family all his brothers anybody that might have been a threat to his claim to the throne so he wipes out his whole family it's a it's a wicked deed and the Old Testament condemns it even though it was commonly practiced in surrounding nations he is as a result of that attacked and there's a coalition of rulers that come against him including Edom the Philistines and the Arabs and a kind of united assault on Judah they sacked Jerusalem that seems to be the backdrop for the first two or what are called the minor prophets in the Old Testament as we go along I'm going to try to tuck into our story where the minor prophets fit sometimes it's hard to figure out just where they go and so I'm going to try to include them along the way for you who are jotting this down so Obadiah and Joel both seem to have been prophecies that were written against the backdrop of this attack against Judah during the reign of Jehovah I don't say it specifically it's more or less an opinion that's held by many scholars and I tend to agree at this point that they've got it right Obadiah is written directly against the it's a condemnation of them presumably because of their gratuitous attack on Judah Joel of course is well known for a couple of things he talks about a great attack of locusts which some people believe should be taken literally some believe it's a metaphorical risk of description of this attack by these Philistines and Arabs more importantly Joel is the one who was quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost when he's construing the meaning of speaking in tongues and he says that this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel you recall I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh your young men will dream dreams your old men will see visions etc that whole thing is from Joel so but both of them seem to show up about this time Jehoram himself died of horrific us disease that goes it's described somewhat graphically in the Old Testament but he dies in 841 8:41 is a critical year so we'll keep our eye on that date and what happens is that his son I guess I ax or a hazy it may be pronounced either way takes the throne you notice he only rules for one year so what happens here the successor to a has ayah who dies after he fell through the lattice is his son Joe Ram I'm sorry the names are similar I didn't write the you know Isis so you have an a has ayah in Judah and in a has ayah in Israel to make matters worse you've got a Jehoram in Judah and a Joe Ram I mean come on but anyway that's just the way it is I'm not going to argue with the Bible but those are the names that come up so we have a Isaiah in Judah and in Israel the North Samaria we have Joe Ram all right 8:41 recall that's the second attack by shall manizer Joe Ram orchestrates a united front to respond to that attack Heisey al who's the king of Syria a has ayah who's the king of Judah and Joe Ram themself they go to battle and they have at least some modest success holding off shall manizer first time out of the gates however joe ram is injured in that battle and so he goes back to his capital city which is called Jezreel in samaria the ten northern tribes to recover from his injuries while he's there he's visited by his ally the king of Judah a his eye shows up with flowers and candy you know how you feeling there brother they have a little visit everything's going fine until a guy comes galloping up with his army behind him whose name is Jay who Jay who is a commander of the armies of Israel he has been anointed by Elijah and told you need to go and wipe out the entire family everybody that's left of the family of a habit they were so wicked they left such a bad imprint on my people that I am authorizing you now Jay who commander of the armies of Israel go and kill Joe Ram and all the other descendants of Ahab so that's the authorization he received so that's where Jay who shows up he's not part of the royal family but he is a a commander so he comes and he attacks Jezreel at the very moment that these two guys are meeting and having high tea you know sitting there and all of a sudden and along comes Jay who and he kills Joe Ram which is what he was instructed to do but then he goes beyond the scope of his instructions and also kills a has ayah so Jay who comes and wipes out the king of both Judah and Israel and that's an eight forty one and it corresponds with the same time that Shama Nizar it attacked and it's sort of in response to that all right so Jay who takes the throne now he's wiped out the sons of Ahab seventy sons of Ahab he kills Jezebel that famous scene where she's thrown out from the window öand drops down to the street below and her carcass is eaten by dogs remember all that that is in the Old Testaments very ugly but anyway I think she deserved it and so anyway that's that's what Jay who does and so he's fulfilling all of God's requirements at that point but because he also killed the king of Judah which he was not authorized to do Elisha gives a judgment against Jay who that he will only have people on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation that is to say there will be three successors to Jay who himself which does in fact turn out to be the case now it is this Jay who who now in the in the against the immediate threat of shaman easer who's the obviously a much bigger threat decides that the smartest thing to do is to pay the tribute that's being required Knut gives rise to the black obelisk that is dated precisely to these events and so again that's it's a remarkable coincidence of ancient external history with biblical narrative that we have this and we talked about the black obelisk last week all right meantime in Judah a has aya has been killed by Jay who there's nobody right at the moment to take over a his aya was a young man he has three or four sons the youngest of those sons is only about six months old so what to do the wife of Jehoram mother of Ahaz aya the same a failure or atholea the daughter of Jezebel seizes the throne and there's an interregnum period at this point it's the only time in Jewish history when when Judah was ruled by a female and she for about six years is there she's not a legitimate ruler but she and she doesn't take over in the spirit of okay I'll just kind of manage the shot until the legitimate heir to the throne is old enough now she wipes everybody out you see she kills her own grandchildren she wants the throne she wants power she's the daughter of Jezebel cut out of the same mold the only one who escapes this purge is that little six-month-old baby and he has just spirited secretly and hidden away under the care of the high priest at the time his name is Jahoda and so for about six years she's running the shop there in Judah and joash secretly is being protected under the care of the high priest for a few years well in 935 there's a coup a faith Alya is executed at that point and that brings then joash is about an eight-year-old boy to the throne and he becomes the next ruler he is the true seed of David and through the protection of the high priest he is able to survive this ugly time in Jewish in the history of Judah he's a very good King at the beginning however when the high priest who had protected him and cared for him jehoiada dies about twenty years later or so joash begins to go sideways and so even though he starts very well as long as he has the influence of jehoiada he remains faithful to his you know standards and called it then toward the end he begins to deteriorate he does several things which are bad policy one of which is he bribes the king of Syria not to attack him for this and a lot of other things he is eventually himself assassinated and so in 796 joash goes under and that's the end of the events that happen in among the people of God during the reign of shall manie's of the third alright so now the next King the next assyrian king is sham shiite a tad the fifth he rules down till 8:11 he leaves some nice pictures of himself as well they all look alike to me as i've mentioned but they're young this is a steely of shame Shia dad at the British Museum he had to settle the Civil War I mention that earlier in Assyria takes him two or three years to do that as is often the case when the central power is in a kind of upheaval there's rebellions everywhere and this guy comes out vicious on stare once he's got his Civil War under control and so he just ups the ante and things get even worse more violence more bloodshed more hostility more outrage around the Mediterranean world under this guy's rule in Judah joash continues to rule all through this period in Israel Jehu continues to rule until he dies in 814 he's followed by his son Jehovah has rules for a few years there 8:14 to 789 he is not described very in much detail in the Old Testament the main thing we hear about him as he's in constant wars with the king of Syria so that's about as much as we can say about him the next king in in Syria is a tanner re the third he rolls down to 8 to 783 remember Jonah is 780 ok so he rolls down to 783 he goes even further he gets as close as anybody has to date to true Empire he imposes heavy tribute on Syria on Anatolia the region of Turkey their Phoenicians Philistines Israelites the medo-persians and many others the entire world now is pretty much paying under duress tribute to this guy and this is the point where it appears that Assyria is gaining this momentum to become absolutely dominant of the entire Mediterranean world they're already dominating for sure but they're kind of on a trajectory that would suggest that they'll become just an imperial power within a very few years what's happening in Judah joash is continuing to rule in Israel Jehovah has daizen 8 & 789 a Messiah comes to the throne in Judah 796 Jehoash in 789 Amaziah defeats in a war this is a local skirmish but he's successful he loses a war to the Israelite King Jehoiachin extort I'm to go into a detail that basically jeho has an ongoing struggle with the Syrians this is what's happening kind of at home during these years this is when Elijah reaches the end of his career and he dies under the reign of Jehovah sometime toward the end of his reign the next king that comes is Jeroboam the second he rules in Israel and it's a rather remarkable thing he is the greatest king to rule over Israel it's a time of considerable peace which is unexpected so that's part of the story we want to focus on it's also a time of ease and some prosperity so Jeroboam ii has a lengthy reign and probably by most people's measures the most successful reign of all of those who rule over Israel the Torah the ten tribes on the north alright now this brings us to Shama knees or the fourth Shama knees of the fourth is the king who I think best measures was the king who heard Jonah preached he rules from 8 from 782 to 773 he has just inherited a Empire which is strong and getting stronger which is continuing to use increasingly violent means to extort from all of their neighbors the revenue that is making a serie of very very wealthy at the expense of all of those that are under their Dominion so that's what's going on that's what this guy inherits and one would expect that that would be the ongoing kind of momentum of the Assyrians and so it's very interesting he comes to throne he's a son of his predecessor that he is remembered later as weak and inept now let me just say something here he leaves us no records all of these guys were just filling their annals with all of the boasts of their powerful glorious conquests everyone was out doing the last one everyone was selling himself as the as the next great greatest king yet and then all of a sudden comes this guy would think he'd be riding this wave and he goes dark we don't hear anything from him what we do here are later a Syrian comments about him people who actually were even more violent more warlike reflecting back on their predecessors and say this guy was a loser well maybe he was a loser or maybe he simply repented and decided that the kind of campaigns that have been carried on by the Assyrians were not the kinds of things that they should be involved in this is pure speculation I want to say that right up front we don't have anything from this King shaman ease of the four that says this weird guy came to town and preached the sermon and we all repented in sackcloth and ashes we don't have that we don't have any indication that Jonah was ever there we wouldn't expect to have it you know this wasn't a time when detached history was being reported in the way that we've become accustomed to since the Greeks it's just nothing but it is very interesting and I think at least highly consistent with a view that would suggest that something dramatic happened in the history of the Assyrians to cause them to just deflate with respect to their warlike kind of tendencies and so basically this guy is quiet and I'm suggesting to you suggested by others on my private opinion that this at least though it's an argument from silence I grant that nevertheless is at least consistent with the message that we have from the Old Testament that Jonah preached and the people repented particularly it's mentioned there of their violence so I'll let you make your own judgment about what you want to do with that anyway what's happening back at the ranch well Judah is ruled by M as I as I was saying and Israel is under Jeroboam ii Jeroboam ii is ruling over israel at a time of great prosperity this was unexpected because we would have thought the Assyrians would be there giving them grief but the Assyrians go as I say just go dark they don't show up at this point and it gives Israel this great reprieve and a time of great prosperity unfortunately they don't acknowledge the prosperity very well they don't acknowledge that it's God who's given them this they don't acknowledge that it was Jonah's preaching and God's providence that protected them from the threat of the Assyrians rather they just presume on God's grace and uses an excuse to drift off in the direction of disobeying God of disregarding their covenant obligations and so it calls forth two prophets minor prophets in the Old Testament the first of whom is Amos you know anything about Amos you know that Amos was a you know what a sheep herder in Judah but he's called by God he famously says I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet but nevertheless he goes to Israel and he preaches against them specifically with respect to the kind of casual life that they're living this time of prosperity and ease he condemns them for being at ease in Zion that famous line that comes from Amos he also refers I think somewhat humorously to what he calls the fat cows of Bashan not very complimentary of course he's talking about the women who are just gorging themselves in a life of ease and indulgence and Amos kind of rude but that's what he calls them if you don't believe me just read Amos it's there you'll find it and otherwise Amos is a wonderful prophet for people to read who are living in times of relative peace and ease in their Christian experience Amos is a very relevant book I think for any Christians who are not facing probable death day by day you know if we lived in China we'd have a very different kind of faith experience that we do living in Spokane Washington and sometimes I think we need to hear a little bit more of Amos sometimes out anyway he's the he's the first of these two prophets the other one is Hosea Hosea is a remarkable story you caught you recall he's told by God to go and marry a woman of the streets marry a prostitute many people have thought that can't be this must be metaphorical and I don't know maybe it is but the story doesn't seem to be metaphorical it does seem to be what God actually told him to do and this what he did he marries a woman named Gomer and she had been a prostitute he takes her into his home cares for her but after a period of time she leaves and goes back to her prior profession and that becomes this amazing object lesson that's used through the voice of Hosea to say this is what Israel has done she is forsaken her covenant husband she's gone back to the streets back to a kind of spiritual adultery and idolatry and the story of Hosea is in a sense intended calculated to say this is what God is dealing with with his people and so both of these called minor prophets Amos and Hosea are prophets that come to Israel during the reign of Jeroboam ii all right so that's the story with with shall manie's of the forth as I say he's we don't know much about him he just seems to be a quiet kind of guy interestingly his successor is very much the same very little is known of his rule he's very quiet and so we have once again kind of you know all peace on the Western Front here in Judah the next king is a messiah he's followed by Uzziah you may recall that Isaiah the prophet was commissioned to be a prophet in the year that King Uzziah died so we're getting close now to the era of Isaiah this is in Isaiah chapter 6 Uzziah was a pretty good King but of course he arrogantly presumed to enter into the temple on one occasion wanting to play the role of the priests even though he was a king you're not supposed to confuse those offices in ancient Israel and for that God struck him with leprosy he died a leper you may recall that story of Uzziah in Israel Jeroboam ii rules until 7:53 he's followed by Zechariah who roles for a few months he's the fourth generation from Jay he's the last king of the line of Jehu he's followed by Shalem the reigns for about six months followed by Monet whom who reigns for about 11 years okay just to kind of connect the dots remember that Israel the ten northern tribes are deported by the Assyrians in 722 so we're within about 20 years of the deportation of the ten northern tribes and we begin to see a whole lot of political instability of course in Israel as we are nearing that particular era so I'm going to leave off talking about him the next king will be getting back to this next week when we actually talk about this deportation of Israel and ongoing thoughts from there the third successor is also quiet this is amazing three kings in a row nothing there's quiet what happened how did this happen I like to call it the Jonah effect you know he rarely left the palace he was killed in a palace revolt in 745 and in 745 we have a great shift in the whole story for about 35 to 40 years Assyria just flat lines for no good reason you read you read you know ancient if siri ology and you say why did this happen nobody's got a good explanation I never want it I've never read anyone yet from a secular point of view of saying it must have been the preaching of Jonah but at least the evidence is there for anyone's interest that may want to look at it you know so this is what's going on we have Uzziah ruling in Judah followed by Jotham in Israel we have Menahem and he is going to be the king who is mentioned in connection with the the first king of what's called the neo-assyrian empire tiglath-pileser the third I'm going to leave off the story there and just have a couple of comments about Jonah what do we learn from Jonah number one this is my Sunday School lesson for the morning you know number one point of three points when God calls obey delayed obedience is disobedience that's something good for parents to know with respect to their children it's also good for Christians to know that with respect to their God when God calls you to do something and you know he's called you to do it the best thing is don't put it off till tomorrow you may meet a whale you know and so when God calls us to do something as he did with Jonah the direction of prudence is obey second lesson even when we disobey God provides I've heard people say that the whale came along is some kind of punishment no no no the oil is Redemption you know the fish is Redemption Jonah would have died but for the fish you know and so God sent in his providence this wonderful picture of an ark and many have noted the similarity that we see going clear back to the garden Eden this kind of Ark motif Noah's Ark mowed Moses in the ark there in the river and so on this idea being protected in the midst of swirling waters and you read the prayer of Jonah that he prays from the belly of the whale and you see how he's giving a prayer of thanksgiving for God's deliverance and so when we do disobey it doesn't mean God will abandon you it just means that you may you know run into a big fish so there you are and you can give thanks for that if it should happen the third lesson and last one that I want to leave you with from Jonah is never underestimate the power of God's Word Jonah did not want to preach to the Assyrians he didn't like the Assyrians because the Assyrians were notoriously violent idolatrous wicked evil horrible people and when God said to Jonah I'm going to send fire and brimstone on the Assyrians Jonah was ecstatic the last thing he wanted was for God to give them mercy he wasn't that he didn't want to go to the Assyria because he was afraid of the Assyrians he didn't want to go because he was afraid God would make good on his word and that's exactly what God did and it did make Jonah very upset you recall chapter 4 of Jonah in that connection I bet that when Jonah walked through the streets of Nineveh he preached some of the most lackluster sermons you've ever heard I bet that those sermons were so deadly boring that it would have put any of us right to sleep but God can fill I mean you can you imagine him walking through 40 days God's gonna get you guys better watch out you know he's just hoping no one will hear it because he doesn't want mercy for the Ninevites but even that lackluster sermon even that sermon that probably wasn't filled with prophetic passion that we might have expected is what God was able to use to change their hearts make God's Word part of your conversation when you're talking with your family when you're talking with your coworkers when you're talking with your friends across the back fence shoveling snow whatever it is when you have an opportunity to incorporate even in the most innocuous fashion references to the Word of God never underestimate how powerful that can be in the lives of those who hear it God's Word does not return to avoid you don't have to be eloquent you don't have to be you know have the whole Bible memorize but we all know enough of the Bible to incorporate to just pepper a little bit of it into our conversation and you can bank on the fact that God will use even those modest incorporations of his word to accomplish things in the hearts of the people that you encounter and I think Jonah at least to some degree teaches us that as well I

Channel: Bruce Gore

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Keywords: Assyria, Jonah, Nineveh, Bruce, Gore, Shalmaneser, IV, Israel, Judah

Id: 3FZECx74Dmg

Length: 42min 20sec (2540 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2015