The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-05-25
4 SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
:"JONAH'S SEA EXPERIENCES"

no" II um2n EHorG ana n uIldh liz
fuence Wither Quickly Under Sarcasm
Jonah Has Suffered in This Way.
GLENs FALLS, N. Y. The Rev. DR..
John r. Mackay, pastor of the First Pres
byterian Church here, preached Sunday
morning on "The Significance of Jcnah's
Sea Experience" The text was from
Jonah i:l2. DR.. MacKay said:
One of the surest ways to ruin any cause
is to be able successfully to heap ridicule
upon it. Make it ridiculous and you have
ruined it. AS soon as it becomes the butt
of common talk and the standing joke for
power is gone, its influence sealed. And
so soon as an individual becomes the centre
of a community's Jokes and sneers his in
huence is gone. Human effort and inhu-
ence wither more quickly under sarcasm
and ridicule than in any other way. In
this way many o good cause and many a
good person has suffered at the hands Of
persons who have never seriously tried to
understand the cause or the person. In
this way many great human heart has
been placed upon its Calvary and made to
bleed and suffer the keenest agony. In this
way many q noble, sincere, sensitive soul
is going through its Gethsemane or is be-
ing nailed to its cross on this very Sabbath
day
This is how I believe the work and life
of Jonah have suffered. Unthinkingly, un-
feelingly, sarcastically. people have asso-
ciated Jonah with a whale, and joke be-
ing the easiest and cheapest way of show
ing wisdom they have exhausted all their
wisdom there.
We cannot keep too often reminding
ourselves that we shall continue to miss
the true meaning of the Bible and most Of
it's great teaching unless we remember that
every incident mentioned in the Old Tes-
lament gives not only the story OF some
person, with all the local coloring sur
rounding him as man and an individual,
but also and more important, that there ls
a great world truth to be revealed, and
this individual, with his local coloring, has
been chosen as the medium through which
to reveal and teach that truth. And,
therefore, the great Bible difficulties, with
so many. have arisen because they have
been satisfied to centre all their thought
and interest on the individual and his To-
cal details, and in this way have missed
the great truth intended to be taught-a
truth so great that were it grasped it
would then become a key by which to
open up and understand the incident it.
self.
This is how Jonah has suffered at our
hands. And our task is now in few
words to take another look at Jonah-to
try and see him in the light of the great
truth intended to be taught and see if
thereby we can the better understand the
story itself.
Bethink yourselves back into the earlier
stages and gradual growth of the human
race. To them as to us there came prob.
lens to be solved. We have the benefit of
their efforts and can profit by them in our
problems. But the further back we 60 the
less and less did they have to help them
solve their problems Yet they felt the full
force of each one and mad to make an ef-
fort of some sort to solve it. The problem
was not always the same. Sometimes it
was social, sometimes it was physical,
sometimes it was national, sometimes it
was intellectual. sometimes it was moral:
If it took religious phase it was either
national or moral or intellectual. Men felt
the presence of God impinging upon them.
They have forced themselves to formulate
certain conceptions about Him. Then they
found that, certain of their experiences did
not agree with these conceptions of God.
And there their difficulties arose. This is
the meaning OF the book of Jonah. Who
ever wrote the book felt the difficulty of
great intellectual and national problem.
This led him to take the story of the Pro-
phet Jonah, that, having thrown it into
parabolic form, he might the better
through it explain to the people what he
thought was Gods own solution of this
particular problem.
What. then, was that difficulty, that
problem? The people OF Israel believed
that the love and sympathy of God were.
confined to themselves. His care, His ia
vor, His blessings were fer them and them
alone God was their God and all the rest
of the world was outside. There was but
one human family that had a divine rela-
tionship, and that was Jewish. Quite true,
there were other nations, and they had to
live, but they had to live without God. He
did not belong to them. they had no claim
upon Him. That was the real traditional
Jewish feeling.
But a few people were growing up who
mad newer and truer conception of God:
and broader outlook upon man. One Of
them felt he would like to relieve this mar
row, limited, wrong conception of God.
This led him to write the book, and in
doing so he took Jonah as the representa-.
tive of the old narrow Jewish idea, and
showed how Jonah;s ideas became broad
ened, and thus taught the broad, full love
of God for all men-taught not only the
clemency of God, but also that He loves all
men. There, then, is the national prob
lem, to teach that God is God of all men
and loves them; and the intellectual prob
lem, to teach the Jewish people and all
other people that God is everywhere. Let
us see, then, how this double sided prob
lem was solved and satisfactorily illus
trated in Jonah's cxperiences-that God is
everywhere and that God loves all men.
Jonah did not believe this. God was not
everywhere as Jehovah. This Jonah had
been taught and this he believed. This was
the very atmosphere in which, he lived and
moved and had his being This was his
and his manhood's patriotism. But one
day there broke into his mind a new
thought: "Why should not God care for
the people in that other city just as well
as He does for the people in this city?
Why SHOULD Jerusalem be any more IA
vored than Nineveh? The people are not
Jews, but why should God not care for
them just as well as if they were Jews?
Why should there not be brotherhood of
mankind stronger than all the limits of
national and family prejudice? Why not"
That thought came to Jonah like voice
which seemed to say to him, Then, Jonah,
why don't you 20 and tell them about
God? Why don't you so and tell them
they may nave 1oo laFor as well Us otheL
people," This thought so burned itself
into Jonah's mind and heart that he felt
it must be Gods will also TO bless other
people beside Jews. But Jonah being a
dyed-in -the-wool Jew could not tolerate
that. He therefore said, Now. if I get
out of the country for while this thought
will leave me, for God is not everywhere
to press it upon me as He is in Israel"
He did not care very much where he went
if only he could get away from that voice.
The voice troubled MIN. He felt that
voice was calling MIN to do something he
was sure was right, but he did not wish to
do it. This is the sphere i'll which We so
often are Jonahs That voice we have al
ways heard, and like Jonah we have tr.ed
to stife it. Yea, we get just as angry with