The Penn's Grove record., 1904-05-13
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
"JoNAH'S SEA EXPERIENCES"
The Rev. DR.. John r. Mackay Shows
How Human Effort and Human In
huence Wither Quickly Under Sarcasm
-JOnah Has Suffered in This Way.

byterian Church here, preached Sunday
morning on THE Significance of Jonah's
Sea Experience" The text was from
Jonah i:I2. DIR. MacKay said:
One of the surest ways to ruin anv cause
is to be able successfully to heap ridicule
upon it. Make it ridiculous and you have
ruineo it. As soon as it becomes the butt
of common talk and the standing Joke for
the funny column of the newspaper its
power is gone, its influence sealed. And
so soon as an individual becomes the centre
of a c~ommunity's Jokes and sneers his in
ftuence is gone. Human effort and inhu-
ence wither more quickly under sarcasm
and ridicule than in any other way. In
this way many a good cause and many q
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 a great human heart has
been placed upon it's Calvary and made to
bleed and suffer the keenest agony. In this
way many a 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. U~nthinkingly, I'M
feelingly, sarcastically. people have asso-
ciated Jonah with a whale, and a 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
its 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 c~oloring sur
rounding him as a man and an individual,
but also and more important, that there is
a great world truth to be revealed, and
this individual with his iOoo1 oolOrip1 baz
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 taught7a
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 a 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 go the
less and less did they have to help them
solve their problems. Yet they felt the full
force of each one and had to make an eff
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 a 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 a
great intellectual and national problem.
This led him to take the story of the Pro-
phet Jonah, that. having thrown it into a
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
NUE, Ills DRESSINGS were lot Llem ana Inem
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
had a newer and truer conception of God.
and a 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 Jonan's ideas became broad
ened, and thus taught the broad, full love
of God for all men-taught not only the
clemeney 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 experienees-that God is
everywhere and that God loves all men.
Jonah did not believe this. God was not
everywhere as Jehovah. This Jonah had
DoCn tduRnG anu tHIS uG D6ll6NSQ. LUIS was
the very atmosphere in which he lived and
moved and had his being. This was his
babyhood's lisping, his boyhood's teaching
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
.Tcvve h1f whu chOuld God NOT caro- for
them just as we'll as if they were Jews?
Why should there not be a brotherhood of
mankind stronger than all the limits of
national and family prejudice? Why not?
That thought came to Jonah like a voice
which seemed to say to him, "Then, Jonah,
why don't you go and tell them about
God? Why don't you go and tell them
they may have Gods favor as we'll as other
people?" This thought so burned itself
into Jonah's mind and heart that he felt
it must be Gods viii also to bless other
people beside Jews. But Jonah being a
dye~d-in-the-wool Jew could not Glerate
that. He therefore said, Now. if / get
out of the country for a while this thought
will leave me-, for God is not everywhere
to press it upon me az 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 him. 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 in which we so
often are Jonahs. That voice we have al
ways heard, and like Jonah we have tried
to sti1e it. Yea, we get just as angry with
God and our friends when they dare to
keep suggesting it to us; we do not want
to hear about the right when we don't
want to do it. Jonah, therefore, fed. He
did not care where. That ship going to
Tarshish was opportune. 1t made him de-
eide that the safest place for him would be
at sea. God was never known to have spo-
ken to a Jew On the sea. And so now Jo-
nah felt he would be safe from God and
that voice. That is why he so rapidly and
peacefully got asleep.
Now that is Just why a storm was neces-
sary. Jonah had to learn, and through
him all men had to learn, that God is pres
ent as much ON sea as upon land-on an
ocean greyhound as on a Tarshisl mer-
chairman. And Jonah learned il. And
Jonah accepted it. At once he admitted,
II have done wrong, cast me into the sea"
And the storm ceased. The lesson had
been learned, and through Jonah the
Israelites learned that God is everywhere,
and no man can get away from Him. That
a fish should pick him up and cast him
aoA1ra =. .,,~o sna.Ia,f - +Ia Ao,olIo