The Joshua Victor Theory

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. One of the most fascinating stories in the Old Testament is the prophet Jonah. Jonah happens to be the only prophet Jesus directly compares Himself to, and He says the Sign of all signs that will prove who Jesus is, would be the Sign of His three day burial and resurrection. Jesus says this was foreshadowed by the 3 days and nights Jonah was in the belly of the whale. Jonah lived about 800 years or so before Jesus, during the time when Assyria was the mega power in the Middle East, and had a reputation for its terrifying armies and the total destruction they brought on conquered lands. Nineveh, the capital city, was the heartland of the wicked empire that spread violence across the Middle East, even to Israel. It’s not too hard to figure out why Jonah didn’t want to obey God’s command to go there and cry out against their evil. The prophet Jonah can teach us a lot about ourselves. Instead of obeying God, Jo...

The final sermon in the Lenten series adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  Once Robert Ingersoll, a famous atheist, delivered a dramatic challenge in a speech attacking the belief in God. He took out his watch and challenged God to prove that He exists and is almighty by striking Ingersoll dead within five minutes! First there was silence, then people became uneasy. Some left the hall, unable to take the nervous strain of the occasion, and one woman fainted. At the end of the allotted time, the atheist sneered, “See! There is no God. I am still very much alive!” After the lecture a young fellow said to a Christian lady, “Well, Ingersoll certainly proved something tonight!” Her reply was memorable. “Yes he did,” she said. “He proved God isn’t taking orders from atheists tonight.” How true! God doesn’t take orders from anyone, even Jonah. God’s mercy, shown to the Assyrian...

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  Have you ever not been “on the same page” as someone? A new resident was walking down a street and noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. When the newcomer volunteered to help, the homeowner was overjoyed, and the two men together began to work and struggle with the bulky appliance. After several minutes of fruitless effort the two stopped and just stared at each other in frustration. Finally, when they had caught their breath, the first man said to the homeowner: “We’ll never get this washing machine in there!” To which the homeowner replied: “In? I’m trying to move it out of here!” That was a definite communication breakdown. The truth is we only get things done when we are in agreement. We need to be either going in or going out. We have to ...

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  If this has happened once, it has happened a billion times. A husband and wife are in a car, and the wife tells her husband to turn right at the next junction, and by mistake, he turns left. When he realizes what he has done, he says to his wife “I’m sorry love, I went the wrong way.” But if that is all he does, it isn’t enough. His saying sorry isn’t getting them any closer to where they want to be; it isn’t even stopping them from getting further away. To get where they want to be, he needs to stop the car, turn it around and go back on to the correct road that his wife told him to take in the first place. That is repentance; it is an about-face! The people of Nineveh are a powerful, arrogant, violent, wicked people. Jonah is a little guy from a weak nation at the edge of their soo...

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.              After a somewhat less than graceful exit from the belly of the whale, Jonah was back on terra firma . And it was no time to rest or to hatch another escape plan—that have proven to be fruitless (267). God had work for Jonah to do, and he was to get right to it. God was persistent in His call, and wasn’t going to let up. Perhaps we can recall times when we’ve had a less than graceful course-correction in our lives, and were humbled, somewhat unsteady on our feet, and back to facing the call that God has for us. Because of God’s grace, we are given a second chance—we are renewed for His service yet again. Jonah obeyed at last the command to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”  ...

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  One tribe of Native Americans had a unique practice for training young braves. On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, he was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then he had never been away from the security of his family and tribe. But on this night he was blindfolded and taken miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of thick woods. By himself. All night long. Every time a twig snapped, he probably visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. Every time an animal howled, he imagined a wolf leaping out of the darkness. Every time the wind blew, he wondered what more sinister sound it masked. No doubt it was a terrifying night for many. After what seemed like an eternity, the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest....

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  “For this job,” said the personnel director, “we are looking for a responsible man.” “That’s me,” said the applicant. “Everywhere I’ve worked, whenever anything went wrong they said I was responsible .” This is Jonah! He is responsible for going down to Joppa, going down into the ship, lying down in the innermost recesses of the ship, and he is even responsible for the sailors lifting him up and throwing him into the raging sea! He was responsible for what went wrong! In spite of this the LORD does not hire someone else; he didn’t let Jonah get away with it. Jonah may have won the battle, but God will win the war. To do so he sends in the big gun, “the perfect storm.” The storm will bring a sudden halt to Jonah’s escape plans. God had called Jonah to arise , go to Nineveh, but ...

The following Lenten series I will be preaching on is taken from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.              Do you ever wonder what it would be like if God called you? I mean directly spoke to you in audible and unmistakable words? How would we respond? How would we treat the call? Would we take our cue from everyday life and “screen the call” or let it go to voicemail? Most of us can relate to avoiding our calls at one point or another. What if we found we were doing the same thing to God?             Welcome to the world of Jonah! Let’s begin at the beginning! When God calls Jonah to go preach in Nineveh, Jonah high-tails it in the opposite direction. The author highlights the irony of this effort to run away in a way that we wouldn’t catch—that in their time, boardin...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The sermon text is from the book of Jonah 3:1-5,10. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our sermon text begins after Jonah’s famous three day ordeal in the belly of the great fish or whale, a sign that Jesus said foreshadowed His own three day death and burial. Jonah was spit out on the land and called a second time to the task from which he had run. He wasn’t going to escape the work that God had laid for him. Jonah was a reluctant worker, but he learned to obey after his experience with the fish. God’s command was greater than his fear or unwillingness to do his task. He obeyed after the Lord commanded him a second time to go to Nineveh. We also ought to act according to God’s will and word, and not undertake anything without God’s Word. So why was Jonah so reluctant in his task? A brief word about the city of Nineveh. It was the capital of the As...