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Content type: Sermon Poem / Prayer Service / Tribute Incomplete Biography
Body: 11.28.21 Jonah 1:17 – 2:1-10 **17*** Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. **Chapter 2** *Jonah’s Prayer* **1*** Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. **2**He said, “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead,* and Lord, you heard me! **3**You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. **4**Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’ **5**“I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. **6**I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of death! **7**As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. **8**Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies. **9**But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” **10**Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach. While this is an amazing story, many skeptics have questioned if it is physically possible. Could a whale hold a human alive for three days and nights? Let us look to God’s creation for the answer. God created all things (Colossians 1:16). And He made whales with four stomachs and their digestion takes place in phases. When whales eat, they swallow their prey whole. The good enters the esophagus and then is pushed into the first stomach called the fore stomach or rumen. The rumen is where food is stored and partially broken down with bacteria. The tissue of the rumen does not create digestive juices. This means that the contents in this first compartment could hold a food item without breaking it down chemically. Some wonder if there is enough air to survive in a whale’s stomach. In the rumen, there tends to be no oxygen, as the microbes within that organ cannot live with oxygen present. This is true for a healthy rumen, however, air can be present in the case of ruminal tympathy (bloating). This would have been the case for Jonah’s case. Whales breathe air, and if its stomach is upset it would be coming up frequently for more air and possibly swallowing some in. While this story seems possible scientifically, we should not rule out the creative power of God who can perform miracles. Jonah 1:17 says that the Lord prepared “a great fish” for Jonah, meaning, that this sea animal could have been made specifically just for this incident. God created all creatures with His Word and can create anything that He wants to meet a specific purpose (Psalm 34:6) to fulfill his good will. Check out our Bible Answers page for more information on a variety of topics. In His service, BibleAsk Team A Spanish fisherman who drowned in the sea is back with a very interesting story. The man who disappeared for several days after he went overboard during bad storm has return to share his survival tale. The 56-year-old fisherman Luigi Marquez claims that a whale swallowed him. According to Marquez he stayed there for three days and nights. When Marquez didn’t return home, the coastal guard tried to find him during but failed to locate him and he was considered dead. “This great beast swallowed me the morning after the storm,” he told local reporters. “It is the most frightening thing I have ever lived. Everything was pitch black and I was shivering cold. The only thing that kept me alive were the raw fish I ate and the light from my waterproof watch, that is how I kept in touch with time. And the smell, I will never forget that horrible stench of putrid decomposition. I had to wash for three days before the odor went away,” Luigi Marquez told reporters. “This is truly a miracle! Saint Mary of Jesus has heard our prayers. “I prayed and I prayed and I never lost faith, and the Lord has brought me back my precious Luigi,” told his wife, Penelope Marquez, to local reporters. Though there are many speculation over what Marque is saying, but he claims that he was inside the whale for 72 hours before it flushed him out. Thanksgiving has become a day where prayer and praise have been replaced by the uniquely American trinity of food, family, and football. Despite what the holiday has become, there is great value in remembering why the holiday began. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day in which we stop and give thanks to our God. Admittedly, the book of Jonah is not the first book you think of when you think of thankfulness. And yet, in our text, that is exactly what you find. In verse nine of chapter 2 we find that the rebellious prophet is no longer running from God and is now reaching up to God with gratitude. Jonah says, “But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” This is by no means the traditional thanksgiving. As we prepare to move on from the Thanksgiving holiday, I want us to look at Jonah’s statement in verse 9 and see what we can learn about true thanksgiving. To do so, we must consider The Situation in which Jonah was Thankful. Normally, we equate thankfulness with times of blessing and prosperity. As a result, we are often only thankful when the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and life is blooming. That is not the case in the text before us. At the moment Jonah uttered his thanksgiving to God, he was imprisoned somewhere inside a giant fish. The setting in which Jonah was thankful reminds us of the words of the Apostle Paul in I Thessalonians 5:18. He wrote, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Notice with me a couple of things about the setting in which Jonah was thankful. I. It was a Deep Place (3) This was a deep place he was in. Probably no section of Scripture has taken more heat from the skeptics and critics like the story of Jonah. The idea of a fish swallowing a man, and that man surviving for three days only to be puked up on shore is simply too much for some to swallow (no pun intended). I still believe the Bible. If my God can create all that is, in a matter of six days, then the story of the fish and the wayward preacher is not so peculiar to me. Therefore, when I read Jonah’s words in verse 9, I believe Jonah was literally inside the fish. It was so deep; it was dark and difficult. Though I have never been inside a fish, I imagine, among other things, that it is a dark and difficult place. While none of us can fully relate to the inside of a fish, we can all relate to the deep, difficult, and dark places of life. Life is often lived in these places. 2. It was a Dark Place. Jonah reminds us that God is to be thanked and praised, not just in the light, but in the dark as well. God is good all the time, and therefore God is worthy to be praised all the time as well. Thank Him in the darkness, as well as the daylight. Thank Him for the battles, as well as for the blessings. Look back with me please to verse 17 at the close of chapter one. There it says, “Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah…” And verse 3, “You threw me into the ocean depths,” The reality is that Jonah could be thankful in the deep place because the deep place was a part of the divine plan of God for his life. As hard as the experience of the fish was for Jonah, the reality is that God was using that fish to work in the life of His wayward prophet. Some may wonder, “How can I be thankful in the dark times?” It is hard to be thankful standing by the casket of a loved one. It is hard to be thankful facing the horrors of cancer. It is hard to be thankful when you lose your job. Jonah reminds us that we can be thankful in the dark times, knowing that our God is ultimately in control. The great Scottish preacher, Alexander Whyte, was known for his uplifting prayers from the pulpit. Each and every Sunday, Whyte would lift his prayer of thanksgiving to God. One particular Sunday, the weather was so gloomy that one church member thought to their self, “Certainly the preacher won’t think of anything for which to thank the Lord on a day like this.” When Whyte came to the pulpit, and began his prayer, he said, “We thank Thee, O God, that it is not always like this.” No matter where you are in life, in the hard times, or the happy times, trust that it is a divine place, and that in it, there is something for which you can be thankful! Jonah learned something liberating. He learned that giving thanks in everything would set him free. See verse 10. It is after thanksgiving that Jonah is set free from the whale. Paul and Silas learned this truth in the Philippian jail (Acts 16:25,26). Praise and thanksgiving have a way of setting us free. Praising has a way of setting you free from what binds you. May we cultivate an attitude of gratitude! It is amazing what praising will do! Jonah chapter 2: 1-10. Is also a. “Testimony of Thanksgiving “ There is one thing that all Christians share with Jonah, and it can be found here in chapter 2. A testimony of thanksgiving to the grace and mercy of God. Can you, like Jonah, echo words of thanksgiving for what God has done in your life in the midst of adversity? This testimony is a thanksgiving psalm, prayed in gratitude after deliverance after some danger or hardship as a way of thanking God for showing his mercy towards them. Jonah was simply communicating to God in a common manner and form of worship of his day via this thanksgiving psalm, in which he expresses gratitude for the mercy shown to him. This testimony of thanksgiving regarding his deliverance has five steps 1. Statement of appreciation v2 2. Description of the misery v3 -6a 3.description of his appeal 6b -7. 4. Indication of the rescue 6b. 5. A vow of gratitude and continued worship v8-9. 1. V2 living a life filled with appreciation. Here we see it opens with appreciation to God v2 “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and He answered me” and we see the answer in his deliverance from certain death, one that all true Christians need to echo and confirm. 6b “But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of death!” How much more should we show our appreciation to the amazing act of kindness that God has shown to each one of us in Christ, in allowing us into a relationship with him through the penalty that Jesus took for us, should we as a Church of God’s people be demonstrating our appreciation and applause to God today? So often wounds to other’s don’t come by what we do or say, but sometimes by what we don’t do or say. Today is our given opportunity to show our appreciation to God in worship. Let’s give God applause today for what he has done in our lives. Thanks be to God! 2. V3- 6 living a life through adversity. There are bound to be times in our lives when we will find ourselves in a tight spot. These times will often become times relived in our minds never to be forgotten. Dealing with issues like bereavement –sickness- loneliness – depression – abandonment – or an untold tragedy. These are especially hard if we are out of the will of God. What do we do during these times? Do we curl up into a ball? Bury our feelings all inside? Wallow in self-pity? Become angry and blame God for our predicament? For God had put Jonah into that place? V3 “You threw me into the ocean depths” Sometimes we need to be broken before the Lord can even begin to use us for His Glory. We too will go through adversity – God will often use adversities to draw us closer to Himself, they become turning points of Salvation. In what circumstances did you come to know the Lord? What were you going through at that time? Also, at these times the true character of a child of God will often manifest itself rather than falling apart, they will become deepening points of trust (surrender) upon God. This was the case for Jonah.... who finally surrendered his life to God and looked to God in prayer 4b – “you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.” 7 “As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple.” It was in this situation that Jonah cries out to God again. Friedrich Nietzsche said, “A man can undergo torture if he knows the way of life,” but Christian Reger said, "here at Dachau (a Nazi concentration camp), I learned something far greater. I learned to know the who of my life. He was enough to sustain me then and is enough to sustain me still.” Christian Reger was a minister with the German confessing Church, they opposed Hitler. He was arrested and turned over to the authorities by the Church organist. He was taken hundreds of miles away to Dachau where he spent 4 years in the concentration camp. After his first month in Dachau, Reger abandoned all hope in a loving God. But in July 1941 he received a letter from his wife, which it read about their love towards him. But at the bottom she had written a Bible verse Acts. 4.26-29.: “The Kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lords anointed One. Indeed, Herod and Pontus Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this City to conspire against your Holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” That afternoon Reger was to undergo interrogation, the most terrifying experience in the camp. He had been called upon to name names regarding other Christians. If he succumbed, those Christians would be captured and killed but if he refused to cooperate there was a good chance, he would be severely tortured. At the time the verse meant little to him but as he was waiting in the waiting room trembling, another minister came out who he had never met before. As he passed by, he slipped a matchbox into his pocket. After his interrogation he had remembered the earlier encounter with the minister and looked into the matchbox to find a written verse Acts:4.26-29. To Reger it was a message from God. This man was a stranger and had never seen his letter. Had God arranged this event to show he was still alive, still able to strengthen, still worthy to trust? Christian Reger was transformed. Reger said “God did not rescue me and make my suffering easier. He simply assured me that he was alive, and knew I was here. I simply knew that God met me at Dachau.” Friends, Jonah like Christian Reger meet God - at dire points in their lives – for Jonah God provided a fish and delivered Jonah. For Reger it was as simple as a verse from his wife and the confirming words from a minister he had never meet. Be assured God will meet us too in our adversities, when we turn to him for salvation, he will continue to meet us and be with us, when we surrender ourselves to the situation and to God, he will often meet us in the most unusually way. 3. v8-9 living a life of devotion. What is your purpose in life? What is your goal? What really motivates you to continue? These are really questions that in your heart you will already know the answer. It could be your purpose is found in your family, it could be that you seek it in your profession or the possessions that you have collected over the years or maybe now that you have retired your purpose could be in leisure activities, or it could be in your investments. Many of these things are legitimate but should they be at the center of our lives – should they take center stage and take the place of God? If they are center stage in our lives, they could well have become present day idols. Idols V8 Notice what Jonah says about idols “Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies.” – by making these things the most prominent things in life we are missing out on the grace of God for our lives. Jonah’s own self-interest to himself and his nation had become his idol, in so doing when God said Go to Nineveh, Jonah said no way, he was too patriotic for that – this took center stage. Are there any idols in our lives? Present day idols? Things that take the place of God? If there is, we are living outside the will of God because make no mistake about it, God wants to be first in your life and not 2nd best, not a comfortable add on, that makes your life warm and fuzzy. So, God pursues Jonah. And in the center of it Jonah learns his real purpose and vows to God to live a life of worship and dedication to God. V9 “and I will fulfill all my vows”. For Jonah this did not come easy, it was an extremely difficult point in his life. For us dedication might not come easy, it may involve many lessons and many difficulties in life. WD 40. WD stands for water displacement 40 stands for the amount of times the inventor took to get WD40 as we know it today? Imagine if the inventor had given up on attempt 38 ... There would have been no WD40: the inventor kept at it until he got it right.... Friends don’t give up on God when the going gets tough instead take the opportunity to draw closer to God - call out to him and offer yourself to Him, to fulfil your purpose. Then your whole of life will become an act of spiritual worship. v9 “But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise”. • V9 Salvation comes from the Lord ... Here is a bold acclamation of gratitude and one of deep spiritual significance. Jonah had experienced this reality not once but twice, first called by God as a prophet here was a man that the word of the Lord came to as prophet. He shared a word from God. The Lord was his salvation, but now the arm of the Lord comes and saves him from the abyss of the ocean. And so, with a shout of gratitude: Salvation comes from the Lord. This is important to understand today, that our salvation doesn’t depend on us, but upon God. Because many people today misunderstand salvation and see it in other things. Not good works – baptism – confirmation – church attendance – being good – Church membership – Sunday school attendance – and so on - v9 Salvation comes from the Lord. For us it means, like Jonah, trusting God for deliverance looking not to people, but to the cross and the work at Calvary where Jesus died, and arose on the third day, so that we could live. We simply cry out for mercy and God responds by grace and we are saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves – so that no man can boast. Because SALVATION COMES FROM THE LORD! Have you received it?
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