Jonah 4 July 17, 2011

We’ve made it! We started looking at the book of Jonah six weeks ago, and today we conclude this series.

As we’ve dived into the text in some detail, several key themes have repeatedly jumped out:

·      God is in control: of the storm, of the fish, of the hearts of people, and we’ll see His control again today

·      God is concerned about everyone: the sailors, the people of Nineveh, our enemies, and even Jonah, and again, we’ll see that compassion today

·      God desires obedience: Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach…means just that, and it’s better to obey the first time. Today, we’ll see Jonah continuing to wrestle with a disobedient heart

·      God gives second (and third) chances: Jonah was able to get back on track to finish the original assignment God had given him

Last week, we looked at how after being given the command to Get up, Go to Nineveh, and Preach, that Jonah did just that. He went to Nineveh, went through the community, preached, and the people repented from their sins and chose to follow the Lord.

The third chapter closes like this:

Jonah 3:10   When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

OK…quick quiz question: If a prophet of the Lord was told to go and preach the good news to a group of people and everyone from the King down repents and accepts the Lord, what SHOULD the prophet do? If Billy Graham or Luis Palau did a huge crusade at Soldier Field or Busch Stadium and tens of thousands of people trusted in Christ as their Savior, what do you think they would do?

RIGHT…REJOICE, CELEBRATE, GIVE GLORY to GOD!!!

But, as most of you are familiar with this story, our dear friend Jonah had a slightly (alright…VERY) different response to the change in the Ninevites’ lives and God’s subsequent forgiveness of them.

Jonah 4:1   But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.  2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

I love the way the Message Version puts these verses:

Jonah 4:1   Jonah was furious. He lost his temper.  2 He yelled at GOD, “GOD! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!

How do you like that? A genuine man of God, a prophet, gets ANGRY at God?!?! The Hebrew word translated angry means “hot”. He was HOT! Burning angry! Not miffed, or frustrated, or irritated, FULL BLOWN ANGRY!!

Remember, why was he angry? He was so mad because God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and merciful, full of steadfast love. Now, I know that sounds silly, but that’s how Jonah responded!

This is an amazing passage. Jonah, like so many other Israelites, really wanted God just for themselves. God shouldn’t be allowed to be kind to other countries. God should reserve His love and kindness for ME not THEM!

I think we as Americans can fall into that same pattern ourselves. We proudly proclaim God Bless America, but do we ever pray for God to bless Iraq or China, or even Canada? Do we think of ourselves as Americans first and Christians second, or do we look at ourselves as citizens of Heaven first and Americans second? A large part of Jonah’s problem was that he flat out didn’t want God to show grace and mercy to his enemies.

As a heart check, how would you feel if this afternoon’s news reported that Billy Graham was doing a crusade in Kabul…the capital of The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and at last night’s crusade, everyone in the country trusted Jesus and the whole country renounced Islam, laid down their weapons, turned over the members of the various extreme terrorist groups and begged for Christians to send professors and pastors to come and teach them about following Christ?

Would we rejoice, or would we question if it could happen? Would we call people to celebrate, or would we call to complain that God couldn’t change their hearts?

That’s one level of how we respond to God extending grace to others. Let’s look at it from a much more practical and personal perspective. How do you feel if I mention that Faith Baptist Temple in Eureka has grown from nothing five months ago to averaging around 70 each week; or Crosspoint Community Church had nobody ten years ago, and runs around 300 today; or Rock Creek Bible Church in Congerville (Congerville Mennonite) has grown like crazy in the past five years and they’re parking cars all over their parking lot and across Rte 150 at the school. Here we are, we were running about a hundred or slightly more about ten years ago, and now we’re running 15-20.

Oooh…does that hit a little closer to home? It does for me! I have to admit, I ask those questions…what am I doing wrong that our church isn’t growing? Is it safe to have a business meeting? At the last one, emotions, actions and attitudes got out of hand and nearly a dozen adults and children walked out the door and have not returned…and have made it clear that they won’t. Why are people so interested in attending churches that have great children’s ministry, great bands for worship, intimate small groups, creative outreach ministries, people “my age”, etc…? Is it that I’m a really bad preacher and I’m scaring people off?

You see, it’s VERY easy to get self-righteous in our condemnation of Jonah for his lack of celebration at what God was doing “somewhere else”. However, if we’re honest, there may be a part of ME that resents if someone has a successful ministry…whether in Afghanistan…or in Eureka.

Coming back to the text, I hope that none of us have gotten to this point, but Jonah was so intensely hot and angry that he asks the Lord to kill him.

3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”  4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

Think about the irony of all of this, God gives Jonah a very important assignment…Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach. On the second attempt, Jonah actually makes it there and preaches and is HIGHLY successful. In fact, this could be one of those times when someone should nominate him for Prophet of the Month for how many Ninevites he got to repent.

Then, instead of celebrating, he wants to die. REALLY?? Jonah is so mad that God didn’t kill off the Ninevites, that he wants God to kill him instead. The idea here is that since you didn’t kill them, the world isn’t big enough for both of us…either You kill them or You kill me.

It seems a little extreme, but that is indeed how angry Jonah is at this point. I love God’s response, “Hey, what are you so mad about?”

Sometimes, I think Jonah is a little slow. In the group of kids I work with, we’d call this a processing delay. He thought he could run and hide from God. He thought he could get all “nicey nice” with God when he was in the fish so he’d get out. He thought if he went to Nineveh with a terrible attitude the people wouldn’t repent. Now, he thinks God will flip flop on not destroying these terrible enemies, so he goes up on a hill somewhere to wait for the Lord to use “shock and awe” to firebomb all of Nineveh like He did to Sodom and Gomorrah.

In my mind I think of that high bridge on the east side of the river in East Peoria. Jonah climbs up there where he has a great view of the whole city to see God wipe Peoria off the map!

Jonah 4:5   Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

I love it…what in the world was he thinking to put up one of those picnic tent things to wait for the coming judgment?

Now, maybe, living in that part of the world was hot like it is here today (think of it…a city in Iraq…anybody know someone who has served over there…what’s the weather like?)

6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.  7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

At any rate, the God that Jonah is so angry about shows his loving kindness and grace to Jonah by causing some kind of plant to grow up and give him some extra shade from the heat. The Hebrew here is a funny play on words that can mean both “shade him from his discomfort” and “save him from his wickedness”. God continues to demonstrate that He is in control of everything. He causes this plant to grow supernaturally fast over night to give Jonah another clear opportunity to dialogue with the Lord who cares for him just like He does the people of Nineveh.

I thought about bringing a weed in today for show and tell. Yesterday, we were working in the yard. Johnmark cut some weeds down in the dog pen area. I noticed a couple hours later that they were REALLY withered! They would NOT have provided shade for anything!

So, our friend Jonah put up his little shelter thing that wasn’t doing a very good job of shading him. God made a shady plant grow to help him out. God then caused a worm to eat the stem of the plant, and it withered and no longer sheltered the prophet! To make matters worse, God then turned up the temperature in the oven of attitude refinement.

8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.  

Have any of you ever been out in the heat long enough that you felt faint from it being so warm…that’s where Jonah is.

Now, most of us would figure out how to get up and get into some better shade or a cooler place. But, Jonah was so stubborn that he held his ground up on that hill so he could see God wipe Nineveh out. Instead of giving in, he once again asks the Lord to kill him. Can you imagine the intensity of his anger at God that he continues to basically shake his fist at the Lord?

And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”  9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

At this point, God “calls him out” and confronts him about the absurdity of Jonah getting upset about a plant that he didn’t plant or fertilize or help to grow, and it only was there for a day.

10 And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.

The Lord goes on to push the issue further by comparing the utter worthlessness of the plant in comparison with the eternal souls of all the people in Nineveh.

11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Now, the commentators differ on how to interpret this last verse. Were there 120,000 young children who didn’t know the difference between their right and left hands…making the population of Nineveh in the hundreds of thousands since not every family would have a preschooler. Some say it’s more likely that it was 120,000 people who didn’t have a moral compass to tell the difference between right and wrong. Obviously, some people in the country would.

So, whether you put the size of Nineveh as a metro Bloomington-Normal number or a metro Peoria area, or bigger, the point here is that God has every right to be concerned about and to show mercy to the eternal souls of people there. This is in a strong contrast to Jonah’s goofy concern about a shady plant.

The moral difference is so huge!

That ends this brief book. Most commentators believe that whether it’s after this particular discussion with God or maybe even sometime later that Jonah again repented and then wrote this autobiographical story of his own life so that others can learn from all of his huge mistakes.

What are some of those mistakes that we can look at today?

1.    We need to celebrate God’s mercy and loving-kindness!

a.    Look around you…where do you see the Lord dishing out grace?

b.    Stop and give thanks when you see it!

2.    We need to celebrate God’s work with other Christians!

a.    As you see Vermeer of Central Illinois building it’s new complex on the other side of the road, do you stop and pray that it will go fast so Crosspoint Community Church can get  into their building soon?

b.    As you drive by the strip mall on the south end of Eureka, do you pray that God will cause the Baptist Temple to grow fast and reach many people that we aren’t?

c.     When you see one of the former members of our church around town, do you ask with expectancy how they’re doing spiritually…and really hope they’re doing well?

3.    We need to celebrate God’s work in our national enemies’ lives

a.    I subscribe to several email updates that give me information on what God is doing around the world so I can pray well

b.    We need to pray that God will send missionaries to various parts of the world to bring the Gospel to them.

c.     We need to rejoice if God sends our community a missionary from somewhere else…who could reach the Indian tech support guys at State Farm better…one of us, or a missionary from India?

4.    We need to celebrate God’s successes…even if they aren’t what we expected

a.    Have you seen God do something or lead you somewhere you weren’t planning on going?

b.    Getting so mad at God for working out His plan that you’re ready to commit suicide isn’t a good idea.

c.     We need to work to make sure our heart is beating in sync with Gods. Henry Blackaby had it right, “Find where God is working, and join Him”. Think how much better chapter 4 would have been if Jonah had been working with instead of against God.

Jonah 3 July 10, 2011

Here we are starting the fourth Sunday in our series from the Old Testament Minor Prophet Jonah. We’ve seen in the first two chapters the struggle that Jonah had with the concept of going to the country of his enemies. We’ve seen that he endangered many people and their property as he purposefully ran from what God called him to do. We’ve also seen how the Lord is in control of everything…even when His people are on the run escaping the view of the Lord…He’s still in charge of choosing who is at fault, the weather and fish.

Last week, we looked at Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish and saw how God listened to Jonah’s prayers, God can use written prayers, and again how God was still in control of everything that was going on! I also tossed in a little history lesson about how our Bibles got chapters and verses.

As we look at this week’s text, we’re starting right after God caused the fish to vomit Jonah back onto dry land. In working through this passage this week, I was struck by the realization that God never speaks to Jonah in Chapter 2. Jonah prays, confesses, and asks thinks through how close he came to death; however, God never tells him that everything is OK, his sins have been forgiven and that he’s now going to get out of the fish and go back home to his retirement from the prophet business. In fact, as I was evaluating this more, Jonah maybe doesn’t even know what is going on as the fish spits him up on a beach somewhere.

So, when we get to the initial verses of Chapter 3, this is the first time that we have God’s voice recorded since the original command to “Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach.”

Jonah 3:1   Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,  2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 

Guess what…God gives the same command, “Get up, Go to Nineveh, and Preach”. Jonah proclaims in Chapter 2 that he has encountered the Lord more deeply, and that he’s now ready to obey, and he does just that!

It is interesting that God does not give him a specific message at this point to preach, or even a text to prepare to preach, but the Lord promises to give him the words to say. That is somewhat reminiscent of our friends down the street where the teaching elders come to church in anticipation that God will give them something to speak on at the right time. 

This same concept is found over in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus tells the disciples:

11 “And when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.

Now, I believe that the Lord gives me insight into my messages and He assists me in the preparation of what I’m going to say, but there is evidently a time in our spiritual lives where we must obey the Lord and start moving towards obedience and the details will come as we are going.

I realize that might be tough for some of us (myself included). When I go on a trip, I want to make sure I’ve checked out the GPS features on my phone, and I often check both MapQuest and GoogleMaps to make sure I’m going to get there. I check on my Gas Buddy app to see if I should fill up with fuel where I’m at or somewhere along the way, and so on.

It doesn’t appear that Jonah had all of that data as he started on his second attept to get to Nineveh. Like I said last week, I have a lot of questions when I read the Scriptures, and they aren’t always answered.

Where is Jonah starting this journey?

Did the fish land him back at Joppa where he started?

Did the fish leave him somewhere else along the Mediterain Sea?

Did the fish swim up some river to get him closer to Nineveh?

Was there a Busy Corner nearby for him to eat after three days in the fish?

How gross did he appear after all that time in a fish?

What we do know is that this time, when God said, “Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach”, Jonah Got up and went to Nineveh:

3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.

In studying several aspects about the phrases in the second part of this verse that describe how big Nineveh was, there is a lot of information about it. As archeologists have dug out Nineveh, the circumference of it’s inner wall was about eight miles, making the diameter of the inner city about two miles. (BKC, Intro to Jonah) Has anybody ever watched a movie about an ancient city or even something like the Lord of the Rings movies where there was a city and people living in areas, but then there was a section where the people fell back when they were being attacked? It was this inner wall that was still two miles across. That was a huge city in Jonah’s time.

I did a little checking, and over in Bloomington-Normal, a two mile radius would be close to covering downtown Bloomington, Uptown Normal, Illinois Wesleyan, the core of ISU, the Shoppes at College Hills, Eastland Mall, both hospitals, and a lot of other places…so, that is a pretty good sized town to have walled in and for Jonah to go through preaching about the coming of God’s judgment!

It’s also likely that this phrase includes the surrounding areas. Now, maybe you distinguish things a little more carefully than I do, but if I tell a co-worker that I’m running to Peoria for something, I might be going downtown to the Civic Center, or out to the Shoppes at Grand Prairie, or to pick something up at Creve Coeur, to watch the Christmas lights in East Peoria, etc…. So, it’s also quite possible that this passage is talking about not just the city center, but also the surrounding communities that still make up the Peoria Area (oops, the Nineveh area).

Remember, Nineveh was the capital of the country of Assyria, the most powerful country in the world! So, as Jonah is going through the city, it would be like going through Washington, DC or London, or Beijing. He was going through a world class city of his day and proclaiming that God was on His way with a big stick ready to beat down the people of Nineveh since they were so wicked.

I don’t know about you, but that does sound like a really tough preaching assignment! Have any of you ever had someone you know who was living in major sin? Someone who was lying, someone cheating at work, someone living with someone outside of marriage, someone slipping in their relationship with the Lord, and so on? How easy is it to go to them and say…straighten up or God is going to get you? How easy is it to go and say, God’s Word is clear…you are to be morally pure and not sleep with someone until you are married? How easy is it if it’s someone you know? How easy is it if it’s someone you don’t know? How hard would it be for us this morning to get up out of our favorite pews and split up and go throughout Goodfield telling people that God is in a judging mood and if you don’t change your lifestyle and get into church with us, you’re going to hell really soon?

So, you get the picture, it’s NOT an easy task that God has called Jonah to go and do! Even as Christians, we can have the tendency to look down on people who preach “hellfire and brimstone”. If I got up here week after week and hammered on the individual sins that I know some of you are dealing with, I would not be very popular would I?

Yet, that’s exactly what God called Jonah to do:

4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

So, Jonah walks in on I74 to Morton, and starts preaching about how the Lord is going to overthrow Peoria and the United States if they don’t change their ways. He keeps on going and gets to East Peoria, and preaches that God is going to destroy things if they don’t repent, he continues that message through Peoria, Washington, Germantown Hills, Bartonville, and the neighborhoods in the area.

The Hebrew word here that’s translated “overthrown, destroyed, or overturned” is also used several times in the Old Testament to describe the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It also translated several times as “turn around”. So, here we have Jonah preaching God’s message that they need to change or God will turn them over, but instead, due to their response, they turn around.

The result is nothing short of miraculous! These wicked people “believed God”!!

5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

So, going back to us going around Goodfield this morning calling people out on their sins, what would we do if all of the sudden all of these people agreed with God and repented of their sins and they decided to dress like they were mourning for their sin?

The people seem to be genuinely concerned about their sin and about how it has grieved God. It seems that God had already prepared their hearts to hear the message about their sin, so that everyone…from the richest to the poorest, from the most famous to the most obscure, from the kindest to the meanest responded to God’s message through Jonah and repented and believed in God.

Furthermore, in the next few verses, we see the king himself getting involved in the process. In our day, think what it would take for a missionary/prophet from Afghanistan to come to Washington, DC. As he goes around the capitol city, people are repenting left and right until it gets to the President and his staff. They too repent and believe the Lord.

Jonah 3:6   The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.  7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,  8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.  9 Who knows? God may turn and relent wand turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

What would it take for the President of the United States to listen to a foreign missionary and to then make a decree that every person and even all of the farm animals had to be covered with burlap bags to signify that the whole country was in mourning. Perhaps it would be like telling all Americans to wear only black clothes, fly all the flags at half-mast, and of course, keep from eating or drinking in order to focus on begging God for their lives.

This is the second time in the book that we see people who were outside of a relationship with God come to a belief in Him. Both the sailors and the residents of Nineveh realize that they’re in deep spiritual trouble, but our friendly “man of God” still has a hard time getting it as we’ll see again next week.

I find it interesting here that the word from God is that judgment is coming. The people from Nineveh do not have a magic key or a golden ticket that says, “if you humble yourselves, God WILL change His mind”. Even so, they figure there might be a little hope of avoiding the destruction if they will genuinely confess their sins and seek to build a relationship with Jonah’s God.

Both the king and the Lord saw an immediate change in the lives of the people. They must have slammed on the breaks as they chose to stop doing the evil things they were doing.

Why do you think that the people of Nineveh were so afraid of God’s message, and even though we call ourselves Christians, we don’t seem to be afraid of incurring God’s wrath? Why have we slipped into looking at mostly the “love side” of God instead of keeping in balance His holiness and righteousness? The Scriptures are very clear that there is a right and a wrong. There are things that we need to be doing and things that we should not do. If we don’t follow the Lord’s commands, we do have that potential for some kind of judgment to fall on us.

For instance, as I read from the Scriptures last week, one of the areas that God takes very seriously is His Supper. If we have a problem with another person or with God, we are to examine ourselves and confess that sin and work to make it right. Paul goes so far as to say that members of the Corinthian church had even died because they didn’t take God and His Word seriously enough!

Jonah 3:10   When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

In the same way that Jonah couldn’t hide from God, whether in the bottom of the ship, in the middle of the storm, or in the middle of a fish, the Ninevehites repentance is not hidden from God either! God saw how they responded and decided to not send the punishment that He had warned about.

We’ve come to the end of a short chapter in a short book about an event that happened about 2500 years ago. That makes us ask the So What question about how this information is relevant to us. I came up with several things that stood out to me.

1.    Obey God!

a.    If God tells you to, “Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach!” DO IT!

b.    If you disobey the first time, and even if you REALLY mess things up like Jonah did, and God gives you a second chance…DO IT!

2.    Tell others about God!

a.    How are we reaching out to our neighbors and friends? (Oikos book info)

b.    I’m thankful that Paige is gone this week serving the Lord in Texas and just a few weeks ago Earl and David went to Elgin to serve at Judson. These are wonderful opportunities to tell others about Jesus on the trip and when you get home

c.     I’m thankful for the people that Karen is reaching out to through the bread ministry

d.    Who from Goodfield Baptist has gone on missions trips? Where?

e.    Who from Goodfield Baptist has entered into full-time ministry? Grace: Nate, Rick & Julie, Bergers, Caldwells.  (Hannah, Jordan, Mindy, Caleb, Josh, Caleb, Anna, missionary intern, Len’s boys (3?)) Who is God calling to go into missions from here?

f.      How are we reaching out to people like those in Nineveh? ENEMIES!!! How do we reach out to Muslims? How do we use the resources that God has given us to be good stewards in reaching the world for Jesus?

3.    Are we in danger of judgment from God?

a.    Like the Ninevites, are we living lives that are evil in God’s eyes?

b.    Are there areas that we need to confess our sins (1 John 1:9)

c.     God responds to humility, repentance, and prayer

My two high school boys were on a ministry trip a week ago. They were up in Chicago for the week with several students from Normal and hundreds from around the Midwest. They learned more about how to share Jesus with their friends and family. Hannah, our oldest daughter, and I went up on Friday to trade places with the youth pastor and his wife who had another obligation. As were sat with them in sessions, I heard a new song, "Tear Down The Walls".  Even though it’s several years old, I thought it had a GREAT message that goes right along with today’s passage.

Please listen and hear what God is telling you.

Jonah 2 July 3, 2011

Today, we’re continuing on in our study of the book of Jonah. I know, it’s a little book hidden in the midst of many other minor prophets. I also know that most of us probably know the basics of the story.

Sometimes, I’ve heard my children complain and say things like, “I don’t know why I should listen in class when we’re talking about Jesus feeding the 5000…I already know that story. I don’t need to pay attention about Noah…he had all the animals come into the ark and then it rained…so, what can I learn new.

As we cover the story of Jonah, I realize there is a tendency for each of us to want to check out because it is so familiar! However, I hope you’ll choose to dig in with me today as we look at a section of Jonah that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anybody preach on or done anything more than just saying that Jonah had a change of heart while he was riding around in the great fish.

So far in this study, we’ve covered how God told Jonah to get up, go to Nineveh, and preach. We also covered four main points last week: God controls the weather, God’s people can try to hide,  God can reach people despite us, and God desires our obedience.

You probably noticed that I stopped with verse 16 in chapter 1 and didn’t “finish the chapter”. That’s because it’s not a very logical place for the chapter to end. You’ll probably notice if your Bible has titles in it, verse 17 is set apart and it may be tied to chapter two.

So, here’s one of the “extras” in the story of Jonah that isn’t covered in the children’s story version. The chapter and verse breaks are not part of the original Bible as God inspired it. Paul did not write letters to the churches with clunky chapter and verse divisions. For those of you who remember 8 track tapes…remember how sometimes the clicks between tracks was between the songs, and other times, it was right in the middle of what the artist was singing?

There is some evidence that as early as the thirteenth century that some people were working at breaking the Bible down into smaller segments. However, it did not gain full momentum until about 1550 when a much better system was proposed by a Catholic printer in Paris. For some reason, his version of breaking the Bible down was quickly accepted in several languages, and it has been largely unchanged up until today. So, this whole system of knowing what John 3:16 or 1 John 1:9 or Genesis 1:1 has some flaws in it as it was primarily one man’s perspective on how to do it.

At any rate, that’s why Jonah 1:17 probably fits better with Jonah two.

Looking at it in this manner allows us to start the chapter with God once again showing that He is in control by sending the big fish to swallow Jonah. This way, the same chapter ends three days later with God telling the fish to vomit Jonah out onto the land once again.

Jonah 1:17   And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:10   And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah gets swallowed Jonah gets vomited…neither one great visuals! But, these are the bookends to Jonah’s prayer while he’s inside the fish.

On the one hand, I am a visionary “big picture” guy. As a church, I can see Goodfield Baptist full again, running VBS, running Sunday School, having a community garden in our back yard to minister to people, reaching out to young families with music and activities that interest them, doing cool things in conjunction with the school and with other organizations in the community, several of you leading Bible studies, and so on. BUT, I don’t get thrilled with figuring out who gets which garden plot, the detailed rules of how and what to plant, I don’t necessarily want to develop the spread sheet that tells who is going to tutor which kid on which day after school,  etc….

However, as I read the Scriptures, I seem to thrive on details and want to know more and more.

How far into the ocean did Jonah get?

Did he hold his breath well?

What kind of fish swallowed him?

How far did he go in the fish?

Had the boat been out to sea several days when the storm came up?

Could Duane have caught this fish?

What did Jonah eat while he was in the fish?

What did God use to cause the fish to throw up Jonah?

How did Jonah write out his prayers when he was inside the fish?

So, those are some of my thoughts as I read through these few verses.

However, we aren’t really told any details about his time in the belly of the fish. We know that he was there for at least parts of three days and three nights. We find out a few things from his prayer about his downward journey, but most of my questions won’t get answered until I get to heaven…if they’re even important enough to ask some day.

Let’s break this down in smaller sections of verses courtesy of Robert Stephens…that French printer.

Jonah 2:1   Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,  2 saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

1-2: We see here that God hears and responds to people when they call out to Him…even when they have been involved in great sin.  Even though he was safe in the belly of the fish, he was still in distress. I don’t know how many of you have almost drowned only to be swallowed by a big fish, but I’m willing to allow Jonah to be distressed in this situation…who knows if this fish is a friendly fish or not!!!

I know it’s a cliché, but this is a clear example of, It’s never too late for a U-turn! God answered…even though Jonah felt like he was in the grave…whether literally because of the depths of the fish in the ocean, or figuratively because he about died.

A popular song a few years ago by Third Day was titled, “Cry Out to Jesus”. The chorus and tag go like this:

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

When you’re lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus

Where are you at? Do you need to cry out to Jesus? Are you in distress? Jonah provides us with this crystal clear picture that God will indeed hear us when we’re in distress and answer our prayers!

3       For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.

3. Jonah recognizes that God did indeed use the various aspects of the sea to get his attention. Think about the words here…they aren’t just that he slipped and fell in a little kid’s wading pool: CAST/HURRLED/THROWN, DEEP, HEART of the seas, FLOOD, SURROUNDED, WAVES, BILLOWS! These are all pretty intense words aren’t they!

4       Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’

4 although he was going down in the sea, Jonah still had hope that somehow he would be able to see the temple in Jerusalem again. Jonah is still in this kind of spiritual peek-a-boo situation with the Lord as he thinks that a. God has to physically see him and b. Jonah has to physically go to the temple to be close to the Lord.

5       The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me;

          weeds were wrapped about my head

6       at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.

5-6a. Jonah’s desperation set in as he continued to sink and had seaweeds wrap themselves around him. Anybody ever concerned about drowning? I realize I’m a little strange, but I kind of have this list of ways that are OK ways to die, and those that aren’t OK…instantly dying from a heart attack or dying peacefully in my sleep are on the OK list. Starving to death or drowning are NOT on the approved list!

Jonah recalls here that he went down so far that he felt like he was at the base of the mountains in the sea, and that he would be locked forever in this place under the sea by the bars that locked him in.

6b. BUT God raised him back up from being thrown into the dreadful sea. Again, we see the theme that God is in control

7       When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

7. Verse 7 brings up interesting thoughts. Jonah is sinking and he is starting to pass out as he floats to the bottom of the sea. It’s only then that he remembers to pray to the Lord. Maybe you’ve heard the joke about the man stranded in his house as the flood waters came.

The fire department sent a fire truck to try and rescue him, but he said, “It’s alright! The Lord will save me!”

The floodwaters continued to rise, and the Red Cross sent a boat out to try and rescue him, but he said, “It’s alright! The Lord will save me!”

As the water continued to get deeper, the man ended up on the roof of his house, and the emergency teams now sent a helicopter to him and hung down a rope for him to climb, but again he said, “It’s alright! The Lord will save me!”

Sure enough, the man drowned, and he gets to heaven where he met St. Peter (this is how you know it’s a joke…it isn’t theologically correct). Confused, he asked, "Peter, I have lived the life of a faithful man - why didn’t the Lord rescue me?"

St. Peter replied, "For pity sake! He sent you a fire truck a boat and a helicopter!"

JHow many of us are like that? We do all kinds of things to fix our problems or our kids’ problems or our work problems, and then after we’ve put a lot of time and effort into what WE can do, we finally remember, “Oh, maybe I should pray about this.” Jonah finally remembers to pray, and he acknowledges that God hears his prayer…even from the bottom of the sea.

8          Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

8. Jonah makes the quick note that it doesn’t do you much good to pray to idols since it is God and God alone who can provide the covenant, steadfast love that comes from Him.

9          But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

9. Jonah concludes his prayer time with an incredible statement. Remember, he’s been chastised by sailors, thrown into the sea in the middle of an incredible storm, and then he ends up in the bottom of the sea, in a fish! Yet, he’s changing his perspective and he states that he will give thanks and will sacrifice and he will fulfill the vows that he’s made!

We often have had people question us about being foster parents and then of course about adopting kids when we already have a bunch. One of my typical responses is that God has clearly called us to this ministry of orphan care, and I don’t want to be disobedient to the Lord. I’d hate to do my own thing and then end up in the belly of a fish going the other direction. I use that phrase with other situations too, but it’s really true! This is NOT a luxury cruise that Jonah is on in this fish! God gave him a simple job: Get up, go to Nineveh, preach. God is so concerned about the people in Nineveh…AND Jonah that He will go to incredible lengths to rescue Jonah from himself and get him back to the right heart attitude…even in the belly of a fish!

Now, think about it, Jonah has gone through an incredible amount of grief to avoid doing what God called him to do in the first place!

Let’s back up: “Jonah…this is the Lord, Get up, go to Nineveh, and preach.” “OK Lord, I’ll go!” How simple would that have been? How much trouble would Jonah, the sailors, the owners of the cargo they threw overboard, etc…. they have been in? NONE! Was Jonah happy about going to the bad Ninevites? NO But still it’s what God told him to do!

The good news is that after all of the issues, at least temporarily, Jonah is willing to obey and do what God has told him to do.

The last phrase of verse nine is interesting…as Jonah affirms that Salvation belongs to the Lord. He is looking forward to being saved from his present predicament, but it is also an interesting foreshadowing about God bringing salvation to the people of Nineveh!

Today, we’ve celebrated our salvation through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross through communion. By partaking in the elements, we have stated that we believe that like Jonah, we have sinned and disobeyed the Lord and are in need of being rescued…just like Jonah in the fish.

As we move forward in the next couple of weeks, we’ll see the struggles that Jonah still has obeying the Lord! I’m sure that we have those same struggles…obeying the Lord can be tough! It can be way outside of our comfort zone! But, it can be something that makes a huge eternal difference in the lives of the people around us.

So what? What can we learn from this week’s little read section of the book of Jonah?

1.    God listens to our prayers…even when we are disobedient!

a.    Now, DON’T be disobedient because you think God will hear you better!

b.    Don’t hide when you’re in your sin…passionately seek God out!

2.    God can use our journaling or writing our prayers down as good things

a.    I realize that as Baptists, it’s not our general way of doing things, but, some really good things can come from it

b.    My Dad’s notebook/Bible

3.    God is in control!

a.    He provided a special fish that just “happened to be” in the neighborhood

b.    Despite all of the bad things he had done, God still rescued Jonah

c.     God provided Salvation physically for Jonah, and we’ll see next week spiritually for the people of Nineveh.

As we close out this message, I want us to listen to a song that I’ve played several times, "Might To Save". It’s currently the number one song sung in churches in the United States. It’s been in that position for almost a year. It reminds us that whether it’s Jonah, the Ninevites, or the people you know…they all need the salvation that Jonah tells us about! Again, we’ve put the lyrics in the bulletin for you to reflect on.