GETTING IT RIGHT
Jonah 1:17-2:10
S: Salvation
Th: My Life as God’s Light
Pr: GOD PURSUES US TO SAVE US
?: What? Save us from what?
KW: Quandaries
TS: Because God pursues us to save us, we will find in Jonah 2 three quandaries from which we need to be saved.
The _____ quandary from which we need to be saved is our…
I. DILEMMAS (1-2)
II. DEMISE (3-6)
III. DISREGARD (7-9)
RMBC 7/22/01 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Notebook: Caught (Burns and Benny)
Jack Benny and George Burns became friends when both were young performers working their way up through the vaudeville circuit, and they remained friends during their lifetimes.
One day, they were lunching at a Hollywood restaurant, and Benny was wrestling with the problem of whether or not to butter his bread. "I like butter on my bread," he said. "But my diet strictly forbids butter. Maybe I should call Mary and ask her what to do."
"Jack," Burns said, "don’t be ridiculous. You’re a grown man. You should be able to decide, without your wife’s help, whether or not to butter your own bread."
"You’re right," Benny said. "I’ll just have the butter, that’s all."
When the waiter arrived with the check, Burns pointed to Benny and said, "He’s paying."
"What?" Benny said. "Why should I have to pay the whole bill?"
"Because if you don’t," Burns said, "I’ll tell Mary about the butter."
Have you ever been caught?
Have you ever been caught doing something that you knew was wrong?
And it became pretty obvious to a lot of people.
You know, sometimes we can go a long time without being caught.
But, at the same time, we also know that those things we have done or said that we wish would stay hidden, have a way of coming out after time has passed.
TRANSITION:
ILL T-shirt (IRS)
There is a new T-shirt out with this saying:
IRS: We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got.
Okay, maybe that’s not so funny.
But…
1. God has what it takes to get us back on track.
Last week, we began a study on the Old Testament prophet Jonah.
And we found in this study that we have entered into a battle of the wills between God and Jonah.
2. Review: Jonah had tried to escape from God.
Jonah fled in the opposite direction from Nineveh in defiance of God’s clear command to him, and headed for Spain.
He tells the Lord at the end of the book that he really did understand God’s desire for the world including Nineveh.
He says, “I know you are a God of love and patience and mercy. I know you want to forgive the sins of those people.”
But his hatred of Ninevites was more powerful than his understanding of who God was.
We learned that God loved Jonah too much to let him get away with his sinful rebellion.
God could have chosen another prophet and said, "Good riddance!" to this rebel.
But instead, God in his sovereignty hurled a lethal storm at Jonah’s ship because he wanted to stop his escape.
As the flurry of the storm intensified, we also saw Jonah’s defiance and self-absorption intensify.
As God made Jonah’s circumstances more difficult, Jonah became more stubbornly manipulative of the pagan sailors.
We find that Jonah would rather die than repent of his own sin or be part of the salvation of the Assyrians.
Finally, he made those pagan sailors responsible for his own sacrificial execution.
Jonah was thrown overboard, and God instantly calmed the Mediterranean Sea.
Jonah began to spiral downward into the ocean as the pagan sailors were expressing their heartfelt gratitude for their deliverance from the storm by Jonah’s God.
They left all the other gods that they had cried out to and prayed to the Lord, the one Jonah had halfheartedly confessed as the God who made the sea and the dry land.
These Phoenician sailors began to come into a relationship of faith with God.
But, this is not the end of the story,
For…
3. God prepared a great fish for Jonah to preserve him (17).
But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
We have all heard about men that go fishing, but here we have the fish that went manning.
The question that often comes up by critics of the Bible is could this really happen?
Let me say outright that I believe this event is a miracle.
I am not troubled by the supernatural.
God can and will intervene as the omnipotent God of the universe.
He can break into His ordered creation and literally move heaven and earth.
What is interesting though is an article published by the Encyclopedia Britannica [from The Princeton Theological Review called the "Sign of the Prophet Jonah and Its Modern Confir-mations"] that demonstrates the possibility of such an occurrence.
In the article it describes how the sperm whale has an enormous mouth, throat, and stomach.
An average specimen of the sperm whale might have a mouth 20 feet long, 15 feet high, and 9 feet wide; that is, the mouth would be larger than most rooms in an average-sized house.
It is known that the sperm whale feeds largely on squid, which are often much larger than a man.
Whalers have some-times found whole squid of this size in a dead whale’s stomach.
As to whether a man could survive in a whale’s stomach, the Encyclopedia Britannica maintains that he certainly could, though in circumstances of very great discom-fort.
There would be air to breathe, of a sort.
It is needed to keep the animal afloat.
But there would be great heat, about 104 – 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
Unpleasant contact with the animal’s gastric juices might easily affect the skin, but the juices would not digest living matter; otherwise they would digest the walls of the creature’s own stomach.
There has even been a case of a man actually having been swallowed by a whale.
One case concerns a voyage of the whaling ship Star of the East, which in February 1891, spotted a large sperm whale in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands.
Two boats were launched, and in a short while one of the harpooners was able to spear the fish.
Those in the second boat attempted to attach a second harpoon, but the boat capsized in the process and one man was drowned.
A second sailor, James Bartley, disappeared and could not be found.
In time, the whale was killed and drawn to the side of the ship where it was made fast and the blubber removed.
The next day, the stomach was hoisted on deck.
When it was opened, the missing sailor was found inside.
He was unconscious but alive.
Eventually he was revived by seawater and after a time resumed his duties on board the whaling vessel.
It is interesting testimony, but we should remember that there is a point to all of this.
Jonah was on the run, and he is caught.
And it is a matter that is true for us as well.
If we are on the run from God, we need to realize that…
4. GOD PURSUES US TO SAVE US.
Just like Jonah, God has our best in mind.
He is not content to let us go on our merry own way.
So…
5. Because God pursues us to save us, we will find in Jonah 2 three quandaries from which we need to be saved.
Let’s return to our story for a moment.
Jonah has been thrown overboard.
He is now in a great fish, probably a whale.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first quandary from which we need to be saved is our DILEMMAS (1-2).
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. He said: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”
1. We get in over our head with our problems.
Jonah was literally in over his head.
His problems have gotten him inside of a fish.
Listen to the description of Jonah’s surroundings by Charles Swindoll:
Pitch black. Sloshing gastric juices wash over you, burning skin, eyes, throat, nostrils. Oxygen is scarce and each frantic gulp of air is saturated with salt water. The rancid smell of digested food causes you to throw up repeatedly until you have only dry heaves left. Everything you touch has the slimy feel of the mucous membrane that lines the stomach. You feel claustrophobic. With every turn and dive of the great fish, you slip and slide in the cesspool of digestive fluid. There are no footholds. No blankets to keep you warm from the cold, clammy depths of the sea. For three days and three nights you endure this harsh womb of God’s grace.
What a place to be!
Yet, it is where God needs him to be.
As C. S. Lewis has said:
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks into our conscience, but shouts in our pain.”
Jonah is in pain.
And this pain has dispelled any possible notion that all is well.
So, when we are in over our heads…
2. It is then that we rediscover prayer and a God who has never left us.
We noted last week that Jonah had ceased to pray when he began to rebel.
Even when the storm was upon the vessel, he did not pray.
He just simply reported that the storm was his fault because he was trying to run away from God.
But now that he is overboard, Jonah finally became willing to pray.
And Jonah knew to whom he should pray.
ILL Notebook : Prayer (I know you know my name)
Jeff Newton’s 4-year-old son, Jonathan, was trying to learn the Lord’s Prayer. He learned by listening at church each Sunday. On one Sunday as they were praying the Lord’s Prayer, he could be heard above all the others, praying, "Our Father who art in Heaven, I know you know my name."
Jonah had to recognize that same truth.
God knew his name.
Jonah he discovered that though he had forsaken God, God had not forsaken him.
II. The second quandary from which we need to be saved is our DEMISE (3-6).
“You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God.”
1. It is when we are face to face with the certainty of death that we understand our failure.
It is interesting that in this prayer, Jonah offers no blame to the sailors for throwing him overboard.
He recognizes it is his own fault.
He is deserving of this event.
ILL Notebook: Death (dead end)
Part of Edward Manjunk’s job as a commercial driving instructor is to ensure that his foreign-born students, who are not that familiar with English, can read and understand road signs. When we came to a sign that said "Dead End," I asked one such student to explain what it meant. "You go way down, come to end of street," he said. As he was about to compliment him, he continued,"... is cemetery."
Well, this has been a dead end for Jonah.
Certainly death was inevitable as he was thrown overboard.
Throughout this prayer, he describes vividly the terror of drowning.
There are both physical and spiritual sensations.
Water enters his throat.
Seaweed entangles around his head.
And as he is going down, he decides he no longer wants to dies.
He makes an interesting statement in this prayer.
The NIV reads:
…yet I will look again toward your holy temple…
I don’t believe that to be a particularly good translation.
It is not a statement of faith, but a question.
Jonah says, “Will I look again toward your holy temple?”
He longs to be back in God’s Presence.
You know…
2. God often allows us to hit rock bottom so that we have no place to go but up.
The fish was Jonah’s grave, a tomb, if you will.
But it was also his last chance to get right with God.
He calls out for help, and he finds mercy.
III. The third quandary from which we need to be saved is our DISREGARD (7-9).
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.”
1. We need to recognize that we live carelessly and get our priorities wrong.
Jonah had lived his own priorities, not God’s.
He had forgotten to seek God’s perspective and God’s ways.
So, interestingly, as he resides in the belly of a fish, his faith was revived.
So…Jonah shows us that…
2. We need to recommit ourselves to worship (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
As the apostle Paul writes…
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Jonah was gaining some interesting perspective in this stinky spot.
He was becoming thankful.
He was thankful that God had turned him away from his rebellion and had caused him to call on the name of the Lord once again.
You see, when we get worship right, our perspective is changed and we move on to the right direction.
ILL boll weevil
In 1910, the boll weevil wiped out the cotton crop in the south, forcing southern farmers to diversify by planting peanuts and other new crops. The change brought prosperity to the region. Growers in Enterprise, Alabama, were so grateful to the destructive beetle for ending their one-crop dependency that they eventually erected a monument to him in their town square in 1919. Time has a way of putting things into the right perspective.
In the same way, this stinky inside of this fish has changed Jonah’s perspective.
And now, Jonah is certainly hoping that God is not done with him yet.
His vow was incomplete.
We do not know what that vow was, but we do know that it needed to be finished.
He could not be at peace until he had done for God what he had previously promised.
In the same way…
3. We need to renew ourselves to be obedient.
As Jonah, we need to submit to the divine will with a promise to serve God.
For…
4. We have no hope apart from God.
Jonah boldly claims: “Salvation comes from the Lord.”
We have a sense here that Jonah has found the grace of God again.
And he is profoundly thankful.
He did not deserve special privileges or concessions.
He is a sinful human being who was one with all other sinful human beings who needed God’s grace.
His salvation is a gift of God, not from his own achievement.
APPLICATION:
ILL Notebook: God (box scores)
In an episode of "The X-Files," agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are in discussion with a prison chaplain who claims that God speaks directly to him. When Mulder expresses skepticism that such a thing could ever happen, Scully asks, "Don’t you think God can talk with people?"
Mulder replies, "God is just a spectator. He only reads the box scores."
How different that is from the biblical view of God.
How different that is from the view of God we find in this narrative.
For we find that God does care and that He does intervene.
So…
1. Rejoice that God extends the grace of the second chance (10).
And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Here is the end of a perfect rescue, in a very descriptive way.
Jonah was not left in the deep.
He was not sent to the surface to swim.
He is in no danger.
He is rejected by the fish, but accepted by God.
So…
2. Never doubt the love God has for you.
You see, for if an unattractive, unsympathetic, disobedient character like Jonah can pray while he suffered the consequences brought on himself, so can we!
God meets us even in our own self-imposed struggle and difficulty.
God wants to get us back on the right track.
And, He has what it takes to get us back on track!
So…
3. Watch God make the best of our worst.
No matter how bad we have made it, we have not made it impossible for God.
We can get it right this time, because God is pursuing us to save us.
It’s time to stop and get it right.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Get it right…if you are on the run, it is time to turn around; God has been speaking to you—don’t make Him have to use a more drastic action.
Get it right…when you know you are caught, don’t keep running—it is time to get your perspective and rejoice that God has not forsaken you, though you have forsaken him.
Get it right…realize the pursuit of God is for your benefit—He chases because He loves—He chases because He saves.
Now may the God of peace equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
