WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Jonah 1:17, 2:1-2 (King James Version): Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
Oftentimes, we look around, and things seem deplorable and devastating. Sickness, disease, and limited finances consume our thoughts. Life stuff has no rhyme or reason for happening. And then, when it happens, why does it seem to happen to you? Life can be hell. But here you are saved and sanctified, and hell is coming at you full force. Being saved doesn’t mean that hell stops. As a matter of fact, hell kicks up a notch because you’re saved. Just because you have been renewed in your thinking doesn’t mean hell stops. Hell is on assignment for your mind. Hell is on assignment for your life. Hell wants to attach itself to anything and everything that is important to you. Hell wants your anointing. As a matter of fact, hell wants you! Hell can be a place and an emotion. The pit. The lowest place. The hurtful place. The place that is the opposite of all that is good. The place of devastation. The place where misery resides.
Being saved doesn’t mean that hell stops. As a matter of fact, hell kicks up a notch because you’re saved. Just because you have been renewed in your thinking doesn’t mean hell stops. Hell is on assignment for your mind. Hell is on assignment for your life. Hell wants to attach itself to anything and everything that is important to you. Hell wants your anointing. As a matter of fact, hell wants you! Hell can be a place and an emotion. The pit. The lowest place. The hurtful place. The place that is the opposite of all that is good. The place of devastation. The place where misery resides.
When you’re going through hell, you need the word of God planted in your mouth. When you’re going through hell, you need to be able to articulate what thus saith the Lord about a matter. When you’re going through hell, you need to be able to speak God’s promises about your situation, rather than the situation itself.
When you’re sick, what you want to be talking about is what God says about you getting well. When you’re broke, what does God say about being wealthy? The word of God is going to keep you as you go through hell. What you talk about when you’re in hell is just as important as what you talk about when you’re not.
Because you have established a relationship with God when you are in the pit of misery, when you’re dealing with depression, when you’re dealing with anxiety or loneliness, you should have a word that you can stand on. When you understand the power of God’s promises over your life, while you’re going through something, you have enough of the word of God to keep your mind in perfect peace.
In this text, Jonah had been given an assignment from God to go to Nineveh, so he might preach against the wickedness there, but Jonah decided that the assignment was not important enough for him to be obedient. Well, the truth of the matter is, there are consequences to disobedience.
Deuteronomy 28:15 (KJV): But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.
And so now Jonah finds himself fleeing from the assignment of God to Tarshish, on a ship, in the middle of the sea. The King James Version describes the sea as “tempestuous.” In other words, it was turbulent, wild, and conflicting.
There are several things we can learn from this text. When you disobey and try to escape the will of God, things around you, that may have been calm, will become raging because you don’t belong there.
Secondly, when you’re going through hell, everyone is not going to want to go with you, just because you’ve decided to be disobedient. The text shows us that, after the shipmen threw Jonah overboard, the seas became calm. Then, the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow him up. In other words, Jonah was in hell.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God, the text says. When you have a relationship with God, what you do ordinarily will become a natural occurrence when you’re in hell. When you’re in hell, prayer is the key! Praying to God during your time in hell will bring, not only comfort, but direction.
Not only did Jonah pray, but he cried. The reason why many of us don’t receive deliverance from a thing is because we haven’t cried out to God. The text says, I cried by reason of my affliction…and He heard me. When your own affliction causes you to cry out, God hears you. My question to you today is, are you crying out to God? When you’re going through hell, what in hell are you talking about?
Some time ago, I went to a nail shop, and as I usually do, I struck up a light conversation with the nail technician, who was servicing me. After we exchanged pleasantries, I asked her if she had come to the States to go to school or for another reason. She responded, “You’re not really interested in hearing my story, are you?” I responded, “Sure. I would love to hear your story.” It turns out her family were refugees from Vietnam, and they stole away in a refugee boat. They were called “boat people.” From 1978 to 1995, Vietnamese refugee camps were alive and well.
She said, while her family was out in the middle of the ocean, water started coming into their boat. They almost drowned. The sweltering sun beat on their faces by day, scorching their lips and skin. But even during this tumultuous life event, for some reason, they kept saying, “Someone is going to see us.” Her family knew that they had to get to America.They spent eleven days in the open sea. “It was hell,” she said, but their declaration remained the same on the eleventh day as it was on the first day: “Someone is going to see us.”
Don’t you know, when God wants you to be seen, you will be seen? He will set everything in motion, just for you, so He can get glory out of a situation. Some folks try to be seen before God is ready for them to be visible! We try to put things in motion and people in place, but it’s not God’s timing. God wants to get the glory out of our lives through and in every situation.
And so it was, on the eleventh day, a big Norwegian ship was on the seas, in the middle of a great storm, en route to the United States. Someone on that ship saw something in the ocean. In the middle of the raging seas and onslaught of winds, someone saw them, and they were saved and brought to the United States.
What am I saying? God sees you in the midst of your hell! Jonah had been in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. But when God has a plan for your life, even in your disobedience, you will get to your predestined place. When God has a plan for your life, you may go through some tempestuous times, like Jonah. You may even try to run from God’s plan, but because it’s God’s plan, you will get to the other side. This woman’s testimony blessed my life because she had been in the ocean, essentially in the middle of nowhere, for eleven days. She said, “I don’t know where I was to this day, but I know where I ended up.” Glory to God! She said, “I know I could have been dead, but God sent a miracle! God sent help!” At the end of her story, she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” At this point, I thought I was being punked or, perhaps, she was delirious from the chemicals in the nail salon. But God reminded me that she had arrived in the United States following an eleven-day journey on a boat. It was hell! But somebody saw them!
What God told me was “Tracy, if you were in hell like she was for eleven days and were able to tell your story of being a refugee many years later, now that you had finally gotten to the place where you’d set out to get, you, too, would be singing ‘Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.’ We take life for granted! We take freedom for granted! If it had not been for the Lord, who was on our side, where would we be? At the conclusion of her song, she looked at me and smiled and said, “Thank you for listening to my story. I’m singing because I have a job. I’m singing because I’m alive.”
God sees each of us, whether we’re in the belly of a great fish or in our hell moments. If we just keep the faith, remember His word, and cry out to Him, nothing is impossible.
Dear Father, when life seems to be so overwhelming and feels like we’re in hell, help us to remember that you, El Roi, see us. Thank you for your saving grace. May we continue to profess your promises. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
