HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF
JONAH CHAPTER 2
I want to bring the message out of chapter 2 but let us look at chapter 1 for a moment.
You see God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh a northern country. Well known for its cruelty and Jonah did not think much about traveling up there he just thought he would travel elsewhere.
So Jonah sets out in the opposite direction, running from what God had ask him to do. Jonah finds himself a ship and gets on it and a storm comes up as God had prepared it. Ultimately Jonah ends up being thrown overboard and he gets swallowed up by a big fish, or as we call it a whale.
Now let’s pick up the passage here in chapter 2.
READ ALL OF CHAPTER 2
I want to use a simple phrase; this phrase was used as an advertisement by a product called Rolaids. And it goes something like this, “How do you spell relief.”
When your questions can’t be answered, when things are nagging and eating away at you, circumstances are beyond your control or out of hand – How do you spell relief?
When the load is heavier than you can bear, pressure seems to be pressing you down and your soul seems to be crashed – How do you spell relief?
Now I know some of you women might say us men spell relief, F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L or H-U-N-T-I-N-G or F-I-S-H-I-N-G
But you men might say women spell relief, S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G or W-A-L-M-A-R-T
We all have our way of spelling relief, some way to release that tension or pressure on us.
But if we could ask Jonah today how he spells relief, I believe he would spell relief, P-R-A-Y-E-R.
Jonah is certainly under pressure, and all stressed out. We can tell that from chapter 2 and what does he do?
When he is at rock bottom and about as low as you can get, what does he do? He draws upon the resources God has given him and everyone for times like this and he begins to do what?
We all can do it…. He begins to pray.
Here he has found his release and relief in that sweet time of prayer.
Now, there is three (3) things I want to point out to you here concerning prayer in Jonah Chapter 2
#1- The asking for prayer – In verse 1 notice it says, “Jonah Prayed.”
Jonah is asking God for relief of his problems. I sense an uplifting in his prayer. After Jonah had walked away from God then ended up in the belly of a whale, I’m sure those men on that boat that just threw him overboard sad, “we will never see that guy anymore, he is gone for good, it’s all over for him.”
But Jonah prayed, just when you think it’s over, prayer can pull you out of it. I don’t know about you, but I’m encouraged by that.
If the thief on the cross can pray, if Simon Peter after he denied Christ three ties can pray and they can get a hold of God, I don’t care who you are or where you are today, I‘ve got good news, I‘ve got some encouraging words for you, you can pray too!
Oh but preacher, you don’t know me, you don’t know what I have done in the past. You don’t know where I came from, you don’t know what I have been into.
LISTEN CLOSELY CHURCH I DON’T CARE IF YOU ARE AT ROCK BOTTOM – YOU CAN STILL PRAY!
There are times when I feel as low as the devil or wicked as the devil but thank God I can pray. I can go and get in prayer with God and the Holy Ghost can bring me out of there.
Think of when Jonah is praying, I do not think there is a bad time to pray, but there’s better times to pray.
We should pray in times of decisions, when we come to those crossroads that’s a good time to pray. Why wait until you made up your mind and then find out that you were wrong and go grieving over the mess you got yourself into.
We should pray in times of disobedience – Jonah should have prayed before he jumped on that ship. When he started running from God. When you know that God is telling you to go and do something, but you go in the other direction. That there is a good time to pray.
We need to stop and start doing God’s will in our lives we need to stop and ask, “God what is your will in my life”
Oh, church we should pray in a time of disobedience, in a time of decisions and a time of danger.
When Jonah was in that ship and the storm was rocking that ship all over the place, Jonah should have stopped and prayed, “God stop this storm” That would have been a great time to pray.
Look – I’m not going to throw any stones at Jonah here, I’ve been right there in that same ship as he was, rocking and being thrown around and I did not stop and pray.
Also it’s never too deep to prey.
It’s never too late to pray, again I do not care how far you have sunk or journey on that trip, and it’s never too late to pray.
Yea, it would have been better if Jonah would have prayed before he made that decision of being disobedient that put him in danger when he got on that ship.
Yea, it would have been better if he would have prayed before he got threw over the side of that ship.
But I’ve got encouragement for you today, it’s still not too late to pray.
You might say – You just don’t know how bad it really is- I don’t care, it’s not too late to pray.
Where is Jonah praying? – I’m encouraged to know where you can pray. Jonah was in a belly of a whale about two maybe three miles deep in the ocean, down in the darkness, in a place man cannot live, but Jonah prayed, and God could hear him. If God can hear Jonah down in the depts he can surely hear us on dry land!
I don’t care how deep you are today or how deep in the ocean you might be but let me tell you this God doesn’t have any problems hearing your prayers today.
Let’s look who Jonah is praying to in Chapter 2, - he is praying to God! He is not praying for those fishermen to catch this whale and pull him out of his belly. He is praying to the one that can do anything, anyplace, anytime!
But some people were saying it is too late for Jonah, it is too bad of a situation for him. He is gone it’s over.
WAIT A MINUTE, listen, he is praying to God, and God can do anything!
That’s the asking of prayer,
Let’s look at #2-
#2- The activity of prayer.
Prayer is an active force; it has power in it to achieve what needs to be done.
When you have tried everything else and it has all failed, go before God in the simple act of prayer. Then you will find prayer really works.
Again, notice in Chapter 2 when Jonah prayed to God, God was moved to activity. In verse 10 it says, “The Lord spoke unto the fish”, if God can speak to a fish, wonder what he can do with our prayer?
God was moved thru prayer, prayer can move God, Jonah prayed, and God moved!
Jonah could not do anything; he was in a situation where he is stuck…right there in the belly of a whale. Bur Jonah could do one thing and he prayed and pray he did and then God took over.
When God takes over, mountains are moved, eyes are made to see again, the lame will be made to walk, water will turn to wine, the dead will be raised, there will be thousand feeds with little food on hand.
Not only did prayer move God but I noticed it moved the world, didn’t it?
The Bible says in verse 10, “and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land.”
Now get this – a whale is huge, if it gets close to land that fat body of that whale will get stuck in the sand. Jonah was not spit out in the water; it says on dry land.
God moved, the land moved, the whale moved, and Jonah was sure glad he was moved.
Reckon prayer can move anything for you?
Reckon prayer can move anything for me?
Do you know the bulk of prayer is all about?
The bulk of prayer is not so much of changing circumstances and situations, but God does many times if it’s His will.
But every time if you really pray, I can’t promise you every time the whale will spit you out, I cannot promise you that God will do everything you are asking him to do, if you really engage in prayer, I can promise you that prayer will move you!
Prayer brings us to the place where we accept what God wants done in our life and changes us.
It changed Jonah, when you get time look back in Chapter 1, see how Jonah acts toward God. Now here in Chapter 2 old Jonah is praying as hard as he can to God, prayer has changed him.
There are several types of prayer we can do.
1- We can do repetitive prayers, like the Lord’s Prayer, The Lord is my Shepherd.
2- We can do respectful prayers – as we bow our heads to thank him for our food.
3- We can do responsible prayers – as we pray for one another.
But none of these will ever pile up when we get down on our knees and get into a real genuine Holy Ghost praying prayer!
That kind of praying comes from the inner most depths of our souls.
We won’t have to be told to pray,
We won’t have to read to pray,
We won’t have to listen to pray!
We will just pray!
Jonah is not reading no books on prayer down there. He I not even listening to this good preaching, and nobody is pointing any fingers saying, “You better pray.”
Listen church, He can’t do nothing else but to pray.
This came from the depths of his soul.
Look in verse 4, - Prayer made Jonah repent.
The Bible says, “I will look again toward the Holy Temple.”
Not only will prayer change you and move you, but it will also make you repent.
Look down in verse 7 – Jonah cried out, it says “I remember the Lord” Jonah is repenting from his ways, ole Jonah now is getting focused on God!
Look in verse 9, Jonah said “But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.”
Ole Jonah was saying, God I’m a getting things right, all the way and what I told you I was going to do to begin with, I’m going to do it.
You let me out of here, I’m going to Nineveh!!!
I want to tell you something, when you get down to business and God really gets you in a place of prayer, you begin to cry out to him, you won’t be trying to keep up your batting average by saying you have prayed for 30 minutes. You won’t even be keeping up with the time. You will be more concerned on what you are praying about than how long you prayed.
You are more concerned with the God that will hear you!
If anyone tells you they stayed up to 4 o’clock in the morning – mark it down – they did not pray they just stayed up and counted the clock and time.
None of that is important, what is important is your soul, your soul getting in touch with God.
Who cares how long it takes, just pray for God to move!!!!!!!!
The 3rd thing I want to bring, and I will close with this,
#3 - THE ANSWER TO PRAYER
God has to be the one that answers your prayer. You can’t do it, man can’t do it, and God has to answer your prayers.
In chapter 2 vs 10, it says, “God spake to the whale”.
Old Jonah could have talked until the whales fins fell off and nothing would have happened, except he would have died in there. But when God spoke, the whale did as God spoke.
God answers prayers his way, not our way. In the New Testament it states when Jesus healed a blinded man in Bethsaida in Mark 8:23 the Word says Jesus' spit on his eyes, and he was healed.
Mark 8:23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
Why? I don’t mind being healed but don’t spit on me!
Ain’t there a better way to go about this, more dignified? But you see God does not worry about that, He’s got His own way of doing things.
Look at Jonah here, God had that whales vomit him out! He didn’t let Jonah just walk out there on that whale's tongue and start waving at the people on the land.
He had old Jonah puked up! (BLAALACK)
Let me tell you something, Jonah didn’t smell too good either!
He was in that whale's belly for a while. He had old watered down and slimy seaweed wrapped around him, properly other fish that whale had eaten all on him. Have you ever been sick to your stomach and did what that whale did, it just kind of smells.
But God answer’s prayers his way, and Jonah was just glad to get out and on dry land.
Also, we are demanding in our prayers, we sometimes tell God how, we want it answered and at what time to do it.
If it was left up to us, we would have this world in a bigger mess than it is now, and it is pretty messed up right now!
The answer to prayer is simple- It is just we should want God’s will and not ours.
Besides church, God will do it in His own will and time anyways.
It’s simple – Just pray that God’s will be done, why?
Because God answers prayer.
I’ve got good news for you today,
God answer prayers,
I don’t care how deep you are.
I don’t care what your past is.
I don’t care what terrible things you have done.
God answers prayer!
Close
Is there a burden laying on your shoulders you just can’t get rid of?
Are you so down and deep in sadness or just confused and there is no more places to run?
I’ve got good news, God answers prayers, and I ask you all now?
How do you spell relief?
It’s your chance to just get with God and pray and allow God to move on your prayers.
Have God relieve you of that pressure that is all around you.
Have God take that stress you have been dealing with in your life.
The good news this morning is, God answers prayer.
I want to spell relief with P.R.A.Y.E.R.
How about you?
