Oskaloosa Evangelical Church
Sermon Text: Jonah 1:1-3,17; 2:1, 10
Sermon Title: Fish food for thought
Sunday, June 11th 00
Scripture Introduction:
I think everyone has their favorite Bible story, and many times we find ourselves able to identify with a character or some specific sets of circumstances. Jonah, like many of us, distinctly heard God communicate His will and Jonah like many of us chose to ignore, explain away, edit, or modify what God had commanded of them. Jonah had no idea of the scope of God’s power. He thought if he sailed away God couldn’t do anything about what he was doing or in this case not doing. Jonah’s predicament goes from bad to worse to extremely bad. How many times do we do things without realizing that God has full knowledge of all of our activities. As children when we were busy sneaking that cookie out of the cookie jar, if we couldn’t pull that one over on mom, how could we ever expect to fool God? Jonah learns a lesson about the power of God, the scope of God, the patience of God, the forgiveness of God, and the perseverance of God.
Please join me in the reading of God’s Holy Word!
Scripture Reading: 1:1-3, 17; 2:1, 10
Jonah 1:1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." 3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
1:17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish,
2:10 Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
Introduction:
I chose this section of Scripture because in many cases, I can identify with many of the situations that Jonah experienced. I also felt God calling me and instead of following God, I put all of my time and energy into running from God. How many of us out of fear of failure or perhaps the unknown find themselves fleeing from instead of into the loving arms of Jesus?
We also all find out that when we avoid what God is calling us to, we often also find ourselves outside of His blessings. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen in the past that whenever we cut back on our tithes, inevitably our financial situation suffered, or at least wasn’t as fruitful as the times when we remained faithful. Jonah was not obeying the will of God, so as a result his little cruise turned to a near fatal experience. He was definitely Paying the Price. How many things in our past would fit that same explanation?
Jonah comes to his senses in the belly of a really big fish, puts two and two together and begins to pray. Our God is a truly awesome and forgiving God and as a result there is forgiveness. Realizing the errors of our ways, we have the opportunity to strike out again and follow the will of God.
When we pray for deliverance from the results of our human follies, we need to realize that the rescue we want may not come in the form and the timetable that we would like. I think there are times when we find ourselves waiting in order to be rescued for the purpose of knowing without a doubt that God is responsible for our delivery. Jonah may have thought about how fortunate he was to have been vomited out of the fish and on to dry land, when he was in many respects rescued the moment that fish ate him. Without that stroke of God’s grace after being thrown from the ship, he most certainly would have perished. There are many ways that we can Be delivered from our misfortunes.
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer!
POINT 1: Like Jonah, we have all probably had times in our past when we ran from the will of God, and there may even be those that if they look thoroughly enough at their lives today would probably realize that they are Running from God at this very moment. How did Jonah react to God calling Him to minister to the Ninevites? We read in the third verse of the first chapter.
3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
Now Jonah made a couple of mistakes here; first, God does not take no for an answer and secondly, you can’t outrun God. Jonah thought if he would hit the highway, he would soon find himself outside of God’s jurisdiction. I’m going to share a little of my experience in the way I chose to answer God’s call. In many ways I thought along the same lines as Jonah. In 1974, in a little church on the South-side of Chicago, I distinctly heard the Lord call me to preach.
This came as quiet a surprise to me because I come from a family that not only did not go to church, and this includes Easter and Christmas. I was forbidden to attend Vacation Bible School and I had to hide the Bible that a friend of mine had given me. What was a person going to do that had basically no idea of what the inside of a church would look like on a regular basis. I decided to make myself as undesirable to God as possible. I entered a world of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and I lived in that world for almost 25 years. I neglected to realize the power of God and His ability to see us for what we can be and not the way we were when He found us. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment, how many of us feel that we are able to affect some kind of good for the kingdom of God? We are all able to accomplish things for the kingdom of heaven and whatever abilities or traits that we don’t have that we will need, God will either provide them or will allow us the opportunity to acquire the skills that we will need.
[So there we are, thinking that we were so high and mighty that we could outrun or better yet outwit God. What happens next? As a child, what happens when we go against what our parents told us to do? In my case, I would either get a spanking from mom or a beating from dad. God demands obedience and for the most part in our decisions to run from His will we are acknowledging the fact that we are disobeying, and by doing so, heap upon ourselves the reward that we have coming, and that is correction.]
POINT 2: No matter how much people say that they enjoy a particular sinful activity, no one seems very interested in Paying the Price. We knew that there was something to pay for everything that we want or do. This is no different, only the fact that it is all avoidable makes the difference. In the first chapter and the seventeenth verse we read -
1:17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah goes from the flames right into the frying pan – or is it the frying pan into the flames, I guess that it doesn’t matter either way because Jonah at this point probably imagined that his goose is cooked. The ship was about to be broken apart due to the fact that he was running from God and made no attempt to hide that fact from the crew. We read in verse 10 Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, "How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Jonah’s problems were compounding themselves. He runs from God by means of a boat. God causes a great storm and because he is the reason for the stormy sea, they throw him overboard. Jonah may have been thinking, WHAT NEXT! So along comes this huge fish, and Jonah becomes supper.
What did I accomplish in my 25 years of running from God, hiding behind the bottle and various drugs? All I accomplished was loosing the blessings of our almighty God, becoming sicker and weaker and then almost entered an eternity of endless torment and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Where have you found yourselves after a time of running from God?
[There is an interesting concept that goes along with this particular point in Jonah’s life. What would have happened if the fish hadn’t swallowed him? At the time when this occurred I’m sure what was actually happening, and what Jonah was imagining were two entirely different things. Jonah thought, OH GREAT, NOW I’VE JUST BECOME AN ENTRÉE. Wake up Jonah, you have just been rescued from drowning. When I reached a certain point in my attempt to make myself unusable for God, what I though was my deathbed was actually the beginning of my road to recovery. Jonah found himself in the belly of a fish, I had allowed myself to get so far down that I would have to be taken by an ambulance to the hospital. I had bronchitis, and pleurisy. The fact that I was drinking excessively, smoking almost three packs of cigarettes a day, not eating, and sleeping only after I passed out, wasn’t allowing my body to fight the effects of the illness. That particular day, I had been drinking excessively, far more than the normal bender for me. I woke up about 4 in the morning on the back stairway of a building in downtown Grinnell and made my way home. My lungs we filling with fluid and because I was so sedated from the effects of the alcohol, it wasn’t bothering me anymore. I went home, got into bed, and as my lung capacity was reduced the oxygen level slowly dropped until I lapsed into unconsciousness. I was now suffocating with no hope on my own.]
POINT 3: There are different points in each of our lives that are referred to as our crisis points. Though the end result is often for the better, at the moment that we are at that point you would be hard pressed to convince us that it is for our own good. This is the point in time where we are Realizing the errors of our ways. Let’s read the very first verse of the second chapter.
2:1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish,
Jonah thought his predicament was rather grim and resorted to the only solution that he could imagine. He petitioned the same God whom he thought he could outrun. We have to remember from our viewpoint, that had it not been for the fact that Jonah was swallowed by the fish, he would probably have drowned.
I woke in the emergency room with bright lights shining in my face. I was surrounded by people that I had never met and I was in severe pain. Every breath that I took caused a stabbing pain in my side and as I took each breath I heard a gurgling sound. My arms were tied to the sides of the bed and IV’s were running in both of my arms, there were electrodes taped to my chest and I traced the wires to the machine that was beeping in time with my heart-beat. My face was covered with a mask that was hissing with the oxygen that I was being given. I knew I was in bad shape. I couldn’t move, I hurt and I had I had no idea of where I was or how I got there. I thought from the way that I was feeling that I was about to die. From the pain that I was feeling I was almost positive. Jonah perhaps thought that the end was certainly near so prayer was his only recourse. I thought I was going to die so I looked back at some Scripture that I remembered and I decided that I would claim this promise. In Romans 10:10-11, we read, 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." I felt the Lord once again calling me to preach as a stipulation for once again showing mercy where no mercy was deserved.
[Have you ever thought of how ridiculous we might have thought the possibilities were that through something so terrible we could emerge so much the better? Jonah prayed for deliverance from the belly of the whale while I was praying to be freed from the inevitable death that the years of alcoholism and other addictions have led me to. I have to admit that at first I was quite skeptical about the possibilities of freedom from the addictions, in fact I was skeptical about much of what people had been telling me about the possibilities of changes through God.]
POINT 4: We look at the way we have lived our lives and we are truly undeserving of the grace that God gives us. We are truly unworthy of Being delivered from our misfortunes. What was the result of Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the fish? We read in the tenth verse of the second chapter:2:10 Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. The Lord answered the prayers of Jonah. The Lord then commanded Jonah to go and do what caused all the problems for Jonah to begin with, we read in the third chapter; 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." Even though Jonah was not immediately obedient to God, the Lord still commanded him to proclaim God’s word. Jonah found his deliverance from the belly of the whale and I found my deliverance from alcohol, drugs and nicotine. Even though I ran from God for 25 years the call to preach was still there.
Conclusion: We look at the Old Testament account of Jonah and we see more than just a lesson in life that God is trying to bring to our attention, we see ourselves in the mirror. How many of us will admit to Running from God at some point or another during their lives? There may even be those that are at this very moment saying no to God’s will for their lives or at least trying to rearrange the costs upon us. Jonah thought he could simply put distance between God and himself and in so doing avoid his responsibilities. Many of us have tried the very same thing but to no avail. There is no place that we can run to where God isn’t, well there is and we certainly don’t wish to spend our eternity there.
Even as children we find out that there is a consequence for our disobedience. We fail to obey our parents and we may find ourselves without certain privileges or maybe perhaps even a swat on the butt. It is all a part of Paying the Price. Jonah chose to run and as a result, things went every which way but smooth. I chose to make myself as unattractive as possible as I ran from God’s call to preach. In the process, I paid some severe consequences; I lost my health, I almost lost my family, and I came very close to losing my opportunity for an eternity in heaven with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We know the alternative to that eternity and it is anything but pleasant.
Sometimes we have to travel a pretty difficult path before we realize that God’s plan may not be the ritziest, glitziest or easiest but since only He knows the beginning and the end of all, He knows the best way. Sometimes things need to become very hot and very difficult before we begin to start Realizing the errors of our ways. Jonah became a snack before He realized that the God that he was running for was all powerful and everywhere. Jonah learned through a lesson in misery that the God that he ran from was the God that He needed to pray to was the God who could ultimately deliver Him.
Hooked to all of that machinery, hearing the beeps of the heart monitor, the hiss of the oxygen and feeling the tension caused by the restraints and the IV’’, I realized that the God I was running from all along was always directly ahead of me and as I hit my lowest point of all, I poured out my heart in the most earnest plea that I had ever made in my life. I had the Scripture locked in my memory and deep within my heart I uttered all that I could muster, I uttered the plea from deep within my heart – Help Me Lord, and the Holy Spirit finished my plea for me.
I was Being delivered from my misfortunes. I was almost immediately delivered from my craving for alcohol and within two weeks from the chains of nicotine. Jonah was ejected from the belly of the fish and was commanded to again go to Ninevah. He went and what was the result?
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. 4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8 "But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 9 "Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish." 10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Jonah was delivered from the stomach of the fish and went about the things that God commanded and he had great success. A little sidenote on Jonah after he was spit up from the whale. He was in the stomach for three days, so he was partially digested. He would have been quite the sight because his clothes would have been bleached white from the stomach acid along with his skin and hair. There is a special quality when we reach out to those that we know and share what God has done for us. No matter how strange the story, the things that they hear from us may be the reassurance that they need when something similar happens to them. Let’s bow our heads and reflect on just where we are in our relationship with Jesus today. Have you been asked to do something by the Lord but for one reason or another choose to go the other way? Stop running, there is no amount of distance that can remove you from His sight. Are you facing consequences for your actions? Then Go to the Lord in prayer and ask for that deliverance. Ask and then believe. If you are being called then it is time to fulfill God’s will right now.
