[00:00:00] We're on week two of our four week message series on the book of Jonah and last week we started out and we heard that God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, but instead he fled 3, 000 miles the other way to a place called Tarshish. And, and it didn't work out real well for him. If you were here, you remember the story.

[00:01:21] A great storm arose and it started to break up the ship that Jonah was on. the sailors were doing everything they could to try to prevent that from happening, but it was determined by casting of lots that Jonah was the one that was responsible for the misfortune that was, coming upon the ship and, we left it last week with them throwing Jonah overboard.

[00:01:43] So we're gonna pick up the story there this morning and we're gonna look at the last verse of chapter one and then we're gonna take a look at chapter two, but let's start with Jonah chapter one, verse seventeen, and it says this. Now, this is after they, they threw Jonah overboard. It says, Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and for three nights.

[00:02:11] Now, there's a couple things I want to say about that one verse before we go on to chapter two. the first thing that I want to say is, notice what it said is that God had sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Now we always hear it of Jonah in the well, that's how it is in all the kids books and so forth.

[00:02:28] But specifically, scripture says, it was a huge fish that swallowed Jonah. Now could it have been a Well, sure it could have. Could it have been a submarine that looked like a fish? It could have been that. Could it have been a UFO? I'm not personally fond of UFOs, but yeah, it could be a UFO that kind of looked like a fish.

[00:02:50] It could have been any of those things, and the reason I say that is a lot of people are like, if it was in the belly of a fish, how does a person live in there? I don't know, and I don't really care. how does God split a sea and allow you to walk in? It's a miracle, alright? we were not going to call it Jonah and the UFO.

[00:03:11] We're not gonna call it Jonah and the Submarine, and we're not even gonna call it Jonah and the Whale, since the Bible refers to it as the big fish, huge fish. We will call it a huge fish as well. Now, this passage as well is very, interesting in that it is, it has a very profound connection to not only the New Testament, but to Jesus himself.

[00:03:36] Look at what Jesus says about Jonah and him being swallowed by this huge fish. From Matthew chapter twelve, thirty eight to forty one, it says this: "Then some of the Pharisees and the teachers said to him, Teacher, we want a sign from you. And he answered, that is, Jesus answered, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but none will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

[00:04:06] For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And now something greater than Jonah is here."

[00:04:31] God commanded Jonah to go to a city to preach repentance to a city. God sent Jesus into this world not to preach repentance to a city, but to a world. and God saved Jonah by three days in the belly of the fish. The huge fish. God saved all of humanity. By Jesus, three days in the belly of the earth.

[00:05:01] And this is a significant passage because if nothing else, the fact that Jesus references as real that Jonah spent three days in the belly of a huge fish, it gives credence to the story even though it might be beyond our ability, be beyond our ability to understand how that could even happen. from this point on, then what I want to do is we want to turn to chapter 2, and we're gonna read through Jonah chapter 2, it's not really long, it's just 10 verses or so, so let's take a look at Jonah chapter 2, verses 1 to 10.

[00:05:35] Now, after being swallowed by the fish, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord as God. He said, In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the deep, in the realm of the dead, I called for help. And you listened to my cry. For you hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas.

[00:06:00] And the currents swirled around me. Your waves and your breakers, they swept over me. I said, I have been banished. From your sight, and I just gonna pause there for a second. Jonah Is feeling as he's sinking into the sea that he's been banished from the sight of God Because what he's done is so grievous.

[00:06:25] And I don't know about you, but have you ever done anything in your life in which you felt, banished from God? I think the encouraging thing is, even though Jonah feels like he's been banished, he's coming to God in repentance, and he's turning to God in prayer, trusting that even though in his, self, he feels like he's banished, he knows that God will listen to him.

[00:06:48] And so we must remember the same in those times in our life. He says, even though I feel like I've been banished from your sight, he says, yet I will look again to your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me. The deep surround me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head to the roots of the mountain I sank down.

[00:07:12] The earth beneath barred me in forever, but you Lord my God, you brought me up from the pit. when my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, and my prayers rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them, but I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will make good.

[00:07:43] I will say salvation comes from the Lord, and then the Lord commanded the fish. as I was working with this text this week, I'm thinking, I'm not sure in this situation being swallowed by a huge fish, I'm not sure who I feel worse for, Jonah or the fish? I feel bad for the fish because the fish didn't ask to be brought into the story, but God in a supernatural way commands.

[00:08:16] This huge fish to swallow Jonah, certainly wouldn't have been enjoyable, to swim three days, only presumably to have to beach itself, and vomit Jonah onto dry land. and honestly, it's not so pretty for Jonah either, because he's swallowed out of the water, so he's soaking wet, and I'm guessing the humidity in the belly of the fish is such, it's probably not drying out too much, sitting there for three days.

[00:08:46] And not only that, he gets vomited out by the fish onto dry land. He doesn't have a change of clothes. There's no rest areas along the way to Nineveh where he can just shower and clean up a little bit. So wet and covered in fish vomit, now he's got to go and do what God originally asked him to do.

[00:09:07] Who do you feel worse for, the fish or for Jonah? I guess I feel worse for the fish. Jonah deserved what he got. The fish was used by God. When I read this chapter two, there's really three different points that I want to, lift out of it and share with you this morning. And the first is this, is the Lord has a way to get your attention.

[00:09:34] The second is, we have to learn to pray when we find ourselves in the belly of a fish. And then, the third is, the Lord saves. The first is this, the Lord has a way to get our attention. God tried to get Jonah's attention by asking him to go to Nineveh. It says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, But that didn't get Jonah's attention.

[00:09:58] What got Jonah's attention is when he was thrown overboard. And as he describes it in his prayer, he's trying to stay afloat, but the waves are crashing over his head. He's gasping for air. If you've ever been in an angry ocean, and you're hit by one wave after another, you're just trying to, as you're bobbing, catch your breath while that's going on.

[00:10:18] Or maybe even as a kid. I had that experience at, Hurricane Harbor, it was called Wet Wild back then. You get in that stupid wave pool and you get in literally over your head and it can be a little, a little frightening as well as you're trying to catch your breath between these waves. And it says that then he started to sink.

[00:10:37] he talks about seaweed being wrapped around his head to the, to the bottom of the mountains he went and suddenly gulp. The huge fish comes and swallows him up. Now, God has Jonah's attention. And the Lord who knows how to get Jonah's attention also knows how to get your attention And, I get this question often.

[00:11:04] How do I know when God's, trying to speak to me? How do I know which way God's leading me? I think the answer to that's gotta be one or two things. Either He's not trying to speak to you in whatever situation you're trying to discern, or you're just choosing not to listen. And the reason I say that is we really shouldn't have to ask, how, do we hear God?

[00:11:27] How do we know? The God of the universe. Who not only created this earth and everything in it, but created the expanse of the sky, the stars, the galaxies, the entire universe. he can cause a fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah's, don't you think he probably has ability to speak in a way that we would have the ability to hear?

[00:11:53] So when we're not sure, it's probably because either he's not, or like Jonah originally, we just don't want to listen. and so what I'll hear also from people is how does he speak to you, or how would he speak? And I don't have the answer to that, because every one of us hears God differently.

[00:12:18] think about your own kids. You don't talk the same way to this kid as you do to that kid. They hear you differently. My brother heard best through a metal spoon.

[00:12:29] All my mom had to do to me is just give me a stair. I didn't need a metal spoon, just give me one of those stairs and I'll crumble before ya. We all hear God differently.

[00:12:45] But what's interesting in this story is how did Jonah hear God? He heard God by being thrown over a boat and get swallowed by a big fish. How did Pharaoh hear God? Pharaoh heard God through the ten plagues. How would Israel as a nation hear God? It was usually through An invading army. Now that's not how God originally spoke to any of them.

[00:13:14] When we think about that, we're like, man, when God speaks, it can be painful. Not at all. God originally spoke to Jonah by the word of the Lord coming to Jonah. Jonah just chose not to hear that. So it took the big fish and the sinking in the sea for Jonah to listen. God sent Moses to Pharaoh to tell Pharaoh, let my people go.

[00:13:35] Pharaoh just chose not to listen to that, so it required the ten plagues. God chose the prophets to come to Israel to warn them and to tell them, Israel just chose not to listen to the prophets, so it took the invading army. do you get what I'm saying? it's far better to listen to God when he's speaking to you the first time, than when ultimately God has to come through maybe more, troubling ways so that we would ultimately listen.

[00:14:10] How does God speak? he speaks through his word. God also will speak through the advice of others, godly men and women, that he puts in our lives. But then there's an element as well that God will speak through his Holy Spirit, which our bodies, our temples in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and God can very much speak to us personally that way as well.

[00:14:35] So the first thing that I want you guys to understand is God knows how to get your attention. The question is, are you listening? The second thing is this. We need to learn to pray from inside the fish. scripture gives us this detailed account of Jonah's prayer from inside the belly of this, smelly, stinky fish.

[00:15:03] And what I find interesting is Jonah doesn't know what's gonna happen to him at this point. All he knows is he was thrown overboard, he had disobeyed the Lord, and some fish had come and swallowed him up. He doesn't know, maybe he's gonna be digested slowly over the next three to five days. We're not told that God spoke to him in the belly of the fish, Jonah.

[00:15:26] I'm gonna take you now to Nineveh, it's gonna take three days, and my fish is gonna vomit you. God didn't tell Jonah, Jonah just knows he's been swallowed by the fish, and he's not complaining about it because it's a whole lot better than being, laying on the sea floor with seaweed wrapped around his head, and dead.

[00:15:47] And so from the belly of the fish he prays to the Lord. And my question to you is this. What do you do when you find yourself? in the belly of a big, stinky fish. Because life can be filled with big, stinky fish kind of moments all the time. Marriage and relationships, when they go through rough patches.

[00:16:20] It's, it, can sometimes make us feel like our life is out of control, it can at times be like when, relationships go really south, maybe we don't even want to live any longer. What do you do at times like that? What about when you're feuding with family members? conflict can be so incredibly draining.

[00:16:44] How do you handle that? What about friendship drama? You've lost maybe a good friend or maybe even your best friend in the loneliness that comes with that. What do you do when you get swallowed by a big stinky fish like that? How do you handle it? What about like workplace conflict? That's the worst, cause you can't avoid the situation.

[00:17:05] You gotta go to work. That's how you're gonna get a paycheck, but you don't wanna go to work. You don't wanna have to deal with the dysfunction that you may have there. How do you handle that? What about when you lose your job? That's certainly a big stinky fish moment, because you know what? So many of us tie our identity to our jobs.

[00:17:28] And not only is our identity tied to our jobs, let's face it, our finances are tied to our jobs in many respects. our future and our retirement are tied to our jobs. What about health crisis? there's some of us in here that we live in pain every day. When life becomes like that, how do you handle it when you're in a big stinky fish like that?

[00:17:52] Or how about when the doctor gives you news and, you're thinking, you know what? Is this the beginning potentially of the end? How do you handle times like that? What about in our failures? And here's the worst about failures, right? In failures, not only do we disappoint ourselves, but in our failures, we disappoint other people who, look up to us, maybe.

[00:18:16] What do you do at times like that? When your self esteem's struggling, when you're dealing with shame. What about in the poor decisions that we make? You know that, the worst thing about a poor decision, you can't ever go back and undo it. So what do you do when that big stinky fish What about financial crisis and you don't know if you have enough money to pay the mortgage the next month?

[00:18:41] And what about just general feelings of emptiness that times we struggle with, that sometimes turn into depression? Where we lose hope and it's a struggle to just even get out of bed in the morning. See, there's no shortage of big stinky fish moments that we will experience in our lives, but the question is How are you gonna handle them?

[00:19:05] Are you gonna panic? Are, you gonna go into freak out mode? Be filled with anxiety? Some of us get angry, like when, life gets really difficult, we'll kinda get angry and we'll lash out. For others, maybe we, curl up into a little ball and become timid and afraid. There's a lot of destructive ways in which we can handle those times in which life swallows us like a big stinky fish.

[00:19:33] But in the end, we need to do as Jonah does and, turn to God in prayer. We gotta pray to God in those situations like that. prayer is a powerful thing. in prayer we talk to the almighty, the creator of the universe, and in prayer we have faith that, that, he will save us from it.

[00:19:58] and there's Jonah in the middle of this fish. Listen, he's already been disobedient to God, but he's, he doesn't allow the being in the fish, like somehow that's going to prevent him from praying to God. For Jonah, those, for us, those prayers go to heaven, but for Jonah, those prayers are going to the temple.

[00:20:14] And it doesn't matter that fish is swimming. through the sea to Nineveh, that, that fish isn't going to prevent God from hearing his prayers. And we've got to remember when we're in those difficult times, our health isn't going to prevent God from hearing our prayers. Frankly, our sin is not going to prevent God from hearing our prayers.

[00:20:32] Our relationships, our job loss, whatever that big stinky fish type moment is, that's not going to hinder God from hearing our prayers. sometimes we just don't know how to pray. And I have to tell you, like When we're going through those difficult times in life, and we just don't know what to pray, I encourage you to go to the Psalms, because the, Psalms have, were written by, people who had a lot of big, stinky fish kind of moments.

[00:21:01] And they're really good at putting into words the feelings that oftentimes we feel when life goes a little south. Here's one of my favorite psalms from Psalm 121, and listen to these words as the psalmist cries out from his own big stinky fist. He says, I lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from?

[00:21:30] My help comes from the Lord. The Lord who's the maker of heaven and earth. For he will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. For the Lord watches over you, and the Lord is your shade at your right hand, and the sun will not harm you by day, nor will the moon by night.

[00:21:58] For the Lord will keep you from all harm, and he will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and your going both now and more. The Lord's watching over us even in those big stinky fish moments of life. How many of us find ourselves in a little bit of a belly of a fish right now in our lives?

[00:22:25] The first thing I wanna say is, you know what, be careful because it might be a blessing. Because it was that big stinky fish that, that ultimately saved Jonah. who is drowning in the water, and took him from where his will was and where he wanted to be, to where God wanted him to be. If we get swallowed at times in life by a big stinky fish, call out to God, and trust that God will use that to rescue you.

[00:22:53] Which leads to my third point, God knows how to speak to us, we need to when we find ourselves in the big stinky fish in those difficult times in life, and we can have confidence that the Lord would save. I think all of us in here have been situations in our lives where you just feel like you're in a free fall and you don't know where it's gonna end and how it's gonna turn out.

[00:23:19] What's encouraging is we see that the Lord saves.

[00:23:26] Especially take Jonah, none of us would have held it against God if, God had allowed Jonah to die, to drown. Because you got Jonah, who disobeyed God, when God said to go to Nineveh, he headed out to Tarshish. God, or Jonah not only disobeyed Him, but ultimately he defied God, and what's really worse is he's really hindering God's work.

[00:23:54] Because God wants a prophet to go to Nineveh to, preach repentance or its destruction and Jonah says no. He's literally standing in the way and hindering God. But even in spite of all that, the Lord chooses to save Jonah. Sometimes the way that the Lord chooses to save us isn't enjoyable.

[00:24:22] Sometimes it's, not ideal. It could not have been enjoyable or ideal to be in the belly of that fish and to be vomited up on the land and then to have to go walking for a three days journey through Nineveh with fish vomit dried up all over you. But that's how the Lord saved Jonah. I've shared with you the story of Tim Allen before.

[00:24:45] Tim Allen was, before he became the famous comedian and so forth, he was a punk. He was a young adult. he had multiple drug offenses where he was caught selling not huge amounts of drugs, but enough that it would be a felony. and after he was arrested the third time and faced his third felony, at that time, three strikes and you're out.

[00:25:07] He was gonna spend the rest of his life without parole in prison, because of that offense. he was offered a deal in which as long as he ratted out those people, the bigger fish, the people he got, the drugs from, they weren't gonna charge him with that. And that's exactly what he did.

[00:25:25] But God used that time in that prison. That was, that prison was that big stinky fish that ultimately saved and turned his life around. I've mentioned before, not as often, but Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson was an attorney for Richard Nixon, during the Watergate trial and he was charged with contempt of Congress and he was he was sentenced to seven months in jail.

[00:25:50] And it was during those seven months in jail that, that was that prison was that big stinky fish for Chuck in his life, and he became a devout follower of Christ. And he ended up forming Prison Fellowship, and then three years later, Prison Fellowship International, and then throughout the course of his life, he ended up writing like 30 different books about God and his relationship with God, and such.

[00:26:16] It's a big stinky fish moment, like the Lord's gonna save, but it may not be enjoyable in how he does it. I was thinking even on a much smaller scale, but in a scale that I could relate to. I thought about this even in terms of my own life. when I was younger and I lived in Western New York, I, I was like half good kid, half punk kid.

[00:26:42] And the last year I lived in Western New York, I was just in fourth grade, but already in fourth grade, I cussed like a sailor. I I would find cigarettes or cigarette butts or whatever, if there's anything left to smoke on it, I'd be smoking it, I, was not headed in a great direction.

[00:27:05] But my parents ended up splitting up and divorcing and, my stepdad was in the Air Force and he got, stationed in, Tucson, Arizona. And so at the end of the fourth grade year, I moved with my. mother and my stepdad, out to Tucson. My brother stayed in New York, my father obviously was in New York, my grandma and grandpas were there, my aunts and uncles, all my friends were all there.

[00:27:30] And I have to tell you, despite lots of prayers to God to change that situation, to save me from that situation, I look back and the Lord saved me by taking me out of that situation. Because I'm pretty sure that, If I had stayed there, it was small town ish, went to a small private school, and here's a little warning guys, sometimes we think by sending our kids to small private schools, that solves all the problems.

[00:27:54] No, sometimes that creates problems. Because I felt like, big stuff there. But I'm here to tell you, when I got moved from small town, small school, private school, Christian school, to bigger city, public school, it, that was a scary time in my life, and guess what? I leaned into God pretty heavily during that time, and that's where my relationship with him really grew.

[00:28:18] it wasn't enjoyable. it was a horrible experience, but I look back at it, and I see how the Lord saved me from that, and put a different course in my direction, in my life, though I, didn't deserve it. And, Jonah didn't deserve it, and Tim Allen didn't deserve it, and Chuck Colson didn't deserve it.

[00:28:39] The Lord saves even when we don't deserve it, which leads me to my last point. That ultimately when we look here at Jonah chapter 2, when we see that God saves, we have to go back to that passage that Jesus points to. That as Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish, so the man, the son of God will spend three days in the belly of the earth.

[00:29:02] Jesus came into this world, why? Because, God loved us so much that he wanted to reconcile the world to himself. And as Jesus went to his grave, he went to death, by his dying our sins were forgiven, but by his coming out of the belly of the earth, we receive heaven and eternal life.

[00:29:23] And it's real easy for us to be like, you know what, I don't deserve that, and you don't. You don't deserve that. You don't. And I don't. I don't deserve it. But honestly, Jonah didn't deserve being saved from his situation. But God, in spite of deserving it, does it. And scripture says that while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus came into this world.

[00:29:43] And he saved us. I hope that you and I will never, at least going forward, find ourselves running from the Lord. But if we do, I hope he gets your attention. as he got Jonah's attention, and preferably with a big smelly fish, and that when you're inside that big smelly fish, you will repent as Jonah did, and that you will turn to God, and cry out to God, and pray to God, and that you will know his salvation even as Jonah did.

[00:30:18] Would you join me in a word of prayer? Gracious almighty God, we just thank and praise you for this, for this morning, to be able to come and to read further about the story of Jonah and I don't know where each of us are at this morning, gracious God, but I do know this, that you have the ability to get our attention.

[00:30:36] And I just pray that you would get it, merciful God, if you need to get it. I pray that you are able to get it the, first and the second and the third way you try. But if you can't, then that you get it in the way that you oftentimes get it, through a big smelly fish. And I pray, gracious God, that if we find ourselves there, that you would give us a heart that repents, that we would turn to you, that we would cry out to you from the midst of our, troubles, that we, wouldn't lash out in anger, that we wouldn't feel sorry for ourselves, but that we would simply cry out to you.

[00:31:08] And that, gracious God, that, you'd save us from the hurts, the pains, the struggles, the difficulties that we find ourselves in this life, as ultimately you saved us from our own spiritual, struggles. In giving us forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, it's in his name that we pray. Amen.