Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Prayer for Relief from Acid Indigestion
Swimming – Doing the Praying Back Stroke
(Jonah’s Prayer from Inside the Fish)
Jonah 2, Ed Riddick, December 27, 2009

Introduction:
1.     Brokenness: It’s all about being useful

The story of horses – Cindy

 

 

This is the dark night of the soul for Jonah.  God went to great lengths to get Jonah to obey him. But there is a larger picture – sharpening a tool to be useful in the Master’s hands.

 

Life is not a bowl of cherries.  At times it’s the pits.
The storms of life overtake us, the waves of circumstances overwhelm us.
We become stressed out,
Our circumstances are moving us along with them and we feel our lives are out of our control
We feel tied up, like our circumstances have boxed us in.
What is going on?  Jonah’s story sheds some light.

 

2.         Review:
Chapter One: Jonah is an unbroken man.  God has a job for him to do. Jonah is self-willed and self-centered.  He doesn’t want to do what

God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh.  But the Assyrians were a treat to Israel.  They were warlike and violent. Jonah had a national prejudice against Nineveh.

So, when God had a plan and purpose for Jonah and a job for him to do He said, “Go to Nineveh.”  But Jonah was an unbroken man and he decided to stay in control of his own life and he headed in the opposite direction.

To be near to God and have Him near to us is the main purpose in life.  But without sincere repentance this face-to-face fellowship is greatly hindered.

Storm
Proud, stubbornly resisted God and he ran from God and became depressed to said in a manner of speaking, “I’d rather die at sea than go to Nineveh.”  But God a gracious and compassionate.  He has a plan and purpose for Jonah as He does us.  So God begins a breaking process.

The necessity of bringing sin out into the light

Jonah 1:7-10 “And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.”

 

In the bottom of the ship, Jonah was living in the shadow world of anonymity and non-responsibility.

Bringing the reality of identity and inner condition of the soul out into the open is a necessary part of taking personal responsibility for our own lives.

Os Guinness in Time for Truth
“In making a voluntary confession to someone else – God above all – we freely go on record against ourselves.” He goes on to say that “the liberating and reordering force of confession and the priceless value of those whose close fellowship makes it possible for us to confess without shame.”

 

St. Augustine wrote in Confessions used the term true brothers for those who would point each other to Jesus for confession  “But my true brothers are those who rejoice for me in their hearts when they find good in me, and grieve for me when they find sin. They are my true brothers, because whether they see good in me or evil, the love me still.”

G.K. Chesterton in What’s Wrong with the World?  “When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.”

 

The Lord sent Nathan to David
2 Samuel 12:5-7 “Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man!“

 

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!“

 

The sailors attempted to rescue Jonah.
This would only have enabled him to continue living life independent of God.

Unbroken people:
What is it you are unwilling to do?  Who is it you are unwilling to ask forgiveness?  What reconciliation are you unwilling to initiate?  What old debt are you unwilling to pay? What course of action are you unwilling to take? What area of your life are you holding on to and are unwilling to left go of in order to be useful to God? So very often God has to get our attention through the breaking process in order to shake us up and make us useful.

Are you willing for God to break you?  If not the problem is pride.
Is what is going on in your life an indication that God is breaking you?
The process of brokenness is a process we all have to go through.
Often to come to Christ initially.  And repeatedly to peal away the calluses of our lives.

In this process God allows circumstances to control our lives to the point that we must totally depend on Him.  In God’s wisdom He realizes what it takes to keep us attuned to His direction.  He allows problems to occur that will break our will and keep us dependent on Him.

It’s all about what it takes for us to turn to God and to be useful in His plan and purpose.

Notice what it took in Jonah’s life…Chapter 2     Read!

I.      Jonah’s Experience of The Breaking Process
Jonah 1:15-2:6 “So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging…And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.”

Vaclav Havel, the dissident and later President of the Czech Republic said, “There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.”

The wheels are coming off Jonah’s life…
Distress
Depths of the grave
Hurled into the deep
Currents swirled about me.
Waves and breakers swept over me.
He said, “I have been banished from God’s sight”  = Kicked out!
He believed that God had gotten sick and tired of him and his antics and rejected him.
Engulfing waters…overwhelmed…gasping for air.
Seaweed was wrapped around me.  TRAPPED…TIED UP
I sanked down to the roots of the mountains
And the bottom of the earth barred me.  (I was between a rock and a hard place.)

Death is the ultimate passage.

The facts are simple and brief.  But have you allowed yourself to feel his experience?

Earl Jabay (A&D counselor)  “Its only when we’ve spent our last buck and shot our last bullet that we are ready to do it God’s way.”

This crisis at its very worst is the opportunity.
The night is darkest just before dawn.
Just as the bottom of the sea is the place where Jonah was farthest away from home and

 

 

The prodigal’s pig pen is the farthest point away from home.  This is the end of self-deception, self-trust, and self justification! At the bottom of the sea and in the pigs’ pen Jonah – the prodigal has a change of heart and turns back to God. The sea and the pigs’ pen becomesthe shortest distance to the Father!

Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish will push him to the edge of life and will bring him to the end of himself.  Jonah will still be Jonah but he will be altered for good.  This experience will leave a lasting effect on his life.  His dark night will be a process in which his hard / coarse soul will be refined and his thinking deepened.

Jonah’s way of thinking is stuck in “smallsville”.

But his dark night of the soul will help him grow to see God’s compassionate heart.  His dark night is designed by God to initiated him into spiritual adulthood.  Designed to mature his character and make him more loving and compassionate.

The shade of your own dark night will be different than Jonah’s.

Jonah’s ‘dark night of the soul’ lasted 3 days and nights in the fish.
But everyone’s “night” is different.  Your stories are unique.  But whatever the shade, your dark night is God’s invitation to become a person of heart and soul.

Jonah was trapped by a fish in the sea.
You may be trapped in a mood and an external circumstance about which you may feel you can do little but sit and wait to be freed.

 

But dark nights ask for more than emotion!  They call forth deep thinking and reflection on our part.  Initially we may “fight” the news or circumstances.  We may rail against God and ask “why” several

TS: Jonah’s experience gives us 3 assurances.

II.         Three Assurances
A.        “I am a son.”
2:1  The Lord his God.
2:6  O LORD my God.

The source of my identity and security is found in my relationship with God.

 

B.        God is in control.
1:4  The Lord sent a great wind
1:17  The Lord provided a great fish
2:3  You hurled me       all Your waves
2:6  You brought my life up from the pit.

C.        God answers the prayer of repentance

Jonah’s decision-making to this point had been inner self-talk and also consultation with the ship’s crew.  But now, in the quietness of his frantic, lonely struggle he calls out to God.

2:1  “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.”

2:7  “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my  prayer rose to You”

Romans 8:28 It seems to me that the awareness that I belong to God and that each of my loved ones belongs to God and that He is in control provides a sense of stability and peace in the midst of the oceanic experiences of life.

1 Peter 5:7 “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

Philippians 4:6-7 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 34:4,18 “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears…The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 37:4-5 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will .”bring it to pass.”

Ps 27:13,14  “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”

Ps 34:19 “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Micah 7:8,9 “Though I have fallen, I will rise.  Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light…He will bring me out into the light; I will see His righteousness.”

Humble repentance is brought on by a renewed vision of God.

Isaiah 6:1-5 “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.     And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost (undone); for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””

Truth about God: Who is a God like ours.

Key Verse: 4:2  “He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD…I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

Is the whale of Jonah’s story perturbed by the storm?  Of course not, he plunges beneath it. How can God be everywhere at one time?  (Who says God is bound by a body?) How can God hear all our prayers at the same time?  Perhaps His ears are different.

Psalm 8:4 “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

Matthew 6:25-30 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

III.        Jonah’s Change of Heart
“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”
“If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”  2 Tim 2:13

Mike Quarles, Freedom From Addiction “Is there a price for freedom?  I, and many others, have found the price tag is to completely give up on myself and come to the end of my resources to find freedom in Christ…Freedom comes when we give up living life in our own resources and trust Christ to be our life.

When I speak about this period of my life people often ask, ‘Does that mean I have to become a drunk and lose everything if I am going to be free?’  “No” I always say, “but it helps.”  Everyone doesn’t have to become a drunk and lose everything, but everyone does have to come to the end of him or herself.”

The “dark night of the soul” for Jonah was a period of transformation.  What is the issue? The condition of Jonah’s soul.  God places a high value on the condition of our soul & works to transform it.

The means God uses to bring us to the end of ourselves and our resources to a place where we will depend on Him and be useful to Him is different for each of us.  But the principle, purpose and goal is the same.

Principle: Brokenness

The condition where God allows circumstances to control our lives to the point that we must totally depend on Him.  As a seed is dropped into the earth, the shell is broken, the life comes forth and bears fruit.  The life was there but the shell must be broken in order for there to be fruit.

Purpose: so that we will turn to God and allow Christ to have first place in our lives so that He can bless and use us.

Process: Often a painful and repeated process the brings us to Christ and grows us up in our relationship with Him.

Hannah Whithall Smith in her book, Living Confidently in God’s Love says, “It is always a painful process and often a most discouraging one.  The process continues until all that can be shaken is removed and only those things which cannot be shaken remain.  Through this shaking the deliverance for which we prayed is accomplished.  Through it all, we well be brought into the secure place for which we long.”

It takes what it takes!  People need to reach the end of themselves and their resources.

Mike Harden, director of a Ctn treatment center..  “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my experience of brokenness, but you couldn’t pay me 5 million to go through it again.”

Problem: Why is it so hard to come to the end of ourselves?  Pride!  We are proud and strong-willed and often unwilling to be broken.

Pray for me, pray for each other that 2010 will be a year in which we come to the end of ourselves And in our brokenness we confess and truly repent.  And as a result we walk humbly with our God and become more useful in the Master’s hands.