Running

[00:00:00] Foreign pastor Chuck Allen back with another weekday podcast. And I'm going to pick up in session two of a four part series on the Book of Jonah. If anybody ever needed a mulligan, it was this dude. [00:00:17] Last time we talked about Jonah running. Today I want to talk about Jonah praying. If you missed Jonah running, just go back to Wednesday and that would be Wednesday 27th August, go back and listen to Jonah running. That was chap, Chapter one. Today I want to talk about chapter two. So Jonah sinks beneath the waves, right? I mean, God tells him, I want you to go to Nineveh. He goes the opposite direction, goes to the far, the farthest direction of the known world at the time. And here's what the text says in Jonah, chapter 1, verse 17. [00:00:48] Now, the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. [00:00:52] And Jonah was inside the fish. He was there for three days and three nights. This is where chapter two begins. Jonah, in the dark belly of a fish, finally prays. Now I gotta tell you, one of these days when I get to heaven, I can't wait to have a conversation with Jonah about what things were like in the belly of a fish. I mean, that's just creepy. But Jonah is there. And in Jonah 2, 2, the scripture says, I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. Now I would just say massive understatement. And my great trouble, great statement. And the Lord answered me, I called to you from the land of the dead, and I want to put in parenthesis. No kidding. And the Lord, you heard me. [00:01:41] Wow, it's raw. It's desperate. He says, I sank beneath the waves in verse five, and the waters closed over me. Sounds like death, right? It says, seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountains and I was imprisoned in the earth whose gates locked shut forever. But you, O Lord, my God, snatch me from the jaws of death. Now do you see the pattern? Jonah runs, Jonah sinks, Jonah prays, Jonah remembers. I think this is a pattern that we have. We run from God, we fall in a mess. We finally turn back to God. We remember the goodness of God. Sometimes it takes hitting rock, stinking bottom to finally have a place from which you can look up. [00:02:29] Sometimes we don't cry out until we feel trapped, until we still feel swallowed up, and until we're just radically stuck. Jonah's prayer ends with this declaration. In verse nine, he says, but I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows for my salvation comes from the Lord alone. Now, watch this. Jonah is saying, I want to sacrifice and recognize that you are God and I am not. I want to offer you songs of praise. And then I'm going to do what you've asked me to do, because I recognize my salvation comes from you alone. And then this one line, maybe one of the strangest sentences in scripture. It says, then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach. So, literally, God provides this place of darkness that becomes salvation. And then Jonah is expelled from that place of darkness. Okay, Am I the only one that begins to see the foreshadowing of Jesus? [00:03:38] Jonah, I'm going to be the sacrifice from the storm. [00:03:43] Throw me in. I'm in the belly of the fish. Darkness, wrapped in death for three days and three nights, and then I'm expelled from darkness back onto life. Hello. [00:03:54] The Lord ordered the fish to vomit Jonah out onto the beach. Here's the takeaway. The dark belly of the fish can become the holy ground of transformation, just like the grave becomes a holy place of transformation, because Jesus Christ resurrected from it. That place where you think you've been abandoned might actually be the exact place God wants to rescue you. [00:04:19] Your belly of the fish isn't the end. It might just be the beginning again. [00:04:25] So today, I want to ask you, would you stop for a moment and just recognize in the order that Jonah does? I've run. [00:04:35] I'm sinking. [00:04:37] I'm now praying. And I remember and see and experience the goodness of God as he expels me from the darkness and into his glorious light. Whoa, friend. That's worth singing a song of praise. God bless you. I'm so glad you joined me on today's weekday podcast.