Jonah Ch.2: Woke up in Hell

I want to welcome those that are watching online. For those of you that

don't know who I am, I am Pastor Brandon. I'm the lead pastor

of the church. I'm glad that you're here. I Found God in Seattle

is our fall theme, it's our twenty twenty four theme. It really sums

up that for all of the bad raps that Seattle gets around the nation,

around the world, I found God in Seattle. Many of us that are

here we found God in the least likely place imaginable. And by the way,

the story that we're studying today is about someone who encountered God and probably

the least likely of all places. We've begun a series through Jonah. Last

week I told you briefly the story of Jonah. God told him to go

to Ninevah and preach. Well, Jonah thought, I don't like the people

of Ninevah. The series came in conquered Israel. They did horrible things to

my friends and family. I don't like the Assyrians. I don't like the

Ninovites. They're my enemies, and I Am not going to tell them about

Hope and you. So he hops on a ship and he heads as far

away as you possibly can in the opposite direction. And as we know,

when you rebel against God, God will go to great links to get your

attention. So God sent a storm. Eventually, the storm risked the life

of everyone on that ship. It eventually led to Jonah getting tossed overboard.

And that's where we pick up the story today, which is the part of

the story that you all know about Jonah. So Jonah Chapter one, verse

seventeen. It says, now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah,

and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights,

and from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.

Everyone by your heads, close your eyes. I want to ask everyone that's

here, watching online, listening to this podcast to repeat this prayer after me.

Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life

in Jesus name. Amen. Have any of you heard the phrase plot twist.

It's a famous phrase now with movies and TV shows. It seems like

every TV show has to have a greater plot twist than the TV show before

it. It seems like every movie has to have a better plot twist than

movies that were there before them. I want to share with you where plot

twists began. A plot twist is where you expect one thing and something totally

unexpected happens. In cinematic history, the first major plot twist happened in nineteen

sixty eight. It was a movie called Planet of the Apes. The problem

is, the Planet of the Apes has been redone twenty five times and so

odds are you didn't see the original. You've seen one of the copies.

But in the original it goes like this. There were three astronauts that crashed

landed on an unknown planet after traveling at light speed for two thousand years.

In this new land, on this new planet, it was run by non

human primates. Basically, apes ran the planet and humans were the ape subjects

or servants. Now, for those of you that have never seen the movie,

I don't expect that you're going to, so I'm going to ruin it

for you. For those of you that have seen it, you already know

the great plot twist. They tell stories about when this plot twist came out

in the movie theater, people gasped, they fell on their knees, some

people fainted because they were so stunned by the plot twist. That they were

actually on planet Earth in the future. Whoa plot twist most of us,

especially if you're my age. The greatest plot twist that you remember in any

movie is from The Empire Strikes Back. Luke Skywalker was training to become a

Jedi Knight, only to abandon his training to rescue his friends from the evil

siff Lord darth Vader, and in the climactic battle scene Luke against darth Vader

at the end of the movie, darth Vader says to him the famous lines

that odds are you've quoted every time you've met someone with the name Luke,

and he says, Luke, I am your father. Shocked people. It's

actually not even really the line that was used in the movie. Did you

know that it's the most misquoted movie line ever? It's actually no, I

am your father, But who's keeping who's counting. The third greatest plot twist

in a movie happened in a movie that came out a few years ago.

I'm sure it's not a movie that any of you have seen, because it's

a Quentin Tarantino movie. Only the ungodly people like me have seen it.

But it's called Once upon a Time in Hollywood, and it's a really quality

movie that I do not recommend because it's incredibly violent. It did win a

bunch of Academy Awards though. So the movie was about the Manson family murders,

which is that one of the darkest times in our history. I think

many of us at least know the basic story of the Manson family murders that

led to the death of Sharon Tate. Well, this entire movie builds up

the tension to this climactic moment when these murders take place. But only in

a Quentin Tarantino movie can everything be turned around and instead of the Manson family

killing Sharon Tate, the Manson family ends up getting murdered and Sharon Tate lives

happily ever after. Plot twist. I don't know what I'm about to tell

you if this is true, but since I'm the one speaking and I have

the microphone, we're going with it. I believe the first plot twist that

is recorded in history is in the Book of Jonah, first one ever because

Jonah expected when he was thrown overboard he was going to die. He was

giving his life for the sake of the men on that ship. He knew

they were innocent, and he knew that storm came because of him, and

he said, throw me overboard, and immediately they threw him overboard and the

water calmed. But in this crazy plot twist, Jonah wakes up in the

belly of a fish, and they say that when people drowned, they struggled

to keep their head above water, and once they finally give up, they

begin to suck in inhale water that fills their lungs and there is a moment

where they feel totally relaxed, They feel totally calm and totally at peace when

all fear goes away, and then they go black. Jonah's treading water eventually

can't anymore, get sucked under the water, struggles to breathe. Eventually the

water enters his lungs, cannot breathe anymore. But this peace and this calm

overwhelms him. Fear goes away, and everything goes black. I don't know

if it was moments, I don't know if it was minutes. I don't

know how long it was, but eventually Jonah's eyes opened. I always wonder

what Jonah expected to see when his eyes opened, Maybee Heaven? Instead,

he wakes up in the stomach of a fish. That would have been shocking,

But Jonah waking up in the belly of a whale is when he had

this realization all of a sudden, that God had spared him. It was

in that moment Jonah thought he was dead, and he wakes up in the

belly of a fish, and he's wondering, is it possible God isn't done

with me yet? Is it possible there's more to my story? Church.

You might be here today and you feel like you've made every possible mistake,

You've done everything wrong. You are about as far from God you relate to

Jonah because all you've done is run from God, and you're wondering, is

this it? Is there any hope? Here's the deal with the story of

Jonah. The story of Jonah lets you know God's not done with you yet.

There's more to this story. There's always hope. I love what it

says. Next. You might not know this, but did you know that

Jonah Chapter two is the first passage of Scripture that I ever memorized. Most

people the very first verse they ever memorized as John three sixteen. For Brandon,

he was Jonah chapter two. He might say, that's really weird.

Why while I was in Bible survey at Northwest University and struggling to get a

good grade and extra credit, was memorizing Jonah chapter two. So the very

first verse that I ever memorized was Jonah chapter two. So I have quoted

portions of Jonah chapter two for over thirty years. But here it goes Jonah

chapter two, Verse one, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the

Lord is God. Listen to this, he says, in my distress,

I called to you, and you answered me. From deep in the realm

of the dead, I called for help, and you listen to my cry.

That is the niv's translation of Jonah's prayer. Here's what's fascinating about this

is how do we know what Jonah prayed? The only reason we know what

Jonah prayed from inside the belly of a fish is because he lived to tell

us the story. But this is Jonah's re telling of his prayer. The

actual prayer, I bet was a little bit more desperate. I bet the

actual prayer wasn't quite as eloquent. I bet the actual prayer wasn't as poetic

as Jonah told us it was going to be. But this is Jonah reminding

us what he prayed from the belly of a whale. And as he tells

us what he prayed, now, it's not the exact words. There's no

way Jonah prayed this calmly in that situation. But the context and meaning of

what he prayed is clear. So it says, from deep in the realm

of the dead, I prayed. Other translations, if you use an ESV

translation, it actually says from the belly of Sheol. The belly of Shiol

is a much better translation from the original Hebrew. But I understand why the

NIV uses this instead, because saying the belly of Sheol takes a lot of

explanation. But I do want to take a moment and explain what it is.

She All is the house of death. She all is the realm of

the dead. She All is that place where all the dead go. She

All, to a jew is a place where there is no escape. The

gates are locked, the windows are barred. It's undefeatable, unescapable by human

effort. She All is hell. Some scholars believe that when Jonah rebelled against

God and said I won't go to Nineveh, and he hopped on a ship

to Tarshish. I shared with you last week the many scholars believe that Tarshish

is at the southern tip of Spain. We do know that Tarshish has never

been excavated, so we don't know for sure. There are other scholars that

believe that it was simply allegory or symbolic for Jonah running away. And as

Jonah ran away, the word Tarshish means paradise, so Jonah ran away to

paradise instead of going to Ninevah. He flees to paradise, but he wakes

up in hell. Talk about a plot twist. Have you ever felt like

you woke up in hell? Honestly? Have you? Have you ever looked

at all the decisions that you've made and it seems like it was a series

of bad choices. And one day it says, if you woke up in

hell and you wondered, what do I do? For many of you,

you found yourself in a hell of your own doing. For some of you,

you you found yourself in hell and it wasn't your fault is because of

everyone around you and circumstances got you into this point. Well, what do

you do well. I'm want to remind you God has not done with you

yet. There's more to the story. There's hope, fortunately for you and

I. We know how the story ends. We know that Jonah gets swallowed

by a whale, and we know Verse ten of chapter two says, and

the Lord commanded the fish best verse in the Bible, and it puked Jonah

my version on to dry land. But how did Jonah survive shiol? How

did Jonah survive a hell of his own doing? How did he survive this

elf inflicted situation? There are elements from Jonah's prayer which show us stages of

his spiritual experience. Quickly, today, I want to share with you four

stages of your spiritual experience. When you're going through a traumatic time, when

you're going through a trying situation, how you can survive four stages? Number

one, The first thing that Jonah did is he stopped himself in his tracks

and he prayed to God for help. Verse two, he says, in

my distress, I called to the Lord, deep in the realm of the

dead. I called for help. From the pit of hell, I called

for help. Verse seven says Lord, when my life was ebbing away,

I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your

holy temple. Church, look at me. Never feel guilty by what motivated

you to start praying. I hear people say this all the time. Well,

Pastor Brandon, I feel really bad because I only started praying, and

I only started going to church, and I only started being faithful when everything

seemed to be falling apart around me. Do you ever think that God loves

you so much and desires to be in a relationship with you so badly that

if you choose to run from him, that he might allow circumstances in your

life that gets you to the point where you are so desperate you have no

other choice but to humble yourself and to cry out to him. I'm telling

you, Jonah's prayer was not out of devotion. It was out of desperation.

Jonah's prayer was not out of affection. It was out of affliction.

It was not out of passion. It was out of pain. It did

not come from faith. It came from fear. It was not out of

delight for the Lord. It was out of danger. Jonah didn't pray because

he was experiencing triumph. He prayed because he was in trouble jas most of

us people get real spiritual when trouble comes. You want to see someone get

really serious about their faith. You'll see someone's who having difficulty with their kids.

Jonah, like many of us, saw God's will obedience, something to

turn to in an emergency, not something that we live in everyday life.

But I will tell you from the belly of a fish, Jonah remembered God

Psalm one forty five. I bet he remembered this psalm and says, the

Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

The same knowledge about God's character that Jonah had that caused him to refuse

to go to Ninevah. Jonah didn't go to Ninevah because he knew the heart

of God. He knew that God is gracious, compassionate. He knew that

if he gave the Ninovites an opportunity to repent, that they would, and

then God would relent. But it was knowing that same God's compassion and character

when Jonah was in trouble caused him to turn to God. Why because he

knew God forgave the Ninavites, He'll forgive me God is willing to show grace

to the Ninovites, He'll show grace to me. God will be merciful to

those people. God will be merciful to me. I think it is important

to remember Church, and this is one of the things for those of you

that have been saved for a long time, It is important to remember what

it was like to be lost. I think sometimes we we have been saved

and following Jesus for so long, we don't relate anymore to those other people,

to our neighbors, or to the people that post, oh all those

won't comments on social media. We don't get them anymore. I think sometimes

it's important for us to remember what it was like to be lost. Sometimes

we need to remember what it was like to feel helpless, what it was

like to feel hopeless. It was in the belly of a fish where Jonah

felt the same desperation and lostness that the Ninovites had. Diana, I always

recommend this podcast called Bama. Many of you listen to the Beama podcasts,

and the person that teaches during the beam of podcast talks about oftentimes as followers

of Jesus, we experience the lullaby effect and what he means by that is,

there are stories that we are so familiar with growing up in church or

being a part of church for a while, that when the preacher or the

teacher starts sharing the story, our minds shut off. We come to the

conclusions ourselves. We know how the thing is supposed to play out. And

I shared with you last week that they estimate that if you were raised in

church, you were taught the story of Jonah on average once a year.

So I don't think there's any other story outside of maybe David and Goliath that

can cause the lullaby effect more to us than this. But you got to

make sure you don't let that happen. Because there's a lesson that we learn

from Jonah's prayer inside this fish that you and I can relate to, and

that is when you're in trouble, you should pray. When you are desperate,

everything's going wrong, you probably should stop trying to fix it on your

own, step back, humble yourself, say Jesus, I'm sorry, help

me. The craziest part about this story is everything that had happened Jonah deserved,

But he said, inside my distress, I called to the Lord and

he answered me from deep in the realm of the dead, I called for

help, and you listened to my cry. Can I tell you the miracle

of prayer is the fact that He hears it even when you don't deserve it,

even when you've earned it and your life is ebbing away. If you

remember him, such a great illustration here he said, when my wife life

was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and I prayed. Now,

I was in the middle of a self inflicted hell. I deserved every

single thing I had got, But I remembered you. And when I prayed,

my prayer rose to you. Out of the depths, my prayer rose

to you. Prayer is this constant miracle of the Christian life, because God

hears us number one, pray, Jonah, pray number two. Finally,

from inside the belly of a whale, Jonah accepted God's discipline. He says

in verse three, says, you hurled me into the depths of the sea,

into the very heart of the seas. The currents swirled about me,

all the waves, and the breakers swept over me. This is Jonah acknowledging

that it wasn't the sailors who threw me overboard, that it was God disciplining

me and that I deserved this. The Bible says a lot about discipline.

In fact, Proverbs says that the Lord disciplines those he loves. Did you

know that how you respond to discipline determines how much benefit you'll receive from discipline.

The problem today with discipline is we have the word discipline a dirty word.

If parents discipline their children, some people call it abuse. If parents

discipline their children, some people call it neglect, unloving. Mean. The

problem is we are now seeing the result of entire generations that weren't disciplined by

their parents. Yeah, the opposite is actually true. You only discipline people

you love. I have this conversation with my staff a lot. The Lord

my view to his discipline. My staff use it as me yelling at them.

I view it as I'm coaching them. I always tell my staff that

if I didn't care about you, I wouldn't tell you the truth, because

I know in a world today that says you should accept everything I do,

whatever I say, and just take me as I am. When you coach

people, they blast you on social media. If you hope people accountable for

what they do, they for whatever reason, have a platform to destroy you

because of it. So I know that whenever I correct someone or coach someone,

I know that I am risking getting destroyed on social media. So I

look at my staff all the time and say, I only speak into your

life because I love you, because I believe more from you, because I

think there's more in you, and I only do it risking the chance that

I could get bad mouth for years to come because of how much I love

you. I am telling you as a parent of adults children who from as

far as the world is concerned, my kids are very successful. And my

kids come to me often and they say, Dad, mom, thanks for

disciplining us when we were kids. Because I'm in a fraternity or sorority with

people that weren't disciplined, and they can barely hold down jobs. Proverbs twelve

one says, whoever the Lord loves, whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge.

And you realize that if you were willing to receive correction from people, you

usually grow. By the way, if you receive correction from people the first

time, you don't make the same mistake again, you grow from it,

You learn from it, you develop. Jonah finally said God, this is

my fault. I deserve this. I always tell you that the Bible is

full of all these if and then promises one of the number one if then

promises that you know is that a person reaps what they sow. You reap

with you. So in good ways, you also reap with you. So

in bad ways, oftentimes not oftentimes, occasionally you are reaping the consequences of

all of your terrible decisions, maybe in your relationships, maybe in your health,

maybe in your career, because you made bad decisions. And then from

your living hell that you've created for yourself, you cried out to God for

help, and he heard your cry, and at just the right moment,

like we always talk about, Jesus crossed your path and for whatever reason and

all of his compassion and grace, he thought, I'm gonna literally bail you

out, and he miraculously delivers you from your mess. Most of the time

he doesn't. Most of the time, he says, I forgive you.

So you walk through what you're walking through knowing that you were forgiven, and

you walk through it knowing that I will always be with you. See God's

promise isn't that He's going to deliver us from the mess we made. His

promises that he'll be with us. So sometimes God lets you walk through discipline

because he loves you and he doesn't want you to make the same mistake again,

all right? Number three? I love this about Jonah because from the

belly of a whale, he shows us that he trusts God's promises. When

Jonah started disobeying God and he ran to Tarshish, he went the opposite direction

of what God wanted. And I think about the times that God has asked

me to do something, challenge me to lay something down, or challenge me

to repent and stop a behavior, And every time I chose to go the

opposite direction, I spiraled down. Have you ever noticed that when you rebel

against God, it always leads to the downward direction. Jonah goes down to

Joppa, He goes down to the bottom of a ship, He goes down

to the bottom of the sea. When he went running to Tarshish, which

he thought was paradised, he ended up in the pit of hell. But

what saved Jonah his faith in God's promises, and I love this is that

he knew God's promises were true for him. He understood the character and the

nature of God. He knew that just as God would spare Ninevah, God

God could spare him. He knew justice. God loved Nineveh. God loved

him justice. God had grace for Ninevah. God had grace for him.

Just as God's promises we're true for Ninevah. God's promises were true for him.

And guess what, they're true for you. If God can forgive Ninevah,

if he can forgive Jonah, he can forgive you. If God will

show mercy and grace to the city of Nineveh and to Jonah, a rebellious,

disobedient prophet, I think he can forgive you. Just as God's promises

we're true for Nineveh, they're true for me, They're true for you.

Finally, number four, what had Jonah learned? What was the stage of

his spiritual development? Jonah finally yielded to God's will in his life. We

read about it in verse eight. Jonah says this. He says, those

who cling to worthless idols turn away for God's love for them. I memorized

it differently. The NIV morphed a little bit since I memorized it a long

time ago. But I actually like the way that I memorized it better.

I memorize it this way. It says, those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs. I love that statement because it's only

fair that what is an idol. An idol is something that you put before

God, and the idol is anything that takes your affection and your obedience from

God. If you have an idol, that you have put your focus in

love and attention in other than God. When trouble comes, turned to your

idol. The problem is we live in Seattle. Most people, by the

way, you've been great because you're actually here at the ten o'clock service.

Do not mention the score of the game to anyone. To honor those that

are here. It's to vent your rule. But many people in the Seattle

area their God is the Seahawks. I gotta tell you, when you're in

trouble, pray to the Seahawks. See what that does for you. Some

of you your idols the Mariners. When you're dealing with a difficult situation with

your kids, ask the Mariners for help. Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs. So Jonah makes this incredible statement.

He's basically reiterating, as a man of God, I get the ten commandments.

I know that I am not supposed to make an idol of a graven

image, that I am not to do these things. Yet I have an

idol. My idol was my intense patriotism. Now, patriotism in itself isn't

a bad thing. I just went to the Mariners game on nine to eleven

recently, and they had about a fifteen minute tribute to our soldiers, those

that died in nine to eleven. It was incredibly moving. In itself,

it's not a bad thing. But when you become nation over God, you

have an idol, and those who cling the worthless idols forfeit the grace that

could be theirs. Jonah then ends his prayer with vows to God. He

said, with shouts of grateful praise, I will sacrifice to you by the

way. This is how you know. Jonah wrote this after the fact,

because I doubt there was a lot of shoutful praise in the belly of that

whale. The shoutful praise came when he was weeding his way out of the

vomit on dry land. He says, what I have vowed, I will

make good. Salvation comes from the Lord. This was Jonah saying God,

to make a vow to you. My vow Number one is that when I'm

rescued, I'm gonna go to the temple and I'm gonna sacrifice and worship.

And he said number two, I'll be obedient, I'll go to Ninevah.

Then it ends with the greatest statement that is still true today, that salvation

comes from the Lord. I'm telling you your mess, your trouble, your

desperation. The way out of it is one way Jesus. He might not

deliver you out of it, but he'll walk with you through it. Salvation

comes from the Lord. Then the fish vomited Jonah onto dry land. I

was Jonah's redemption. I guarantee that prayer was way more desperate. It's way

less eloquent. Might have had some curse words in it, but the end

was real. Salvation comes from the Lord. I want to ask everybody,

buy your heads and close your eyes. If you were here today and you

were like Jonah, you need to be rescued from God. You need Jesus.

You're here today and you're far from him. You've made a bunch of

bad decisions that have led you downward. But as your life is ebbing away,

you're remembering him. And now you're sitting here today at church wondering can

my prayers rise to him? Now it's your chance. If you're here today,

you do not know Jesus, but you want to, or you're in

a situation you need to be rescued from. I'm gonna count to three,

and when I say three, I want you to raise your hand. Here

I go one, two, raise your hand, now three, all over

the place? Awesome, can put them down? Would everybody stand up?

I'm gonna ask everyone to pray this prayer of repentance with me. Then Morgan's

gonna come and he's gonna die. He's gonna come, and she's gonna close

the service. If you raise your hand, if you mean this prayer when

you pray it, you might still have your challenges and difficulty, but you

got to leave this place knowing you are forgiven, that you are in a

right relationship with Jesus, and that even though you might be in trouble,

that He's gonna walk through this trouble with you, that you aren't alone.

So I want to ask everyone to close your eyes. I want you to

repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, I stand before

you today. I admit I've messed up. I've made mistakes. But today

I ask you to forgive me, and I invite you to come into my

life and to change me. I choose from this day forward to serve you

with my life. Thank you for forgiving me and for saving me. In

Jesus name, Amen,