Desperate Prayer

Jonah 2:1 HCSB

1 Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish:

Jonah Prayed

“from inside the fish”

Jonah’s desperation (makes us real with God)

“from inside the fish”

Asleep on His Knees

God’s omnipresence and nearness.

Mr. and Mrs. Moody often had guests in their Chicago home. One evening, after a very demanding day, Moody asked a visiting Christian to lead in family devotions. The man waxed eloquent as he expounded the symbolism in a difficult chapter of the Bible. Then he prayed at great length. When the worship was over, Mrs. Moody and the guest got up from their knees, but Moody remained bowed in prayer. The guest thought that he was praying, but Mrs. Moody soon detected that her husband was—asleep!

The Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 206

Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.

God’s omnipresence and nearness.

1001 Illustrations that Connect Illustration 551: Clicking Prayers to God

You can now send your prayers to God via a website.

Newprayer.com says, “Simply click on the Pray button and transmit your prayer to the only known location of God.” The site claims it can send prayers via a radio transmitter to God’s last known location: the star cluster M13, believed to be one of the oldest in the universe.

Crandall Stone, fifty, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, engineer and freelance consultant, set up the site after a winter’s night of sipping brandy and philosophizing with friends in Vermont. The conversation turned to Big Bang theories of creation. Someone suggested that if everything was in one place at the time of the explosion, God must have been there too.

“It’s the one place where we could be sure he was,” Stone said. “We thought that if we could find that location and had a radio transmitter, we could send a message to God.”

After consulting with NASA scientists, the friends settled on M13 as the likely location. They chipped in about $20,000 to build a radio wave-transmitting website.

Newprayer.com transmits about 50,000 prayers a week from seekers around the globe.

Note: Newprayer.com is no longer operational.

“to the Lord his God”

Jonah’s repents “to the Lord”

v. 4 “toward your holy temple”

its very difficult to pray without repentance.

HIDING FROM GOD.

God’s responds “...HIS God”

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

God’s

Joshua prayed

Hezekiah prayed for his life to be extended.

Abraham prayed on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah

Hannah prays for a son. God answered