Purpose and Providence a Study on the Prophet Jonah Part 5 "Lying Vanities"
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Introduction.
Introduction.
Sister Jean’s Memorial service 3:00 Sunday. Dinner afterward, bring enough for guests.
Labor Day weekend One Service.
The word “prepared” in Hebrew is “appointed”. God appointed a fish for Jonah. This tells us that the fish was not created on the spot, but was previously in the ocean. Jonah’s deliverance was already appointed before the storm came.
The nature of this deliverance was not a glorious thing. It was a fish’s belly.
(Story of man holding onto cliff)
The next few verses are remarkable.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; And the floods compassed me about: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The depth closed me round about, The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with her bars was about me for ever: Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.
And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
He prayed all that while he was in the fish’s belly, not after he was vomited up.
Anything, a fish, after it eats, it goes right down to the bottom. Feed your little goldfish and watch what happened. They go right down at the bottom of the little container you got them in, and rests their little swimmers on the bottom. Their little belly is full, and so they’re down there resting.
So when this big fish swallowed Jonah, he must have went down to the bottom, to rest, out of the waves and out of the storm.
He was looking around through the revival, to see what he could find; and the revival on the sea, you know, swishing up-and-down, the winds. So he found this preacher and swallowed him, and went down to the bottom.
Now here, Jonah down there in the belly of this whale, with his hands and feet tied, laying in the vomit of the whale.
Now I’ve often heard people say, “I was prayed for last night, and my hand is no better. It’s still crippled. I still have the stomachache. My eyes, I don’t see good yet.” Oh, my! Then holler at Jonah? My!
If anybody had a case of symptoms, he ought to have had it. If he looked this a way, it was the whale’s belly; that way, was whale’s belly. Everywhere he looked was whale’s belly, and his hands was tied behind him.
He was in the whale’s belly, in the bottom of the sea, probably forty fathoms deep, in the bottom of the sea. Now talk about symptoms! And then you called him backslid. 64-0410 - Scriptural Signs Of The Time
And he was laying there in the vomit, in the whale’s belly, seaweeds around his neck. And if he looked this a way, it was whale’s belly. He looked that way, it was whale’s belly. Everywhere he looked, it was the whale’s belly.
You talk about a case of symptoms, he might have had it. But you know what he said? He said, “They are lying vanities. I’ll not no more look at them, but once more will I look to Your holy temple.” 64-0321E - The Voice Of The Sign
Lying vanities
The New Bible Commentary 1:17–2:10 Jonah’s Gratitude at God’s Grace for Rescuing Him from Death
Worthless idols in v 8 is in Hebrew (lit.) empty nothings.
Perhaps he was thinking of Psalm 31.
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; Let me never be ashamed: Deliver me in thy righteousness.
Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: Be thou my strong rock, For an house of defence to save me.
For thou art my rock and my fortress; Therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.
Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: For thou art my strength.
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
I have hated them that regard lying vanities: But I trust in the Lord.
I will not worship my symptoms, I will not give regard to empty nothings.
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Jonah had to count himself dead when he was alive and count himself alive when he was dead.
He was like Schrodinger’s cat, he was both dead and alive at the same time.
Now, we look at our symptoms? Shame on us. When, Jonah, and under them circumstances, could look away from his symptoms.
He said he refused to look at them. He said, “They’re lying vanities. I’ll look towards Your holy temple.”
O God, give us men and women with rugged faith, who will not look to symptoms or look at anything the devil hands you! Hand it back to him. Say, “I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe in His all-sufficient power.
I believe that His Presence is here now to set me free from any bondage that Satan put upon me. And I look to the…Where He sits, at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercessions for me.” 63-0605 - Greater Than Solomon Is Here
You know you find so many people that rely upon symptoms, “Well, I was prayed for, I got a crippled hand, I was prayed for, but, I really believe God, but my hand is no better.” It’ll never be no better as long as you look at that hand. See, you’re looking at the wrong thing, you must look at His promise.
Some time ago, a aged, old couple come and wanted me to come pray for their boy, was dying with black diphtheria. And I didn’t…couldn’t go. And kept waiting, and couple days later the old fellow said, “My boy is dying now.” And finally, after service I went.
(Trouble getting in)
Now, it got into, heart, something wrong with his heart. The cardiogram showed that it was way down, and just beating so-many times per minute.
And the old mother and father stood there, by the side of the boy, I got on one side of the bed and them on the other, and a little nurse stood there watching us, fine looking little lady of about, oh, I guess, twenty-five years old. And so I put my hands upon the boy, and prayed, and just asked a common prayer.
And when I said, “Amen,” the old father grabbed the mother and begin to hug her, and him…hug each other. They said, “Oh, Mother, isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it wonderful? Thank you, Lord Jesus, for healing our boy.”
The boy was just as bad as he ever was, and they just wiped the tears from each other’s eyes and just praised God. And that little nurse, standing there, she couldn’t understand that, and she said, “Sir, it’s all right, I guess,” said, “I don’t belong to your religion, but…your kind of religion,” she said, “but I want to ask you something.
How can you act like that, you, and the mother of this child act like that, and that boy laying there dying?” He said, “Madam, the boy is not dying.” “Why,” she said, “he’s been in a coma for three days.”
And some kind of a machine there showed that this hand ever dropped that far, never, in medical history, did it ever come back again.
The old father, I’ll never forget it, wiped his eyes, and walked over, and put his hands on that young woman’s shoulder, he said, “Child,” he said, “you are taught to look at that machine, that’s all you know about, is ‘Watch that machine.’”
Said, “That…All that machine knows is tell what’s going on here. That’s true.” Said, “You’re looking at that machine, but I’m looking at a promise that God made.”
Depends on what you’re looking at. That boy is married and got two children. See, it just goes to show. See? He laid like that another two or three days, but he come right out and got well.
See, it just goes to show what you’re looking at. You’ve got to see what you’re looking at. Don’t look at your symptoms. 62-0721 - Behold, A Greater Than Solomon Is Here
Abraham, Jonah and Jesus had one thing in common, they all had to have faith for a resurrection. So do we. We don’t look at symptoms, we look at the promise.
Where did Jonah look?
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Somehow in the middle of the darkness and the vomit and the seaweed he remembered God’s promise.
Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee:
That thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.
Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place: hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive.
If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillers; if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be:
Then what prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man, or of all thy people Israel, when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house:
Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:)
That they may fear thee, to walk in thy ways, so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near;
Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly;
If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name:
Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee.
Now, my God, let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open, and let thine ears be attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.
Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness.
O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant.
Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.
But you know what he said? “They are lying vanities, I won’t believe them.” What did he say? “Once more will I look to Your holy temple,” turned over on his back, and faced, the best he could, towards the temple.
Why? When Solomon dedicated that temple, he prayed that day, when the Pillar of Fire come in and went down behind the Holiest of holies, Solomon prayed, and said, “Lord, if Your people be in trouble anywhere, and look towards this holy place, then hear from Heaven,” and he believed it.
And God did something, I don’t know what He done. He might’ve put a oxygen tank in that whale’s belly, I don’t know what He done. He kept him alive for three days and nights, and delivered him at his course, where he was supposed to go.
And if Jonah, under those circumstances, could believe in a prayer that was made by a man that later backslid, because of women, as Solomon, and believed on a temple that was built with the hands of men, how much more ought we, tonight, look to Christ, Who is setting at the right hand of God, with His Own Blood making intercession upon our confession!
How we ought to believe it! “Nothing, no symptoms, stand in the way, I’m looking towards God’s promise that He said He would do it.” 62-0721 - Behold, A Greater Than Solomon Is Here
Conclusion.
Conclusion.
We don’t know how he kept Jonah alive, we just know he did it. This reminds me of the Third Pull vision.
And on the outside, the lady come out, screaming to the top of her voice, pushing this stretcher. Then there was another lady on the other side, looked like kind of a dark-haired woman, and she said, “What happened?”
She said, “I just don’t know.” She said, “I couldn’t tell you what happened.” She said, “I have been paralyzed for twenty years. And, looky, I feel like I never was sick.” 56-0408A - What Is A Vision?
But he knoweth the way that I take: When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.