We've all been hurt.
We all have scars.
And through a relationship with Jesus Christ, we can all overcome and we can all be healed.
Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Hey everybody and welcome back to the Sanctuary.
So today as we get started, I recently learned about some statistics that I want to share
with you about podcasts.
Now just to let you know how well we're doing really, and we're doing really, really well.
So what I learned is that there are an estimated 3 to 4 million podcasts out there and more
than half of those have less than 3 episodes.
Not only that, but less than a million have more than 10 episodes.
Out of about 500 to 700,000 active podcasts, meaning that they have had at least one new
episode in the past year, that's right, that's how few there are, only about 150,000 produce
a weekly episode.
Not only have we put out an episode every single week since we went live, this is actually
our 22nd episode.
So thank you so much for your continued support.
You know, I believe the Lord has smiled on us here and seen the blessing of the growth.
It's just a testament to His glory.
Now looking at the analytics as well, we have listeners turning in regularly all around
the world.
Now, of course, the goal is to improve continually and to provide everyone with quality time
in the world.
So please continue to let us know your prayer needs, questions, and how we can improve to
better be of service.
And of course, share us with anyone and everyone, regardless of where they are in their walk
with Christ.
Now, with that said, we're going to go ahead and we're going to pick back up in our series
here.
And we're going to continue right where we left off.
Now when you're looking at the chapters and the verses and all that, it might seem a little
off looking at the face value here.
And I know some of you are probably wondering why we didn't just finish off with this last
verse last time.
Well, for one, it's all how this ties together.
And also, if you were to look at the Hebrew text of what we're reading, right where Jonah
chapter 1 verse 17 is, well, in the Hebrew text, it's actually numbered as chapter 2
verse 1.
So that's why we stopped where we did and why we're starting where we are.
Now moving along, the last time we saw Jonah, he had just been pitched into the sea.
And the result was not only were the sailors of that ship saved, but they also found salvation.
Now for those following in their Bible and those taking notes, go ahead, join me now,
Jonah chapter 1 verse 17.
It's the very last verse in the chapter there as we continue to go through this entire book.
Now Jonah chapter 1 verse 17, the Bible 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.
First thing first, it does not say whale.
Depending on the translation of your Bible, it might simply say huge or it might say great
fish.
You know, maybe it was a whale.
Maybe it was, we don't know.
For all we know, it was the creation of the Lord for this one event, never to be seen
again.
Now many have said that this was simply a dream or a story, you know, a parable.
Let's be clear, it's the word of God, period.
So trying to dismiss the miracle that takes place here, it needs to cease, it needs to
stop.
All right, the haggling needs to be done with.
You know, it could be a metaphor.
It could be literal.
Either way, it doesn't matter because what God wants, God's going to get.
And you know, he put it here in the scripture for a reason.
So we as Christians, we can't have an attitude or a mindset that takes away from God's word.
All right?
In Matthew chapter 12, even Jesus himself used Jonah as an illustration.
This is where the sign of Jonah comes from.
When the religious leaders demanded Jesus show them a sign to show his authority, this
right here, what we're looking at right now, this is what he was referring to.
So it's an important and valid scripture for us to learn from and to apply to our lives.
Now you no doubt have noticed a parallel here as well.
All right.
As we get into all this here, you know, Jonah, he was sacrificed.
He was swallowed by death for three days and three nights.
Hence he became a sign.
Jesus was sacrificed and rose on the third day.
People today still demand proof of Jesus being God.
And today, just as then, when it happened, his death and resurrection, you know, the
death and resurrection of Jesus tells us the truth of who he is.
Now from a biological standpoint, from, you know, when you look at biology, if you research
legitimate resources and don't just, you know, follow the nonsense that's out there on social
media and what all these naysayers say, it actually is possible that this could have
been a sperm whale.
Now it's unlikely, however, it's not impossible, even with what we know from a scientific standpoint.
In addition, as we'll see soon enough, Jonah will be vomited out.
Sperm whales do have this ability to rid themselves of bile as well.
Now personally, when I come to the scripture, I've always gotten this picture.
I know it's goofy, but I've always had this picture in my mind of Pinocchio and Geppetto
on their little raft trying to escape Mastro the Whale and that old film, you know, the
old cartoon.
All right.
Now that I have all that out of my system, we're going to go into chapter two here.
So Jonah chapter two, and it's 10 verses, so we're going to go through all 10 here
real quick and then we're going to go into the meat of it.
All right.
And break it down.
So Jonah chapter two, verses one through 10, the Bible says, from inside the fish, Jonah
prayed to the Lord his God.
He said, in my distress, I called to the Lord and he answered me from deep in the realm
of the dead, I called for a help and you listened to my cry.
You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas and the current swirled
about me.
All your waves and breakers swept over me.
I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around
my head.
To the roots of the mountains I sink down.
The earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit.
When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your
holy temple.
Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say salvation comes from the Lord, and the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited
Jonah onto dry land.
Wow.
So truly swallowed by the darkness.
Jonah was thrown into the sea, swallowed by this huge fish, and he was facing death.
I mean, he was looking it right in the eye.
In itself, there's more than enough for anyone to start wallowing in self-pity.
For all he knew he was done for.
This was it.
Game over, man.
He was slowly going to die inside of this fish with all this seaweed, the stomach acid,
and whatever else was in there with him.
I venture to say it probably didn't smell very good either.
This is a pretty bad day.
It's about as bad as it gets at this point.
I wonder if he knew a whale that went to church for religious purposes.
Okay, bad dad joke, but you get the picture.
What we have here though is an entire chapter dedicated to his prayer.
Instead of saying, oh, woe is me, Jonah prayed.
He acknowledged how he got there.
He messed up, and he acknowledged where he was.
He messed up, and he was going to die.
In verse two, he even compares his situation of being in this fish to being in the land
of the dead.
He's done.
He's in the land of darkness.
He had this time left, and instead of being sad and depressed by, oh, this is it.
Done.
I messed up.
He surrendered himself fully, and he prayed.
Thank God for hearing his prayer.
What he's talking about here at the beginning is that prayer to save the sailors on the
ship.
He thanked God for hearing his prayer and asked for help.
He knew that regardless of what happened next, that he'd see God.
Look at verse seven, where he says his life was ebbing away.
This is a very poetic way of saying he was dying.
Yet, he remembered he needed to look to God.
Even looking death in the face, he knew he needed to look to God, not himself, not focused
on the stuff around him or anything, just God.
It's just like us today, when things are going good, we're even better than that.
They're going great.
He said, thanks, God.
It's really easy for us.
Thanks, God, but we still take him for granted.
We take our eyes off of him, and we start looking around at the world.
We start looking at that storm, and that is when we sink.
We sink in the storm, when we're focused on the world.
Yet it's when we are at our weakest that we really remember to look to him and to ask
for help, that we truly depend on him, that we come before him.
We need to remember, and we need to work on our relationship with him every single day.
I'm going to say that again, we need to remember to work on our relationship with God every
single day, not just saying thanks for the blessings, but following what he's asked us
to by being obedient to his word, and not just taking someone's word for what the scripture
says or what some post on social media says, but actually reading it for ourselves.
Second Timothy, chapter two, verse 15, reminds us, do your best to present yourself to God
as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the
word of truth.
It's talking about being knowledgeable in the Bible, all right, to educate ourselves
by actually reading the word.
You see, we have access to the Bible in more places than ever before, ever before.
However, studies show that less than 30% of Christians in the world ever even read the
entire Bible, and that here in the US, more than 82% of Christians only read their Bible
in church on Sundays.
How good of a relationship could we possibly have with the Lord when most of us don't
even truly know what his word says because we don't open this book?
All right, now continuing along here in verse eight, Jonah goes on to talk about false idols
or simply put, false gods.
Matter of fact, depending on your translation, it might say idols or it might say gods.
People get hung up on them and they fall into these empty, foolish things that have no real
value or real meaning, but they still get put up on that pedestal.
It's a reminder that we need to make sure that God comes first in our lives at all times.
We have to remain vigilant to ensure nothing takes its place as number one.
Even as we read through verse nine, we know that Jonah was locked in on God at this point.
There was no room for negotiation anymore.
There was no wiggle room.
It was God's way.
That's how life is.
It's God's way or the highway, and we need to accept that.
Jonah's entire prayer shows us the power of prayer.
God can hear us at any time, anywhere, even inside a fish at the bottom of the sea.
Just like Jonah was humbled at this point, we need to let go of our egos and our selfishness
and become humble before the father as well.
Our troubles remind us that we need to get our eyes back on Jesus and off the storm around
us.
When he tells us to do something, we need to do it, not argue or try to haggle with
him, but to actually do this thing that he has placed in front of us.
By haggling, it's that whole, oh, I'll do this if you can do that, because we like to
try to bargain with God, especially in prayer, and that's not the way it works.
We need to do what we're told without complaining.
It's just like parents tell their children, you get what you get and you don't throw
a fit.
A lot of us have heard that before.
It's plain and simple.
We as God's children need to stop throwing a temper tantrum just because things aren't
going the way we want them to.
God always knows what's going to be best for us, and we need to trust in that.
We need to trust in him.
We took a miracle, a true act of God, to get Jonah to come around and agree to do as he
was told.
In this prayer, we see that he'd accepted his fate.
He gave thanks and then finally did what he should have done in the first place.
He was grateful to be spared and realized that our sins can never be too big for God
to forgive, even the Ninevites.
That's who he was supposed to go see, right?
There's only one sin that is unforgivable, only one sin that God won't forgive, and
that's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, or in other words, turning against it by rejecting
Jesus.
If you recall our Reluctant Leader series, Jonah did exactly the same thing that they
did.
He ran.
He ran from his obligations, and he ran from God.
We all have these times in our lives where we're tempted to do the same.
The task before us is to recognize it so that we run to God's will instead of against it.
We need to remember, much like the prodigal son, we can all choose to walk away from God.
It does not mean that God is done with us though.
Just as he stopped them and sent them to task, these Reluctant Leaders and Jonah, he may
well choose to do the same with us.
Or he may just let us walk.
However, it's a lot harder for us to turn back the longer we run.
It's harder for us to admit our faults, our sins, and to apologize.
Really simply saying the words, I'm sorry, it isn't good enough.
Not that it ever really was, but these words especially.
Many people, and I'm sure you've noticed, many people say it so often, it really doesn't
mean anything anymore.
In fact, just the other day I was talking with my son about something and he said, I'm
sorry.
It's like, what are you sorry for?
Why are you apologizing?
You didn't do it.
This isn't your fault.
Why would you even say I'm sorry?
Instead there are a few words that are even harder to say and really we should say them
because they make it clear what we're trying to say.
Instead of saying I'm sorry, what we should be saying is will you forgive me?
Or please forgive me.
Because it speaks not only to your heart, but to the other parties as well.
And we know it's what we should be saying.
The Lord's Prayer even says, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
That they're a non-believer, even better because this is a great opportunity in a great way
not only to let God's light shine in you because you may be all that they know of God, but
it's also a great opportunity to introduce them through action to the grace, love, and
mercy of Jesus.
So wherever you are in life, wherever you are, it doesn't matter, it's time to come
home.
Stop running from the Lord.
Admit your faults.
Admit your sins.
Ask for forgiveness and recommit yourselves to doing the things that God has placed in
front of you.
Read your Bible and pray every single day.
And if you're not sure where to start that, reach out to me.
Send me an email.
Real easy.
I'll message you back real quick.
I'd be more than happy to offer a suggestion on where to start and how to keep going that
fits with your lifestyle.
Alright, next time we're going to keep on going, so until next time, keep reading and
keep praying.
God bless.
Thank you for tuning in to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
If you would like to know more about our ministry or how you can support us, you can find us
on Facebook at Be The Light Sanctuary or you can go to our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org.
Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you next time.
God bless.