God is using your trial | JONAH 2 BIBLE STUDY WITH ME (SOAP Method) | Kaci Nicole

hello and welcome back to my channel and welcome back to our Bible study with me Series going through the Book of Jonah today's video we're going to be in Jonah chapter two like we talked about in chapter one Jonah tends to be seen as a children's story but there's so much more to it and it just points us so beautifully to who God is if you watched the chapter one video you know this if you didn't watch the chapter one video I encourage you to go back and watch that one first before watching Jonah chapter two in that video we covered chapter one and also the context of the Book of Jonah which is so crucial to just understanding everything or going to unpack I wanted to remind you guys that I have created a Bible study guide for this Jonah study you can grab that down below it's an 11 page PDF that walks you through the structure the context the theme and the details of this Jonah Bible study in a way that's really easy to follow easy to understand and really just helps enrich and deepen in your study and so those are available down below I also have the Jonah Bible study with me bundle so if you don't want to wait for each chapter to release Here on YouTube you can grab the Bible study bundle which gives you instant access to the entire study in one video right now in addition to the study notes and so those links are going to be available down below I also have a link to the memory verse lock screens so something fun we're doing with this study is that for each chapter we are picking a verse to memorize and I created fun little lock screens to help you work on this and so those are available for free down below if you haven't already please be sure to subscribe to my channel that is a huge way that you can help to support my channel as I continue to make these Bible study with me series and then give this video a thumbs up if you have been enjoying this study now let's get into a little bit of recap so some context recap Jonah is one of the 12 minor profits so the minor Prophet books in the Bible are minor not because of significance but because of size they're a little bit smaller than the bigger profit books like Isaiah or Jeremiah and Prophets typically focus on God's words that are spoken through a prophet but this book is unique in that it doesn't focus on the words of the Prophet but rather it's a story about the prophet himself it's a story about Jonah a little bit of recap on the theme some sort of theme statement points is that God is rich in Mercy toward those who you at least expect and he cares for the individual who is doing his work just as much as he cares about the work that is being done second point is that this is a satire story meant to expose Our Own Worst Tendencies so do I also have this mindset of Grace for me but condemnation for my enemies lastly Jonah points to Jesus and Jesus is the greater Jonah and I love how we're going to see just who he is more through this story a little bit of a story recap from chapter one so basically we see this exchange where God has called Jonah to preach repentance to the ninevites and the ninevites are Israel's enemy and so going to preach repentance and wanting to have Grace for the ninevites would not have made Jonah very popular because they're the enemy of his people and then God gives this call to Jonah Jonah flees from the presence of God to tarshish which is the opposite direction from Nineveh and God causes a storm on the sea as Jonah is you know going the opposite direction on this boat God causes a storm on the sea and the sailors end up needing to throw Jonah overboard so that they don't die in this storm and God then at the end of the chapter appoints a fish to swallow Jonah up so that he doesn't die as he's thrown overboard and chapter one ends with this question of is is Jonah going to wake up from his spiritual Slumber because we see when we are disobedient to God when we are fleeing from him it leads to a spiritual decline is Jonah going to wake up we're going to see the answer to that in chapter two for chapter two there is only one subheading and that is Jonah's prayer and that's going to cover verses 1 through 10. I want to give you a reminder that any of the resources I reference in this video whether it be sermons whether it be commentaries my study Bible my journaling Bible highlighters pens Journal any of that all of those are linked down below I always like to mention that because I always get questions and if you're looking for any of those things you can find them in my description box let's go ahead and get into it if you have a Bible you can join with me and turn to Jonah chapter two I'll also have the text up on the screen here's what it says verse one then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish saying I called out to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me out of the belly of sheol I cried and you heard my voice for you cast me into the deep into the heart of the Seas and the flood surrounded me all your waves and your Billows passed over me then I said I am driven away from your sight yet I shall again look upon your Holy Temple the waters closed in over me to take my life the Deep surrounded me weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever yet you brought up my life from the pit O Lord my God when my life was fainting away I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your Holy Temple those who pay regard to Vain Idols forsake their hope of steadfast love but I with the voice of Thanksgiving will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay salvation Belongs to the Lord and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land let's unpack that the first thing we see in verse one here is it says then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish it wasn't just a God or it wasn't even God that Jonah prayed to but it specifically said that it was his God this here denotes a personal relationship and then we move in to the bulk of the chapter which is Jonah's prayer and a note on this from my study Bible it says that Jonah's prayer is not a request to be saved from the fish but it is Thanksgiving for being saved by the fish bringing him to this place where he needed to confront what he was doing and encounter God so God used the fish to save Jonah from drowning and he used the fish to bring about Jonah's repentance I think a prince principle we can pull from this is that oftentimes it's those difficult situations in our lives that God uses to refine us and so from the outside they might look like a difficulty But as God is refining us as he's stripping away sin as he's bringing us to a place of repentance where we can look more like him God is actually using that difficulty to ultimately save us because if left to our own way and if God just allowed us to keep walking in our own way that way leads to death and so sometimes the difficult things in our lives that we wish we could escape from there actually God's means of provision in our lives because he's using those things to bring us to him bring us to a place of repentance so we can turn from our sin and turn to him Isaiah 53 6 says and we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all so all of us there's not a single one of us who hasn't gone Our Own Way Gone in a way of Disobedience from God just like Jonah yet God has Lane the iniquity of all of us on Jesus the perfect one the one who is without sin a couple more notes on verses two through nine on Jonah's prayer as a whole Jonah's prayer is actually filled with direct references to the Psalms so in verse 2 and he says I called out to the Lord out of my distress that is a direct link to Psalm 120 verse 1 in verse 3 when Jonah says for you cast me into the deep directly links back to Psalm 69 2 in verse 3 when Jonah says all your waves and your Billows passed over me links back to Psalm 42 7 and then in verse 4 when Jonah says then I said I am driven away from your sight that is a reference to Psalm 31 22 and so what we see here is that Jonah's trials led him back to the truth of scripture I think that often times it is when we are in those dire situations when we feel like we are at our end we have nowhere to turn that is when we turn to God that is when we remember the truths of scripture and when we're desperate for those truths and when we cling to them and what it is we can recall in those moments of Crisis is what it is we truly know here we see that Jonah knew the word of God he was in the belly of a fish he didn't have you know scribes to pull out to remember these verses they were hidden in his heart he knew the Psalms he knew the scriptures and that is brought to the light here in this moment of trial but the warning of this is something that can be summed up in this quote from skip heitzig he says exposure to biblical truth doesn't ensure a Godly life meaning Jonah knew God's word we see that he knew the Psalms he had them stored in his heart but that doesn't mean that he was living how God wanted him to live the very reason he's even in the belly of the fish is because he's being disobedient to God and disobedient to what God had called him to do and so just because we know the Bible verses doesn't necessarily mean we're living them out and this kind of gives us that warning do we know God's truth do we just know it or do we know it and are we being transformed by it and living it out as well so Jonah's in the belly of the fish and he cries out to God a note from the enduring word commentary says Jonah was still in the belly of the fish but he knew God heard him before the answer even came we see that in verse two and when Jonah says you heard my voice so he's still in the fish he hasn't been rescued from the fish yet he knows that God has heard him this shows us that Jonah had faith and it also shows us that God can bring us total peace and total assurance that he has heard our prayers even before we have ever seen the answer something to take note of now let's look at some specifics from Jonah's actual prayer in verse 3 he says for you cast me into the deep we talked a little bit in chapter one about God's sovereignty and here we see that Jonah recognizes God's sovereignty because if we remember in chapter one it is actually the sailors who throw Jonah overboard yet Jonah here knows that it was truly God that God is the one who brought that about he was working through the sailors that it was God's purpose in verse 4 he says then I said I am driven away from your sight yet I shall look again upon your Holy Temple so as Jonah is saying I'm driven away from your sight he recognizes that besides the physical circumstance of being in the belly of the fish he recognizes that the greatest true tragedy about his circumstances is that he is no longer in communion with God because sin impedes our fellowship with God which is why we need Jesus because he made a way to bridge that Gap that sin created so Jonah misses communion with God and Longs for it he says yet I shall look again upon your Holy Temple and in the Old Testament the temple is where the presence of God dwelt so he is saying I've been removed from that sin has created a separation yet I know I shall look again at your Holy Temple I long for your presence and what we see here is that it took him turning from God and hitting literally rock bottom the bottom of the ocean in the belly of the fish to see that God is what he truly Desires in verse 7 he says when my life was fainting away I remembered the Lord if we look at those words my life is fainting away here we see that Jonah is brought to this point of humility in the belly of the fish and he had to feel the vileness not only of his own environment but he began to feel the vileness of his own sin and that is the place that God needs to bring us to so that we can then repent and turn to him and turn from our sin we have to recognize the filth that we are living in that we are sitting in and our need for him I also want to note here that the positive turning point in the story this point of Jonah's repentance when he turns from his sin into God this positive Turning Point happens in the hard circumstance I.E the belly of the fish what we can learn here is that God doesn't always spare us from the hard Circle stance he doesn't always spare us from the belly of the beast but he does use it to do a profound work in US once again it is often those difficult circumstances where we experience being refined verse 8 in Jonah's prayer he says those who pay regard to Vain Idols forsake their hope of steadfast love so an idol is anything we worship that demands our affections more than God and Jonah potentially here had the idol maybe of reputation he cared about preserving what people thought about him more than he cared about obeying God he knew that if he followed God's call to speak to Israel's enemy then people might not be too happy with him so he cared more about preserving his self-image than being obedient to God he could have thought how can I be the one to take the gospel to heathens he was perhaps afraid of obeying God because he thought his image might take a hit or because his enemies might experience forgiveness when he wanted them to experience judgment verse 9 he says but I with the voice of Thanksgiving will sacrifice to you so Jonah comes to this recognition of the the idols in his own heart and he promises to eradicate them to sacrifice them to God and this here is the genuine repentance of an imperfect man so as we're gonna see when this story continues Jonah is going to harden his heart again yet God responds to him here and this reveals to us God's mercy God forgives us when we turn to him even though he knows all the ways that we're going to fail again oh the mercy and the grace of our God in verse 9 Jonah says salvation Belongs to the Lord so Jonah here has a humbling realization I can't do anything to save myself when we come to the place where we recognize we cannot save ourselves we recognize that salvation is not ours to earn and it's also not ours to give it is only of the lord we cannot earn our own salvation and so therefore we don't get to be the judge of who does or doesn't deserve it we don't get to be the judge of all those people are too evil too Wicked they can't deserve God's salvation none of us can earn it none of us deserve it Romans 3 23 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and Romans 5 8 says God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us he didn't die for us when we were just cleaned up enough to be worthy of his sacrifice he died for us while we were still Sinners and so Jonah maybe had the temptation to think well I'm a man of God I'm a prophet I deserve God's salvation the ninevites are horrible they're sacrificing children they're scorching people in the sun they're doing all these horrible practices they don't deserve it but the humbling realization he had to come to that I have to come to as well that we have to come to as well is that we didn't do anything to earn it we don't deserve it and so even when there's somebody else who it just feels like how could the mercy how could the grace of God be for them they don't deserve it but realizing none of us does it is a gift of God so Jonah prays this prayer to God and then in verse 10 it says and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land once again we see here God's sovereignty over the fish just as God appointed the fish to swallow up Jonah God is now appointing the fish to vomit Jonah out upon the dry land and the principle here is that creation obeys God he is in command he is in control he is Sovereign over it all the other principle we see here is that God often allows us to remain in our difficult situation long enough to accomplish his refining purposes in them where we are pleading with God like remove me from this uncomfortable situation remove me from this situation that is just a constant source of frustration remove me from this hard thing God sometimes in his grace will allow us to remain in that situation long enough to accomplish his refining purposes in them a note from the enduring word commentary on this says Jonah's Deliverance came after Jonah's repentance was complete Jonah wasn't just sorry for what he did he was now trusting God again for further study we're going to take a look at Jonah 2 verse 8. so I'm gonna go ahead and pull out my Bible study journal and we'll dig in all right I went ahead and wrote that verse down here's what it says those who pay regard to Vain Idols forsake their hope of steadfast love one of my favorite things to do in studying sometimes is to take words that you know are seem to be simple that we know the meaning of and to look up the definition of them so I'm going to look up the definition of this word vein here all right there's two different definitions one is having or showing an excessively high opinion of one's appearance abilities or worth and then two is producing no results or useless and based off the context of this verse it looks like the second definition is really what applies [Music] [Music] I ended up writing down both versions of that definition because I realized that the second one or what was the first one showing an excessively high opinion of one's appearance abilities or worth could actually very easily be an idol and I think it's a really common Idol is just appearance and what people think and you know how you come across and all that kind of stuff so I wrote both of those things down I also want to look up the definition of the word forsake it says to abandon or to renounce or give up [Music] thank you [Music] okay so I wrote down those definitions and I also just wrote the note you can't have both your false idol and true love it's one or the other because it says here those who pay regard to Vain Idols forsake their hope of steadfast love I also looked up the definition of the word steadfast which says firm and unwavering so here we have a contrast that Idols are fickle God's love is firm and so now I'm just going to write through some Reflections down here [Music] foreign [Music] okay so here's what I wrote When I Look to something other than God for my identity I'm tossed to and fro and I give up my hope of security what Idols am I tempted toward what do I think about or spend more time pursuing than God how have those things shown themselves to be without result and useless anyway and so those are sort of some application questions I'm going to be thinking through and spending some time praying through them as we're doing Bible study and as we're learning these different things that God is speaking through his word prayer is where we can then respond to him and what he's spoken to us in his word and so I encourage you to spend some time doing that as well that is all for Jonah chapter two I would love to hear from you favorite verse or takeaway from this chapter you can leave a comment down below and you can also tag me in a photo of your study notes over on Instagram and then if you've been following along with this study in real time be sure to comment down below a gold star Emoji if you have been enjoying this study please be sure to give this video a thumbs up hit the Subscribe button and share this video with a friend who you think might enjoy it as well as a reminder you can grab my free memory verse lock screens so you can track with the memory verses throughout this study and then you can also grab my Bible study notes and if you don't want to wait for chapters three and four to release on YouTube you can also grab my Jonah Bible study bundle which gets you access to the study notes in addition to instant access to the entire Jonah study as well thank you so much for joining me for this Bible study and I will see you back here in two weeks for Jonah chapter three bye [Music] thank you

Channel: Kaci Nicole

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Keywords: Kaci Nicole, Bible Study, Christian YouTuber, Bible Study With Me, Christian Girl Bible Study, How To Study the Bible, Women's Bible Study, Kaci Nicole Jonah, Bible Study For Beginners, Christian Motivation, Bible Study Tools, Jonah Sermon, Bible Study With Me Jonah, Bible Study Tools For Beginners, Jonah Study Guide, Kaci Nicole Bible Study With Me, Kaci Nicole Bible Study, Book of Jonah Explained, Bible, Book of Jonah Bible Study, Jonah 2, Jonah Chapter 2, Jonah 2 Sermon

Id: K1mYv2_oZkk

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023