FAITH DISREGARDS THE CIRCUMSTANCES/ DON'T OBSERVE LYING VANITIES

In this episode, Pst. E!  unpacks Jonah’s journey from defiance to divine revelation, showing how faith ignores circumstances and clings to God’s promises. From the depths of the fish’s belly, Jonah declared, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy”—a truth we can apply when facing hopeless situations. Discover how stubbornness, when surrendered to God, becomes strength, and how the same resurrection faith that sustained Abraham can transform your darkest moments.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Jonah's Story
• 3:25 The Runaway Prophet
• 7:42 Swallowed by the Great Fish
• 12:32 They That Observe Lying Vanities
• 16:26 God Raises the Dead
• 19:43 Prayer for Healing and Deliverance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:17

Hey, fam, welcome back to DIY Salvation Podcast, where you take responsibility for your faith journey. I am your host, pastor Esther Obele, and today I want to talk to you about something that's been pressing on my heart for quite some time now. I've titled it Do Not Observe Lying Vanities, and if you are a Bible lover, I'm sure you know where I've picked this title from. Today, the man, jonah, had quite the relationship with God, a very interesting relationship that he had with God. What God asked him to do, until you know, he could no longer avoid the consequences from disobeying God. We see Jonah as a man who was given to mood swings, and we see that he had his own personal issues, you know, and he had a way of behaving around God. You know, it kind of reminds me of someone I used to know many years ago, someone who I mentored, and this brother would not do anything you asked him to do. It didn't matter if it was good for him, it was good for his health, whether it was good for his bank account, it didn't matter. He would just not do it until you know he could no longer avoid the consequences, you know. So Jonah was that kind of person. You know, some people are just built that way. They refuse to do what you ask for a million reasons until they're completely backed into a corner and then they're exhausted from fighting.

Speaker 1: 2:24

As a side note, if you're that kind of person, you know the key to harnessing the power you have, because I feel like it's a strong point, right, but it depends on how you harness it or how you use it. It's just like people who are very stubborn, right? When you hear that somebody is a very stubborn person, on the bright side of it, you have to understand that that kind of person is a person who does not give up, right? So? But he needs to harness or he, she needs to harness that power that he has or she has, you know, to be able to use it productively. Otherwise, it will only end up as a disadvantage to him or to her. Okay, so if you're the kind of person that Jonah was, the key to harnessing the power that you have is for you to have a way of getting the wisdom of God concerning every issue in your life, and you have to consistently pray in tongues. You know, if you're a very stubborn person and you would not do what anybody says because you don't believe it, and yet you are not even that wise yourself, and so that means that you usually will make the wrong decisions. Then you would need to pray in tongues for longer periods of time so that your heart, your spirit, mind, will be softened softened to be able to receive wisdom from God. Soften to be able to receive wisdom from God so that, once you receive the wisdom, you have the willpower, you have the power or the energy to pursue it, you know, and to take whatever it is that God has asked you to go for. So that means you will be productive. You will be more productive because you know how to harness it.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Now again, I digress. So let's go back to Jonah. So imagine God telling Jonah Jonah go to Nineveh and Jonah says yes, lord. He doesn't even protest, he doesn't even complain, he doesn't even negotiate with God. You know, he just says yes, lord, as if he was going to obey. And then he just opts and then books a one-way ticket on the ship sailing far, far away from Ninive.

Speaker 1: 4:25

I can't even Like what kind of person actually thinks like that. Did Jonah think that because God was? Maybe he thought God was like a household idol? Maybe he thought God was like a household idol. You know, like we kind of question Jonah's. He's the he's. Jonah was a prophet, right, but we question his calling at this point because a prophet is supposed to know a little bit more about God or know who God is. You know what I mean. But we question it because why would he do such a thing if he really really knew the God whom he was serving? Because did he think God was like a household idol, that the moment he travels away from the shrine the idol will lose jurisdiction once he changed, once he changed location? Because that would even be dumb, even if we were dealing with idols, not God Almighty.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Now, spiritual things, we know, transcend physical geography, right, because the demons that you encounter in Port Harcourt, for example, can still oppress you in Lagos. You know what I mean. So, because spiritual things transcend physical locations or physical geography. Why? Because spirit beings are four-dimensional beings, at least to the best of my knowledge. I know that demons are four-dimensional beings. Maybe they are more than four-dimensional beings, but let's just work with four dimensional beings for now, because we do know that they do. They're able to view time, you know, as as a place. You know. They don't experience time the way we experienced that, but they do experience time on anyways. They experience time, but they experience it as a place, you know.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So, um, if that's the case, even Jonah, even if God was an idol in quotes, jonah would not have been able to escape from God. That's what I'm saying. So what was Jonah thinking? Did he forget? You know, like I said, we question his prophetic calling. Because did he forget that God is omniscient, that God is omnipresent, that God is omnipotent? That means he knows all things, he's present everywhere and he can do all things. After all, in him we live, we move and we have our being.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Well, jonah was that guy. So he was the one who ran, because obviously now we know that none of these things will make sense. So we know that he just, literally, just wanted to just be naughty and run away from God for some reason. Maybe one day, when we get to heaven, he'll be able to explain the reason why he did what he did. But he ran. He was literally the audacious, runaway prophet. He was the one who ignored the voice of God. Does that sound familiar?

Speaker 1: 7:23

When Jonah got on that ship, he must have thought I'm going to find a cozy spot on the ship and then just nap. You know, problem solved. But God wasn't having it. They were far from the shore. They were really really far from the shore when the storm hit and Jonah, you know, had to be thrown overboard and sunk deep into the sea. If you don't know the details of the story, you could go read it in the Bible, jonah, chapter one. The path that I want to dwell on is what I'm talking about right now. So he was thrown overboard, he sank deep into the sea. Jonah thought he died.

Speaker 1: 8:07

In the book of Jonah we start to read how he describes the horrors that he saw. Jonah said he saw the great deep. He saw seaweed wrapped around his head. He felt not just sea, he felt it also. Like that would have been so disgusting to think Like you. Just imagine the tickling. First it starts with a tickle and then it wraps around your head. Now you can't see anymore. Now you're struggling to be free from it. I want you to imagine these things because I'm going somewhere Seaweed wrapped around his head, mountains rising from the ocean floor. He mentions that you know just how deep did Jonah sink, because we know that sea mounts, you know form on the sea, wildlife, hotspots I mean mountain in the ocean will be on the floor of the ocean, isn't? It Will rise from the floor of the ocean. So that means he really would have sunk very, very deep. And if you're talking about sea mounts, we're talking about, I mean, yeah, how deep the ocean can be. So now imagine you being so overwhelmed you can't see a way out, just like Jonah was. You know, if Jonah had screamed, he would have hastened his own death. Besides, who would even hear him? The very people who might have heard him or who might have helped him were the very ones who had thrown him overboard. Jonah obviously had the will of a problem as terrifying.

Speaker 1: 9:33

As the ocean was right, the belly of the fish was worse. Think about it. Jonah spent three long days and nights in the belly of the great fish. Just imagine it Peach black darkness pressing in from every side. The air was thick, with the stench of decaying seaweed and half-digested creatures. I can imagine, imagine the constant squishy sounds of digestive fluids sloshing, bubbling around him bubbling around him. It could have been cold, very cold, slimy, wet, suffocating. Every breath that Jonah took would have been heavy, with the awful smell of rotten fish, salty seawater, the walls of the fish's stomach, of course, would have pulsed and moved like a living tomb waiting to digest him. If I were Jonah, I would have felt stuck inside a giant moving cave Every now and then. I'm sure the fish would have made deep growling sounds that reminded Jonah just how trapped he was. I mean, this would have been like the greatest measure of horror.

Speaker 1: 11:02

If ever you know a nightmare, miserable, hopeless, the kind of place that would crush your spirit. But instead of Jonah's spirit being crushed, this is where we see another part of Jonah. This is where I tell you that you know, even if you're a stubborn person, you just need to learn how to harness it, because it's not a bad thing. It's only when you move without wisdom or without you know understanding, that you know without wisdom or without you know understanding, that you know you could, your stubbornness could lead you to you know error. Otherwise, it's not a bad thing at all.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Jonah was determined. He was not. He was determined he was not going to die. That's the kind of person he was, as willful as he was that he ran away from God. The moment he hit rock bottom, like literally rock bottom, you know. At this point now he knew that, uh, I have to. I have to go back to God. I know the one person who can save me.

Speaker 1: 11:59

So, instead of Jonah being crushed in spirits, this is Jonah was not the kind of person that his spirit would be crushed. Instead, he what he was prompted to have revelation knowledge. A word of wisdom, yeah, a word of wisdom. Right, revelation knowledge came to him and what did he say? This is his famous words of wisdom. He said they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. You find this in Jonah, chapter 2, verse 8. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. What a profound lesson in faith. What Jonah was saying is faith disregards the circumstances. Wow, very profound Faith disregards the circumstances, jonah was saying. In other words, if I focus on the waves, if I focused on the weeds, the sea mounds or even the stench of the stomach of the fish, I would have missed my miracle.

Speaker 1: 13:12

He called all those things that he saw and felt that were real. He called all of it lying vanities. Listen, everything you need, everything you're looking for, everything your heart desires is available and indeed, through the sacrifice of Jesus, has been given to you. But because of the way the world is, I mean this three-dimensional realm is. You know, we live in a blind realm. We don't always see the things that we need, right? So there's so many things that Satan brings to cover your eyes or cover your imagination or your heart.

Speaker 1: 13:51

And so all these things Jonah is saying that listen the bad reports, the bad doctor's reports, the unpaid bills, the chronic anxiety that you feel when you think about all the problems of your life, the toxic relationship that you can't even see how you're going to come out of a life. He says the feeling of hopelessness. He says all these things are lying vanities. He says they are are lying vanities. He says they are all lying vanities. He says, in other words, you have a superpower that you have not yet harnessed, and he says how you do that is that you need to take your eyes off of these things that are lying. Okay that he says, you need to put your eyes on the things that truly matter, because when you keep your focus and keep your gaze on those things that you're seeking for, then you will be able to reach out in faith and grab them and bring them into your reality. He says all these things just like the belly of the fish they might feel real, they might look real. They might look real, they might smell real. You know, for Jonah it was real for him to be in the belly of the fish. But they don't tell the truth about what God can do. Faith completely disregards the circumstances. Reach out in faith and take the things that you need. Don't let the storm, don't let the sickness, don't let the, the crashing waves or the bills fool you. They are just lying vanities. Today they are here, tomorrow they are gone. Okay, they are lying vanities. Don't lost them, don't empower them, don't forsake your mercy.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Imagine if Jonah had considered the belly of the fish. He would have just laid down in the belly of the fish. He would have just laid down in the belly of the fish and closed his eyes and just died willingly. But he said no, I'm coming out of this. Imagine that he couldn't even open his mouth. Why? Because if he had opened his mouth, he would have drowned. Right, he had to keep his mouth shut. Jonah's faith drew him out. Okay, and it would draw you out as well.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Now we see Jonah as a powerful man of faith. What was it that Jonah believed that made him have this kind of mindset? What was it that, you know, changed the things in his heart that made him believe so much. It was the same kind of mindset that Abraham, the father of faith, had, and it is the same kind of mindset that you need to have. They both, both Abraham and Jonah. They both understood and believed one thing God raises the dead.

Speaker 1: 16:31

Jonah considered himself dead. Abraham considered himself dead, but then, when God ministered to him, he had something. He knew that God raises the dead. He considered Sarah, sarah's body dead. He was already an old man, so he considered his body dead. Sarah was already an old woman who had never had a baby before, so he considered Sarah's body dead. But not just that God raised them truly. But not just that Even when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, abraham considered that Isaac was already dead because he was going to sacrifice him, but that his confidence for going out to sacrifice Isaac was that God raises the dead. God raises the dead. God raises the dead. Jonah considered himself dead and believed that God would bring him back to life. God raises the dead. What is the dead thing in your life right now that you think is impossible for God to raise? God raises the dead. God raises the dead. God raises the dead. Jonah understood that God raises the dead and in a way, the Bible says that Jonah was raised from the dead. When God rescued him from the fish, jonah literally came back to life. Imagine what the sailors would have said if they had seen him drown. Then, three days later, they had seen a big fish come to shore just to vomit Jonah. That's pretty wild. God raises the dead.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Jesus actually referred to Jonah's story when he was talking about his own death and his burial and his resurrection. So he used Jonah as an example. He said, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So Jonah's death in the fish it was actually a shadow of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. Jonah was saved from the grave. Jesus did the same for us. Glory to God. Jonah was saved from the grave. Jesus did the same for us. What Jesus did is in the past things. That means that everything you're experiencing now is a mirage. It's a mirage. It's a mirage. It can just disappear with the twinkling of an eye. Be fully persuaded. God raises the dead. God raises the dead. He can raise your dead business. He can raise your dead body.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Barrenness in the name of Jesus, I command you go away. Every form of barrenness, every form of lack and barrenness, whether it's financial lack, whether it's financial barrenness, whether it's business barrenness, whether it's true barrenness of the womb, whatever form of barrenness. In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. Go away. Sickness and disease in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. Go away. Be healed from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet in the name of Jesus. Poverty in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. Be gone. Anxiety and hopelessness I cast you out right now. In the name of Jesus.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Father God, raise everyone listening right now. Raise everyone in any area of their lives that they need your touch right now. In the mighty name of Jesus. Satan, I rebuke you. In the name of Jesus, take your hands off of God's people. Never return again. In the name of Jesus, I place a seal of fire over everyone listening to me. Right now, I decree and declare that your healing and deliverance is permanent. Right now, in Jesus' mighty name, do not observe lying vanities. That's it for today's episode of DIY Salvation. If you were blessed by this teaching. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with someone who needs it.