Text: Jonah 1:17-2:7 (CSB) – “The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish: I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice. You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. But I said, “I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple. The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth’s gates shut behind me forever! Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God! As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.”
We are in a study of the book of Jonah! I have entitled our study JONAH – THE PERVERSE PROPHET. This little book is only 4 chapters long, but filled with great spiritual truths! We will think today about Jonah’s Prayer.
We have already looked at Jonah’s running away from God. It is amazing what people will do to run away from God! They will go to great lengths to run away from him:
· By business (overworking) ... always working.
· By avoidance ... always changing the subject when God comes up.
· By procrastination ... "someday I'll accept the Lord ... when the time is right."
· By denial ... "I just don't believe there is a God."
· By rationalization ... "If there is a loving God I just believe everyone will go to heaven."
· By anger! "I don't care!"
· By good deeds! Too busy doing good they don't think they need God.
The tragedy of this and all methods of running away from God is that you REALLY CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM HIM ... AT SOME POINT YOU WILL RUN INTO HIM! Paul reminds us that "Every knee will bow, every tongue confess…." It is better to run into Him on this side of eternity than wait until you are on the other side!!! Jonah's experience demonstrates that those who will run TO God will find deliverance and mercy ...
· Forgiveness is the joy of God for those looking for Him!
· Reminds me of the kid's song: "SO big, you can't get around Him, SO tall you can't get over Him, SO low you can't go under Him, SO wide you can't go around Him...!”
A large fish was hardly what you would call "luxury class” accommodations back to shore! But it was God's means of providing a safe return for Jonah!
Sometimes God's provisions are looking us in the face and we can't recognize them ... or we find them unsatisfactory! Because Jonah had been on the run God's provision was not exactly pleasant lest it promotes in Jonah an attitude of "it doesn't matter" ... but it was lifesaving and would get him on the right track again! People on the run from God will find that God will send them or provide for them a return trip ... but it might not be a comfortable provision ... after all God wants us to know that running from Him creates more pain than it solves!
Does God then let running Christians sometimes "Crash?" YES! ... He might let them experience real low depths in order for them to see their need for Him! The large fish wasn't the bottom yet ... 3 days and 3 nights in the depths of the sea were the bottom experience for Jonah! This, however, provided Jonah with the impetus he needed to finally cry out to God for help and forgiveness for running!
Trapped by God and Jonah's own bitterness, he now recognizes God's efforts to bring him back alive and give him another chance! Prayer breaks out ... and Jonah acknowledges that God hears him! How unlike the sailors' idols that they cried to, but who could not hear! Jonah by now realizes that though unpleasant the great fish was a way for God to grant him mercy and life! I wonder how many of us see this in the bad circumstances we sometimes find ourselves in ... or do we dig in deeper by becoming even more bitter and angry towards God?
Living in the belly of a fish for 3 days would make him BITTER, OR it would make him BETTER!
There wasn't much left to do but pray ... but sometimes that's enough! Notice how honest Jonah is about the experience and whom he blames or doesn't blame for his predicament!
"You (God) hurled me into the deep!" Notice Jonah's not blaming the sailors ... though they had been the ones who physically threw him overboard Jonah realizes they were just being used by God to get him where God could get through to him! He recounts the moments he hit the water ... before the fish arrived he thought he was done for ... the "currents swirled around him" ... no sense of hope remained, no answer seemed possible except death ...
BUT GOD HAD A FISH ON THE LINE AND READY TO CARRY HIM BACK ALIVE! This was a real case of God being a "fisher of men!" Notice the irony of Verse 4: Jonah who was trying to run away from God now acknowledges his fear of being banished from God's sight ... a reference of going to hell and never being able to see God again!
Some people act so tough when they are running away from God ... but when it gets down to the nitty-gritty they are just as scared about leaving God behind as anything! It was bitterness that created Jonah's run away from God ... and the thought of never being with God brought him to repentance! Notice Jonah's cry after his fear of really losing God ... "I will look again toward your holy temple" ... in part because he now had lost his bitterness and recognized God's hand in trying to get him to return!
God has an interesting message to teach him in all this, like his call to Nineveh -- a city which he didn't believe deserved God's mercy, yet God desires mercy ... this is shown here in that he recognized he didn't deserve God's mercy ... just like Nineveh, yet God sought to save him too in mercy! This is grace ... "undeserved favor!" God takes no delight in the lostness of anyone ... nor the running saints, He will go to great lengths, even painful ones, to get us to turn, whatever it takes!
Jonah describes the early signs of drowning
· Engulfed by swirling waters.
· The deep surrounded me.
· Seaweed was wrapped around his body.
· To the roots of the mountains (meaning the bottom of the sea) he could feel himself sinking ... it looked like he would be barred for good from the atmosphere, BUT GOD...
· "BUT" ... God brought him back, saved his life literally, and spiritually!
o "From the pit" ... was an expression referring to the place of the dead where they were forever separated from the presence of God. It was also a recognition of God saving his physical life ... God wasn't through with Jonah yet!
· "When my life was ebbing away" (Jonah 2:7) ... HE REMEMBERED THE LORD, suddenly bitterness didn't matter anymore ... living did!
Will God let running Christians sink so low! YES! Sometimes it takes this to get them past the petty things they are bitter over to finally call unto God and run back into His arms! Usually the stronger the bitterness the stronger the measures needed for a return!
Jonah was a good case in point! He was capable of coming around under just the right circumstances. God could have stopped him earlier some other way, God could have made all the tickets available for a boat to Joppa "sold out," or God could have made the wind blowing the wrong direction the day he wanted to leave, or made his mule not get him there in time
But Jonah had a "whale of a case" of bitterness, thus appropriate measures would be needed ... God knows!
Jonah carefully sees the difference between false gods and the Lord God, while false gods are silent in your time of need God will hear a sincere prayer no matter where you find yourself!
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