Jonah's Prayer

Today we are going to be looking at prayer, of a very specific type of prayer and a very specific and unique situation in Jonah's life. So we're going to be looking at Jonah chapter two. But before we get there, I'll just recap a little bit of where we've been at in the story of Jonah. Last week in chapter one, we saw the interplay between human responsibility, remember, and God's sovereignty. God's calling on Jonah to accomplish a certain mission, and Jonah's apparent rejection of that plan and his escape plans to run away from God, to go to a place called Tarshish.

We saw how God gave Jonah just enough rope to hang himself with. And just when Jonah thought that he was home and housed, God had him just where He wanted him. And God showed Jonah the extent of His power. We saw that Jonah realized this. We saw that he said to the sailors on the boat, "It is my fault that you guys are in this danger."

"I have tried to run away from God, and now the only way for you to be safe, the only way for you to be saved is to throw me overboard." And then we saw just the amazing reaction of these Gentile, dirty, unworthy people that the Jews would have seen as second class citizens actually try and save Jonah's life, the Jew, by rowing back to shore, did everything in their power, but then ultimately had to make the tough decision to throw a man overboard. And surely they would have imagined to his death. So let's read now what happens after Jonah is thrown overboard. If you have your Bibles, let's have a look at Jonah chapter one, verse 17, just the end of chapter one, and then we'll read right through to the end of chapter two.

Jonah 1:17. After Jonah was thrown into the water, the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. 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 the depths of the grave, I called for help, and You listened to my cry.

You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents 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 sank down. The earth beneath barred me in forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, oh Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer rose to You to Your holy temple.

To those who cling to worthless idols, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed, I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord. And the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

I don't know about you, but I remember very distinctly a Bible, a children's story Bible book that my parents used to read to me every night after dinner. And in particular, I remember the story of Jonah and the picture in that Bible of Jonah in the giant fish. I don't know. You might be able to relate to this, but I really vividly remember this man Jonah in this giant cavern of a stomach sitting down with a nice wooden chair and table and a lit candle writing this prayer down. You know, and sort of next to that is a nice little comfy mat and a pillow for him to sleep for three days and three nights.

Now, he had a really nice little apartment set up in there. And I'm sure if that was drawn in the twenty first century, he might even have a PlayStation and a TV to keep him entertained for a few days. Now, there is no doubt that the story of Jonah and the fish is one of the trickiest passages to defend in the age of skepticism that we live in. There is no doubt. How could a man survive being swallowed by a giant fish or a whale for three days and three nights?

I just want to say that Jonah chapter two is not so much about the fish. But we have to deal with it, so we are going to deal with it. Chapter two is about a man and God, and the wrestling and the prayer and the honesty between this man and his God. But let's have a look at some of the things we have to address here. We have to answer the issue of the fish.

There are about three opinions, there's probably more, but these are sort of the three general ones about what really happened here. Firstly, we have the option well, if I say we have the option, there is the option to believe that this didn't happen at all, to believe that it's a complete load of made up rubbish. Now as Christians that believe that God is truth, that God speaks the truth, that God values the truth, it's hard for us to believe that this could be a made up story or a lie. We hold that all of scripture is inspired by God, and it is not susceptible to human fabrication, even if it's a nice, good old sailor story. Since Jonah's story is included in God's word, in other words, I believe, as a Christian, that it did happen, that it is real, and that it has real significance for my life.

But perhaps most persuasively for me is the fact that Jesus Himself believed the story of Jonah. In Matthew 12, verse 39, He responds to the Pharisees' demand of Him for a miracle. And this is what He says. Have a look. Let's turn actually to Matthew 12, and we'll look at what Jesus says about Jonah.

Matthew 12:39. He answered back to the Pharisees, "A wicked and adulterous generation asked for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here."

Why do I believe that this story is real? Because Jesus said it was real. And I believe that Jesus is God in flesh, so I believe that He is the God of truth. So He said He believed that Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights. I believe that.

The second option is to believe that Jonah was eaten by a current type of fish or whale, perhaps a sperm whale, something large enough to swallow a man whole, or some have even thought that a great white shark could have done it. We know of great whites that have been able to ingest someone whole if they wanted to. Others have said that it could be perhaps an extinct animal that we don't know of, or perhaps something like the plesiosaur, that giant sea dwelling dinosaur that roamed the seas a long time ago. In either case, there are some who point out the problem with that in the whole biological phenomenon of what it's like to be ingested, and I was actually thinking of getting Rob as the vet, our resident vet up here, to tell you about exactly what happens when an animal swallows something. But it's difficult to understand or to believe that someone, a human being swallowed, will be able to survive in a stomach where there is very little to no oxygen.

The only gas probably available is methane, and humans can't survive on methane, let alone the gastric acids that will start dissolving and digesting you. And, you know, the water and so on that's probably ingested by these fish or the whale or the plesiosaur in the water. So there are some physical, biological difficulties here as well. Now admittedly, there are Christians who claim that there could have been a special animal that was created by God uniquely for this purpose and was set up biologically in such a way that it could enable someone to survive for three days. And I'm sure there's people that have arguments for that.

We're not going to go into all of them. Have a look. You can probably Google it and find out if you are interested in that. That is a second option. Now a third option, and the one where I probably very humbly and cautiously put on my hat, and not everyone will agree with me here, and if you disagree, that's fine.

I hope you still love me. I will definitely still love you. But the third understanding is that Jonah actually died and that he was dead for three days and that he was resurrected by God after three days. He was in the fish, literally, but at the end he was brought back to life. Now that's possible because we know that God is a God that has the power to resurrect lives.

We know of people like Lazarus that was dead for four days and was brought back to life. We know that God has that power. The problem with this sort of understanding is that Jonah had a consciousness to pray to God. So how did that happen? If he was dead, how did he pray?

Now that is a bit hard to imagine. The first thing is that he was perhaps praying this as he was in the water or as he was being swallowed by this. But again, that's hard to imagine that he would write this beautiful, literary work of art or set it while he was being squeezed down in the esophagus into the stomach. Now I would be doing a lot of screaming and struggling rather than, you know, trying to think of these beautiful words. The other option is that there was a consciousness.

There was a consciousness that Jonah had out of his body, like an out of body experience in this time. I've wondered often, people like Lazarus, dead for four days, what was it like? Where was he? What was his awareness of what was happening? Was he in heaven?

Was he with God? Was he floating around? Was he I don't know. But it's possible, I think, perhaps, that Jonah had an understanding of what was happening. So this is where I very cautiously, like I said, and humbly place my understanding.

I find it difficult biologically to understand that this could have happened, but it's not impossible. We know God is a God of miracle and power, but we also know that He is a God that can resurrect from the dead. But we have to wrestle with this. We have to place our understanding, our hat somewhere to understand the context of what was happening here. So that's the three options more or less.

The most important thing, however, that I want us to really think about today is the story, not so much about the fish, but the response of Jonah to God in this prayer. That is what the Bible really wants to convey to us. That's why it spends the most part of the story on that. And there are a few things that we need to look at today. The first point we need to address this morning is the cause of Jonah's prayer in the belly of the fish.

How did he come to this point to pray like this? Now the simple answer is he's swallowed by a giant fish. Who wouldn't be praying? Who wouldn't be praying? But let's have a closer look.

We see in this prayer the terrible situation that he was in. In verse three, Jonah relays the terrifying nature of this situation. He says, "You, Lord, have hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me. All your waves and your breakers swept over me." Verse five, "The engulfing waters threatened me."

Literally, they were at my throat. They were choking me to death. That's frightening, the imagery, isn't it? I remember speaking to a couple here in church about their thoughts about going on a cruise and they said there is no way. We don't have a problem with the boat.

The problem is with the sea. Jonah was in terrifying physical distress. But notice almost more terrifyingly the spiritual distress that he was in. Verse four says, "I have been banished from Your sight. I have been banished from Your sight."

Now for a believer, we know that it's impossible to be away from God's sight. God is omnipresent and omniscient. He knows everything. He sees everything. He is everywhere.

Psalm 139 says, "I go to the highest mountain, You are there. I go to the deepest depths of the sea, and You are there." As a believer, Jonah knew that even at the bottom of the sea, God will still know him. God still saw him. God still remembered him, but to be banished.

To be banished from His side. That is a decision that God makes. And it was a punishment that would have rocked Jonah to the core of his essence. To have God turn His back on Jonah. And not only was this very real, very extreme danger, but more importantly, it was a spiritual abandonment.

There was both an external, physical, and internal spiritual affliction happening here. Now today, most of our afflictions and our sufferings and our pain might happen by what we call an accident. Or theologically speaking, the consequence of this broken, sin corrupted world we live in. A family member being taken by a car accident, for example, or a work accident, or someone suffering at the hands of someone that is vile and evil, we all acutely feel the pain and the suffering of this world. So in a world of trial and suffering, we can relate in a sort of a way to what Jonah was going through.

We understand the pain. We understand suffering. We understand the feeling of these waves. But infinitely more terrifying, infinitely more terrifying is the reality that God revealed Himself to Jonah as a righteous judge, judging Jonah for his sin and turning His grace, turning His love, turning His back on Jonah. God was following, in other words, the solemn due process towards a man who had willfully broken His will, broken God's law.

Jonah had been weighed on the scales of justice, and he'd been found wanting. And the horrifying reality hit Jonah right between the eyes that his sentence was death. And Jonah realized, realizes that at this point. And in his prayer, says, "This is at Your hand, Lord. This is no accident."

"This is not simply the result of the chaos and the disorder of the world that we live in that's full of sin. This is as a result of Your judgment." He says, "You have hurled me into the deep. You have hurled me into the deep. This is no accident."

Notice he says, "Your waves and Your breakers have swept over me." This isn't simply the sea doing its thing. It's not the natural pattern of nature. Now if you've ever been caught in a tumbling dumper wave here on surface, you know how terrifying that is. You know that power that just holds you down and you feel like you're down there for an eternity.

But the reality is that as terrifying as that is, it is not worth comparing to the fear that comes from understanding the consequences of God's divine anger. David writes in Psalm 39, verse 10, "I am overcome by the blow of Your hand, oh Lord. I am overcome by the blow of Your hand. The hit may be very painful in itself, but the blow of Your hand, God, that has knocked me flat. The blows of life may really hurt me, but because it is Your blow, Lord, it has flattened me."

"Woe is me," Jonah realizes, "the Lord has become my judge. The Lord has become my judge" and all my clever plans and all my scheming has come to nothing. It's been swept away by these waves. You see friends, when every prop under our feet is driven away, and when all we know is that God is infinitely holy, and we are wholly sinful, when you realize that all your markers and your measuring tapes of what is good enough, what is comfortable enough, is meaningless. When you are left without one single trustworthy feature in your defence case against God, the righteous judge, it's only then that you realize how much trouble you are in.

When that crutch, that prop, that defence, that rationalisation is dealt with and swept away and taken from you, you realize that you're in a mess. Perhaps it's easy for you to believe in the promise of Jesus' forgiveness and God's acceptance when you were young and naive, when you knew about right and wrong, but as you grew older, the world became shades of grey. And we say the world's more complicated than we used to think. Perhaps you don't feel the freedom or the happiness of obeying God's law. Or perhaps you were just never completely honest about the extent of your brokenness and the wickedness and the deceit in your heart.

When you had no insight into the power and the realness of your own corruption. Perhaps you are today feeling the pursuit of God's displeasure and the demand for you to repent. And so was for Jonah and his faithfulness. It was being tried and it was being tested. And God swept physically and spiritually all those crutches away.

Would it stand up to the test? C. S. Lewis once wrote, "You never know how much you really believe in anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. You never know how much you really believe in anything until its truth or its falsehood becomes a matter of life and death."

And so Jonah, at this point, just knew God. Everything else had failed, and it's a life and death situation. So that's where Jonah ends up. And we come to our second point this morning, and we see the stripped back, bare naked, unsophisticated nature of a faith that is being tested. This was rock bottom.

It can't get any more rock bottom than this. Jonah had a knowledge and an understanding of God that caused him, however, to pray in a certain way. Firstly, we see that Jonah didn't give up on God. I cannot understand for the life of me why people when they are doing it tough are the first ones to disappear from church. I cannot, for the life of me, understand that when people are struggling, that they stop reading God's word, that they stop praying.

It should be the other way around. But for some reason, that's not what happens. We see that Jonah didn't give up on God. How often it is to see a backsliding Christian, needing a shock like this to the system in order for them to turn to God, to recalibrate the things that are important in their life. And it's in this moment where our rationalisations and our hide and seek policy is shown to be so futile and so pathetic, and we simply, like Jonah, come to the point where we fall on our knees and we say, "Lord, help.

Help. I'm really sorry." And all the formality is gone. And there is a full confession and there's a thorough and free reconciliation. And all of Jonah's crutches, they were removed.

And he realises that he is standing toe to toe with God who has power over the land and the sea. There's no more distractions. There's no more escape paths. It's him and it's God. But Jonah knows God, thankfully.

And he's seen God's nature so vividly before. He knows that God is a God of mercy. He knows He is a God full of love, abounding love, slow to anger. Twice we see that he refers to the temple in this prayer. Into the temple, to the seed of God's presence in Israel, the place where God's holiness rested.

Now it's not that Jonah thought that this was the only place where God was because we also know that he says that God is creator of everything, the land and the sea, the God of heaven. He is everywhere. He's not simply isolated to the temple. But for Jonah, the place of the temple and for a lot of the Jews of the Old Testament was the representation of God's favour, of His salvation, of His covenant promise with Israel. This is where God rested on the mercy seat between the cherubim.

He knew God was everywhere, but the temple was a representation of God's favour. And Jonah knew God's character and he appealed to this character in prayer. He had seen God's salvation of Israel before and he knew God wanting to ask the Ninevites to come to repentance to Him. And so he prayed, and he talks to God, appealing to God's nature. In verse two, we see that he knows that God is a God who listens to prayer.

Have you noticed that? Verse two. "From the depths of the grave I cried for help, and You listened to my cry." Do you believe that God listens? Do you believe that God hears?

He also talks about God's grace in verse eight that we also read again this morning. And then he finishes his prayer with the words, "Salvation comes from the Lord. Only God is the one that's able to save." Jonah remembered the character and the nature of God and he prayed according to that nature. And friends, I want to tell you that if you are struggling with prayer, if you tell me, K.J., I'm not a good prayer.

"I don't know how to pray. I don't know how to do it correctly. I don't know if I'm saying the thing in the right way." Get to know this God, first and foremostly. Get to know His character, and you'll be able to pray according to that.

Get to know God and you'll be able to appeal to His very nature. God is a God of justice, so we pray for justice. God is a God of mercy and compassion, so pray for mercy and compassion. God is the essence of joy. And if you don't have joy, pray to God to give you joy.

Knowing God and His character enriches our prayer life and gives us confidence in approaching God. And Jonah's prayer highlighted the stripped back, bare naked, unsophisticated nature of faith. A faith simply based on what he had seen and what he had experienced and what he had heard about God. And so he goes to God and says, "Lord, I know this is who You are. Please listen to me, forgive me, and save me."

And so Jonah prayed accordingly. The last thing I want us to take notice of and perhaps the most significantly, is that Jonah is a signpost to Jesus. We see the significance of this story and prayer of Jonah as we jump forward eight hundred years to Jesus. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing how the groundwork, even in 800 BC, was being done for the coming of Jesus?

But not only in His coming, but His mission on the cross, and not simply in the cross, but the reality of His resurrection. "For as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of a huge fish," Jesus said, "so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah writes, 'To the roots of the earth I sank down. The earth beneath barred me in, but You, oh Lord, brought me up from the pit.'" Friends, if that isn't a prophecy, an Old Testament prophecy eight hundred years before Jesus, then I don't know what is.

Jonah, as is the case with several other Old Testament figures, is an archetype, is a prototype of Jesus. And like the other Old Testament figures, they were all flawed and they were all broken and they were never perfect. They are always messed up. But it's almost as if God put them there to show the surpassing greatness and the surpassing majesty of Jesus. Jesus who was sent on a mission to Nineveh, our world, but accepted it gladly.

Accepted it gladly and went obediently. Jonah was a signpost to Jesus, yet what Jonah went through as a result, or was a result of his disobedience. However, Jesus went through on behalf of our disobedience. And the resurrecting power that Jonah experienced as a result of God's mercy, Christ received as the vindication and the stamp of approval that His work was good, that it was complete, that it was perfect. And the great joy this morning is that Jesus is the faithful prophet, that He is the righteous messenger, and that He is the perfect saviour. The massive joy this morning is remembering that while Christ was crucified, that He was barred in the earth, the Lord God, the maker of the land that held Him, the maker of the sea that cast Jonah into that terrible situation, the Lord God brought this Jesus up from the pit and that salvation still comes from the Lord.

Hallelujah. Let's pray. Lord, You're so merciful. And, Lord, we love Your word. We love that these men and women that that You had dealings with, that You loved deeply, that You cared for, Lord, are so much like us, and that we can relate to them so easily, Lord.

Yes, Lord. Some of us are wrestling, are struggling with our own failings and the fact that we have wandered away, that we have struggled, that we are running in the opposite direction, Lord, that You are sending us in. But we are comforted, Lord, and we are reminded that You hear us from the pit of the grave. Lord, wherever we are, if we are in those waves, if we are in the belly of the beast, Lord, You are not far. You are so close and You can hear and act.

Lord, help us, remind us of Your nature that we may pray according to that, that we may cling to that as our hope, as our joy, as our defence. Father, we also thank You for the fact that Jonah pointed to Jesus. And Lord, thank You for the assurance of Jesus and of knowing Him. And that these issues of the faith, these things that we wrestle with in our faith, Lord, You've already dealt with. Lord, thank You that You didn't forsake us.

You didn't turn tail and run. You gladly and obediently took on the responsibility. Lord, we thank You for the resurrection, that You're not a dead saviour, a worthless saviour, a prophet that has gone before like so many others. But Lord, that the resurrection is the power for us to have a new life, a changed life, a life that is never ever going to be the same. And so Father, we stand in that and we profess and we cling to that as our hope.

And Father, we pray that we will remain obedient to You. And we thank You, Lord, for Your sacrifice for us despite our disobedience. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.