Jonah 2:1-10 - A Prayer in Need

In 2 Peter 1, the apostle Peter says that God’s “power has granted (believers) all things that pertain to life and godliness” By God’s grace, we have all we need for salvation and to grow in Christlikeness. Peter says that because of this, we should aim to grow in moral goodness, moral wisdom, self-control, faithfulness to God in our sufferings, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. This is Peter’s version of the “fruit of the Spirit” list.

Then he says, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These qualities are the inevitable result of true faith. Once we are born again, we grow in grace, and as we do, these become more and more evident in our lives.

But what if those things aren’t evident, or what if they’re decreasing in us? Peter addresses that question in the next sentence. If that happens, it’s a sign. He says, “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.” A decrease in or absence of moral goodness and wisdom, self-control, faithfulness in suffering, godliness, or love signifies that a professing believer’s heart has grown cold.

The person has become unaffected by God’s grace. They don’t remember to whom they belong. That was the case for Jonah. In the core of his being, Jonah had become estranged from God’s steadfast love. That was obvious in his decision making and his attitude. Those qualities listed by Peter weren’t on display in his life.

Other hopes had transcended Jonah’s hope in God’s goodness and wisdom.

Other loves had replaced his love for God’s ways and plans.

Jonah had idols — one in particular was self-righteous hatred of his enemies. His case against the Ninevites was just, but grace towards them was unthinkable and the result in his own life was sin against God.

But God corrects those whom He loves. He disciplines the objects of His grace. God pursues His chosen ones, even when we foolishly run away. He pursued Jonah: in the storm, at sea, with the great fish, for three days and nights.

Through circumstances governed by God’s providence, Jonah faced judgment, and as a result, he was able to feel the seriousness of His sin. He had been blinded and deceived by sin, but in the belly of the sea creature – ironically, in pitch darkness – he finally saw clearly. Pride was stripped away and arrogance vanished in the belly of the fish.

Jonah realized that terrifying place was both deserved and undeserved: deserved because he had been holding on to a worthless, sinful cause, undeserved because he hadn’t died, though he should have. He rejected God but this awful coffin was how he avoided death. By a miracle – surviving inside this great sea creature – Jonah lived.

Death was near, just outside the great fish, but inside he was alive because of God’s grace toward him. And because he was alive, he was able to turn to God. You have to be living to repent! Repentance was essential to produce a prayer like this.

But notice that Jonah repented before he was put back on dry land. This tells us that Jonah had accepted whatever future God had for him. If he died, he knew that having God was better than having any kind of earthly life. This prayer demonstrates that trouble in the lives of God’s people — whether we’ve caused that trouble or not — is used by God to make us more like Christ.

As we look closer at his prayer, I want you to notice, first of all, that God did not abandon Jonah to himself – to Jonah’s own sin. God stopped short of giving Jonah what he wanted, which was to escape from God’s presence.

Instead – God received Jonah to Himself. While Jonah is still in the fish, he’s able to rejoice in God’s mercy. And when Jonah realized that in spite of His sin, God loved him and received him, he was ready to lay his whole self before God. Chapter 3 will tell how Jonah fulfilled God’s command to go to Nineveh.

Jonah’s prayer teaches us three important truths about the God of grace: that He does not abandon His people to themselves, instead, He receives His people to Himself, and in turn, His people lay before Him their whole selves. God uses these great truths to change us within.

Now see verse 1. “Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the belly of the fish.” This is the first time Yahweh is referred to as “his” God. This indicates that in his heart Jonah has returned to Yahweh. Do you have this type of relationship with the triune God of the Scriptures? Do you accept His ways and treasure His laws? Does His love calm your soul? Is Yahweh “your” God?

Look at verse [2]. The prayer begins, “I called out to Yahweh, out of my distress,” This might be translated “out of my tightness.” Isn’t that interesting? If I said, “Pray for me, I’m in a tight spot,” you would know what I mean. That means I’m in trouble. Jonah was literally in a “tight spot!” If he had never been claustrophobic before, he would be now.

I was in a “tight spot” – literally – just after my first daughter was born. The conference was at a big hotel in Orlando that had a very large elevator that could hold many, many people. And I got on, and all these college kids got on, and more and more got on until we were crammed shoulder to shoulder.

Then the doors closed, and we started up – and then we stopped. We were stuck, shoulder to shoulder, for about 30 minutes. It felt much longer! And maybe because I was a new dad and I wanted to be home with my family, inwardly I started to freak out a little bit. There was nowhere to go. I could barely move. There was nothing to do but close my eyes and breath and pray to God.

Of course, that was nothing compared to the “tight spot” Jonah was in! He says “I called out to Yahweh” or “I cried out.” His arrogance and self-sufficiency were gone. He says, “and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol,” which is to say, from the grave, from my death, “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 breakers and your waves passed over me.”

Have you ever dreamed that you were trapped underwater and drowning? I used to have a recurring dream where I’m at Lake Robinson in Hartsville. In the dream, I’m underwater and a ski boat zooms by and stirs up sand. The sand covers me, and I can’t get out from under it. It was terrifying every time. I can still picture the dark, murky lake water, and struggling to get free. But in the dream, I never could, and I would wake up in a panic.

Psychologists associate this kind of dream with anxiety or fear, which makes sense. So, apparently, I have some issues (which isn’t a shock to me!), but I bring that up not to explore why we have drowning dreams, but because of how terrifying these dreams are. Maybe you’ve had a similar dream, or far worse, an actual near-drowning experience.

Another common fear is claustrophobia, which I mentioned earlier. Do you panic in small, closed spaces?

The awfulness of drowning and claustrophobia are in view in Jonah’s experience, for a reason: so that we might imagine and even relate to how he felt. Jonah’s experience was ordained by God to prefigure the work of Jesus Christ. That was the purpose of his three days and nights in a type of grave.

What Jonah went through helps us understand and remember what Jesus did. As I said before, we naturally forget it or become sort of unaffected by it. This is why we resort to sin when someone offends us or does us wrong, or when something in life goes wrong, or when some temptation overcomes us. We’ve forgotten what Christ saved us from.

But even our sin is used by God to help us remember. God works all things together for our good — even our sin against Him. So we should think deeply about our sin – not to be driven to despair, but to be driven to the God of grace – to help us remember and rejoice in Him.

God’s Word urges self-reflection and self-examination, not as an end to itself, not so we will punish ourselves or do penance, but with the goal of greater love for Christ and devotion to Him. That is how we change and grow in our faith and character. As we behold Christ, God works in us.

And often, He uses our own sin and its consequences to do this. You see, the God of grace does not abandon His people to themselves. He doesn’t finally give us the false freedom that we want. Look at verse [4] Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.” Why does Jonah think of God’s temple?That was the place of sacrifice for sins. It was the place of atonement. All that mattered now to Jonah was being right with God – to be cleansed of His sin.

Look at how helpless Jonah was, verse [5] “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head. [6] To the roots of the mountains I went down, to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.” Jonah had been trying to escape from God’s presence. But there is no escape from God – not even in the depths of the earth, not even in hell.

Scottish minister R.A. Finlayson wrote, "Hell is eternity in the presence of God. Heaven is eternity in the presence of God with a mediator." What did he mean? He meant that hell doesn’t belong to Satan; it is the final demonstration of God’s wrath toward sin. “Hell is eternity in the presence of God” without Christ.Hell is enduring God’s holy wrath. Jonah caught a glimpse of where he would be without God’s grace. And it was a blessing to him! Jonah rejoiced to realize that the God of grace does not abandon His people to themselves.

If you’re a Christian, and your heart has grown hard or cold in some way, you have forgotten what Christ saved you from. May you remember today. Jesus said that Jonah’s experience with the great fish was a sign of His work. Jesus also went down into the grave for three days and nights. And like Jonah, Jesus was received back by a miracle.

Of course, the work of Jesus was far greater. Jonah didn’t actually die; Jesus did. Jonah wasn’t actually raised from the dead; Jesus was. Jonah was as good as dead. He was dead to rights before God. Guilty as charged. And the punishment fit the crime. How so? He willingly rejected the call to preach God’s salvation to the Ninevites. He would rather condemn them to death. So, now he should die.

But it wouldn’t happen. That’s not God’s plan for His people. Instead, the God of grace receives His people to Himself.

I’ve spoken before about the parable of the two brothers, younger and older. The younger brother – the prodigal – left home in foolishness and returned in disgrace. But his father received him back with joy. The older brother, however, didn’t like that. He complained to their father, but the father told the older brother that the return of the younger brother as cause to rejoice, because he “was dead, but now is alive.”

It was a miracle that Jonah lived. It took a miracle to bring him back to dry land. He was made alive, foreshadowing Christ who would be made alive again. Ephesians 2 says “You were dead in the trespasses and sins…But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”

This phrase “made us alive together” is very interesting. It’s translated from one Greek word – a single, compound verb. Greek scholar William Mounce notes that the word means, “to make a sharer in the quickening of another,” or “to make alive together with another.” I looked for some examples of such an action, but there is no exact example. There are similar analogies. For instance,
a doctor who revives someone whose heart has stopped
or a firefighter who carries an unconscious person from a burning building
or, here’s a familiar one – a rescuer who saves someone who is going to drown
Again, each example is only a shadow of a reality possible only in and with Christ. And of course, that’s what Jesus said Jonah’s experience was — a good example – a sign – one that falls short of the glorious reality, but is helpful to us. Those saved through Christ have been united with Him in His death and resurrection.

No human analogy can do it justice. No earthly example can take us all the way in our understanding. But we have our salvation, and we have the call to continually reflect upon it.

Christ with His gospel is the power for life and godliness. He and the news of His salvation is the power for deliverance and spiritual growth. See the rest of verse 6. Jonah says he was practically dead in the water, “Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. [7] When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

Can you picture Jonah in there, trying to understand why he didn’t die? He knows he’s been spared by Yahweh, so at some point, he prays. And because he knows that Yahweh is a gracious God and merciful, he knows his prayer comes before God. He knows the God of grace receives Him.

And in turn, he lays before God his whole self. See verse 8, “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.” Again, this is before Jonah is put on dry land. He admits that his behavior revealed the idolatry in his heart. This could be stated “Those who preserve vain vanity,” which is to say, “Those who exalt themselves to the highest place.” Jonah had abandoned grace, but God had not abandoned Him! Once that sinks in, he says, “[9] But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. What does this mean?

It’s the surrender of his life to God's will for him. The God of grace receives His people to Himself, and in turn, His people lay before Him their whole selves, And then Jonah adds, “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” Verses 8 and 9 contain a lot. There’s more meat on the bone here, so we will revisit this next time. But simply put, Jonah can’t help but exclaim that deliverance from ourselves is all God. “And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

There’s an old saying, and if I say the first part, I think you can finish it: “A friend in need — is a friend indeed.” What does that mean? It means that someone who is there for you in difficult times is a true friend. I want to give you a different spin on that phrase: “A prayer in need is a prayer indeed.”

Cry out to the LORD of grace. In your distress, in your tight spot, with nowhere else to turn, give yourself to Him. Of course, you need to understand who He is. See Jesus Christ. He has revealed God to us. As we go to His table today, He continues to reveal God to us. Trust completely in the saving work of Jesus for you. And give yourself to Him completely.

Let’s bow in prayer.