Then Jonah Prayed - Jonah 2:1-10

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. Then Jonah prayed. After three days and three nights within the great fish, Jonah prayed. He discovered he had not died. He was certain he was going to die. He was certain that that was the end of Jonah. And yet he discovered that he did not die. God in His grace and mercy had kept him alive. And in Jonah 2, we have Jonah's prayer of repentance.

You'll recall that chapter 1 we labeled resignation because in chapter 1 Jonah rejected the will of God, and he tried to run away from the will of God. He learned the lesson of God's providence, God is in control. Repentance is the title of chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed. And he learned that God is a God who forgives. God does give us another chance.

The sad thing about Jonah is this, in chapter 1, he did not want the will of God. He was afraid of the will of God. God said, "I want you to go to Nineveh." And he arose to go in the opposite direction. He went down to Joppa, and there he found a ship. That was a remarkable thing to have a ship already waiting for you because you couldn't get reservations in those days. It's rather interesting he found that ship at Joppa when he was running away from God. It was at Joppa that Peter had his vision to go to the Gentiles. And at Joppa, Jonah decided not to go to the Gentiles. You see, Jonah was a patriotic Jew. He did not want Nineveh to succeed. He did not want Nineveh to rise in power. He would rather that God destroy Nineveh because Jonah, being a dedicated Jew, did not want the Gentiles to rise in power. Well, God caught up with Jonah. Jonah learned the lesson of God's providence, you can't run away from God. And now he's going to learn the lesson of God's pardon.

You see, in chapter 1, Jonah was afraid of God's will, but now in chapter 2, he wants God's will only in an emergency. We're going to find out that in chapter 3, Jonah did the will of God because he had to. And in chapter 4, God tries to teach him to love His will. Not to be afraid of the will of God or want the will of God only in an emergency, or not to do the will of God because we're afraid not to. In chapter 4, God's going to try to teach Jonah and us to love His will, to do the will of God from the heart. Well, Jonah prayed and God answered Jonah's prayer. A great miracle took place. That fish regurgitated Jonah out upon the dry land.

Now, let's consider the characteristics of this prayer because we can learn from it. I notice first of all, that this prayer was born out of affliction. Verse 2 of Jonah 2, "And said, 'I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me. Out of the belly of Sheol or hell, the grave, cried I, and Thou heardest my voice. For Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about. All Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.'" Now, he admitted that God was the one who did all of this. You notice that? It wasn't the sailors who threw him into the deep. Verse 3, God cast him into the deep. It wasn't the billows and waves of the water that went over him. These were God's billows and God's waves that passed over him. Our Lord Jesus could have quoted verse 3, the end of verse 3, when He was on the cross, being baptized with our sufferings. "All Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me." He said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it be accomplished." Jonah had this prayer born out of affliction. God was chastening him.

Now, the great chapter in the Bible about chastening is Hebrews 12. And this word chastening doesn't simply mean punishment, it means child training. God does not chasten us because He hates us. He chastens us because He loves us. Hebrews 12:6, "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." If a person disobeys God and God does not spank him, it's evidence that person is not born again. God always chastens His children. Now, there are several attitudes you and I can take toward the chastening of God. Verse 5 of Hebrews 12, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." There's the first attitude, we can despise it, fight against it. And say, "All right, God, I can hold out as long as You can." Or we can go the other extreme and faint under it. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." That's the other extreme. Now, God doesn't want us to faint, to give up. He wants us to learn. Verse 7, "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons." So, we should endure the chastening, and we should submit to the Lord. Verse 9 of Hebrews 12, "Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" The suggestion there in Hebrews 12:9 is that if we don't subject ourselves to God, we may not live. There is a sin unto death. And so, Jonah's prayer was born out of affliction. He was going through suffering.

There are 18 different words in the Hebrew language that you can translate to cry, to cry out. The first one in verse 2 means to call out. And Jonah said, "I called out by reason of my affliction." The second word in Jonah 2:2, where he says, "I cried," means to cry for help. "Out of the belly of Sheol, the grave, down in the depths, I cried out for help." And it says that God heard him. Twice it tells us that God heard him. Now, the word says that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. But Jonah was now dealing with his sin. He was about to confess his sin to the Lord. His prayer was born out of affliction. You know why God put Jonah in the darkness and the depths and the dampness and the death of that experience? Here he was inside of a great fish, darkness and death. He could feel the waves and the billows. You know why God put him down in the bottom like that? To remind him of what it was like to be lost. Jonah, he was saying to him, "Jonah, the people in Nineveh live in darkness and death. They live a life apart from God. They are helpless and hopeless. Now, I want you to go help them. I want you to take the message of salvation to them." The trouble with those of us who are born again is this: we forget what it's like to be lost. We forget what it's like to be in darkness and death and prison and despair. We forget what it's like to be at the end of our rope. And God says to us, "You go share the word with those who are in need." His prayer was born out of affliction.

I notice in verse 4, that his prayer was based on God's Word. In fact, he quotes here in this prayer, he quotes seven times from six different Psalms. But the key reference is in verse 4. "Then I said, 'I am cast out of Thy sight. Yet I will look again toward Thine holy temple.'" Now, what does it mean to look toward the temple? He had only one way to look, that was up. Well, when Solomon dedicated the temple, you'll find the record back in 2 Chronicles 6, he prayed a long prayer of dedication. And he made this statement in verse 36. "If they sin against Thee," talking about His people, the Jewish people, "for there is no man who sinneth not, and Thou be angry with them and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives into a land far off or near. Yet if they take it to their hearts in the land where they are carried captive and turn and pray unto Thee in the land of their captivity, saying, 'We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly.' If they return to Thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, and where they have been carried captives and pray toward their land which Thou gavest unto their fathers and toward the city which Thou hast chosen and toward the house which I have built for Thy name, then hear Thou from the heavens and forgive Thy people who have sinned against Thee." Now, Jonah knew this Old Testament promise. He said, "I will look again toward the holy temple. I will confess my sin." God has promised that if I look toward the temple and confess my sin, He will forgive me. That's the Old Testament version of 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

It was a prayer born out of affliction, it was a prayer that was based on God's Word. It was a prayer that gave glory to God. Verses 5 and 6, "The waters compassed me about, even to the soul." He was afraid he was going to die. "The depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head." My, what a graphic picture! "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with its bars was about me forever." He was in prison. "Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God." He gives God the glory for raising him as it were from the dead. You see, the reason he was in trouble was because he wouldn't give glory to God. It was God who sent him down. You'll notice how he keeps going down. Jonah 1:3, he went down to Joppa. He went down into the ship. Jonah 1:5, he went down into the sides of the ship. And now in Jonah 2:5, he goes down into the depths. Jonah 2:6, he goes down to the bottom of the mountains, to the very foundations of the earth. And he's in prison as it were with the bars around him. Down, down, down when you run away from the will of God. But now he's giving glory to God. "Thou hast brought me up. Thou hast saved my life. Here I am, Lord. You're the one who gets the glory."

I notice something else about his prayer. His prayer involved confession of sin. Verses 7 and 8. "When my soul fainted within me." My Bible says men ought always to pray and not to faint. Had he prayed and been obedient to God, he wouldn't have fainted. "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord." Sounds like Peter, doesn't it? Peter remembered the word of the Lord and went out and wept bitterly. "And my prayer came in unto Thee into Thine holy temple. They that observed lying vanities forsake their own mercy." Another way to read that, "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." He's saying here, "I'm going to confess my sin. I forgot God. I remembered the Lord. I'd forgotten the Lord, I'd been living for myself. I neglected prayer." And furthermore, "I've been believing lies. I've been holding on to lying vanities." He really thought he was going to get away with it, but he didn't.

You know, whenever a Christian gets out of the will of God, it's because he believes some lie. The devil says, "You can get away with this." His prayer involved confession of sin. "I confess," says Jonah, "I confess that I forgot the Lord. Now, I'm going to remember Him. I confess I did not pray. I neglected prayer." The mariners were praying. The pilot of the ship, the captain came down and woke Jonah up and said, "Come on, wake up and pray." "I confess I've been neglecting prayer and I confess I've been believing lies."

Finally, in verses 9 and 10, we discover that this prayer resulted in a new dedication to God. "But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord." Now, here he is dedicating himself afresh to God. You see, in chapter 1, the Lord got a hold of Jonah's mind and told him what to do, but he couldn't get a hold of Jonah's will. Jonah said, "I will not." Now, He gets a hold of Jonah's will. Jonah says, "I will sacrifice." In other words, "I'm going to be thankful for Your will." Up 'til now, his lips have not been used to praise God. His lips have been used in ways that no prophet should ever have practiced. But now he says, "I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed." He'd made promises. And he said, "I'm going to keep those promises. I will glorify God. Salvation is of the Lord." And the Lord spoke unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Then Jonah prayed. And when Jonah prayed and confessed his sin, God forgave his sin and Jonah had a new step of dedication to the Lord.

It's interesting that in this prayer, we have seven quotations from at least six different Psalms. You see, Jonah had the word of God hidden in his heart. The word of God says, "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." Jonah had the word of God in his heart. He had hidden it there, but he wasn't heeding the word of God. Oh, he was hiding the word but not heeding the word. And he was unwilling to herald the word of God to a lost city that needed salvation. You know what's so easy for us to study the Bible, even memorize the Bible, but we get the blessing when we obey the Bible. James 1 tells us that we are blessed in the doing of the word of God, not just the hearing of it. The fact that we hide God's word in our heart will not of itself keep us from sin. We have to heed that word and let that word control our will.

Jonah finally gives his will to God. Jonah 3:1, "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.' So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. God is giving Jonah another chance. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time. The will of God is not a machine that breaks down when we disobey. The will of God is a living relationship. It's something like my body, the different parts of my body related one to another. If one part of my body doesn't function properly, the other parts of the body begin to compensate for it until we can make some repairs.

Now, if you have disobeyed the will of God, don't think that the machine has broken down and you are now on the junk heap of life. Our God is a God of the second chance. Abraham went down to Egypt and disobeyed God, but God gave him another chance. David disobeyed God. God restored him and used him. The Apostle Peter denied the Lord three times, and yet the Lord restored him. Here is Jonah now being restored and obeying the Lord. When the servant of God obeys the will of God, he experiences the power of God.

This chapter describes one of the greatest missionary miracles in history. Here's a wicked city of perhaps a million people. And from the king on down to the lowest slave, even the animals in the field, the entire city repents and is rescued from certain judgment. The amazing thing is this, that the preaching came from a reluctant prophet who did not want to be there. Someone has well said that this great missionary miracle was brought about by a man who hated the people he was preaching to. Jonah, we're going to find out in chapter 4, had one more lesson to learn, the lesson of God's pity.

Let's consider now the factors that were involved in this marvelous miracle, and from these factors, let us take courage for our own ministries. If you're having a rough time today, then you need Jonah 3. Factor number one, a great challenge. "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." I can't think of a greater challenge than the city of Nineveh. It was a great city, great in history. You'll find Nineveh mentioned back in Genesis 10. Some archaeologists have put Nineveh back 3000 BC. Great in size and splendor. Really, it was four cities connected by an irrigation system. 60 miles in circumference if you wanted to go around the cities. There was one wall 8 miles in circumference. We're told it had 1500 towers on it. And there were possibly a million or more people in this great city. Certainly it was great in history and great in splendor and size and great in power. It was a rising power in the world at that time. And it was great in sin. It was known for its violence. In verse 8 of Jonah 3, "But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands." You cannot believe how violent and how cruel were the people of Nineveh. They used to skin their captors alive. They would impale children on sharp spikes, buried into the ground and let them just hang there and die. They were known to take their captives, pull out their tongue and cut the tongue right off. They burned children in the fire. They were a wicked, godless people. They would capture kings and nobles and princes and put hooks in their noses or in their lips, and lead them along like fish that had been caught somewhere in a lake. A great challenge here. How can anything ever reach the city of Nineveh? Well, there's a great concern.

That's the second factor. God had a concern for these people. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God who will have all men to be saved, for God so loved the world. I've often said there are three beautiful love stories in the Old Testament. Ruth tells us about God's love for His church. And Hosea tells us about God's love for Israel. And Jonah tells us about God's love for the lost world. The interesting thing is this, God used Jonah even though Jonah's heart was not right with God. You see, in chapter 1, Jonah ran away from God because he was afraid of God's will. In chapter 2, he ran to God because he was in a bad spot. It was in an emergency. He wanted the will of God now. He was in trouble. In chapter 3, he obeyed God simply because he had to. He was afraid not to. The important part of this book now is going to come in chapter 4, where Jonah has one more lesson to learn, the lesson of God's pity. Now, what are you doing today to help to reach the multitudes in this world who need to hear the message?