Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our second reading, Jonah
chapter 2, and reading for our text, verse 2. Verse 2. And said, I cried by reason of
mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly
of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. The Prayer of the Afflicted. This is the second address on
Jonah and the teaching based upon the four chapters in Jonah
Last week we looked at the disobedient child of God and this week the
prayer of the afflicted. I don't suppose any have been
in the exact place that Jonah was when he made this prayer. But that doesn't mean that there
is no lessons, no instruction, no precedents that are set here
in Jonah's case. In fact it is very similar to
the case of the Apostle Paul when he speaks of what a great
sinner he was and how that he persecuted the people of God,
and yet he found mercy of the Lord. And his teaching was that
if he, the chief of sinners, had found mercy, then there was
hope for any sinner coming seeking to the Lord. And so with Jonah,
we may have as well to be in such a position as this. And because it was his running
away, his disobedience, he had brought himself in one sense
into this position. Though the preserving of his
life, of course, and keeping on praying ground, was of the
Lord. But to have a situation that
is so terrifying, so dire, so impossible, and yet we find here
a place still for prayer. May that be a message above all
else this evening. There is no place that we cannot
come on this earth, under it or above it, where we cannot
call upon the Lord in our troubles and in our distresses. We read
together the prayer, or part of the prayer, that Solomon made
at the dedication of the temple, which occurred some 176 years
before this time. Jonah lived in the time of Jeroboam
II. Solomon, of course, was only
the third king of Israel and the last one of all of the tribes
together. But the temple had been completed
in seven years and Solomon then made his prayer and in that prayer
you may have noticed as we read through the part that we did
Solomon was anticipating the very different situations that
the children of Israel would get into whether it be famines,
or whether it be taken captives in war, or whether it be with
pestilence and with sicknesses as what we are in now, or plagues
of some kind, in whatever place it was, that if there was to
be then prayer made toward this place, that the Lord would hear
it." And it is Very beautiful how it is set forth, and even
when it is extending that the trouble is not just outward,
but it's inward to our own soul. The plague of our heart, our
sins, our corruptions, those things that are brought to the
fore. Very often we think, well, we go into trouble, and Lord,
give us grace, and we'll behave, and we'll think, and we act in
exactly the right way. But how oft we prove we don't,
it brings up all the corruptions of our heart and we know then
of all times the plague of our heart. And so Solomon anticipates
that and he says in verse 38, while prayer and supplication
so ever be made by any man or by all thy people Israel, which
shall know every man the plague of his own heart. and spread
forth his hands toward this house. Then hear thou in heaven thy
dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man
according to his ways whose heart thou knowest. For thou, even
thou only, knowest the hearts of the children of men. And the
end is in view, that they may fear thee all the days that they
live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers and he speaks
of the stranger to be dealt with in the same way. And I've no
doubt that Jonah remembered the prayer that Solomon had made
and that was recorded and so that is why he makes the petition
in the way that he does and that he, though he's cast out of the
sight of the Lord, he says in verse four, yet I will look again
toward thy holy temple. And then in verse seven, that
my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple. And there
we have a clear pointing to what really he is praying to because
Solomon's temple was a type, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. That temple was to be destroyed
It was then going to be built up again, but when our Lord was
on the earth, he said, destroy this temple and in three days
I'll raise it up again. And he spoke, and we're told
very clearly, he spoke of the temple of his body and Jonah
here is not looking to any stone or earthly temple but unto the
Lord and that's why he says that his prayer came in unto thee,
where the Lord is. And this is where he was looking. It's the same as with Daniel.
That was when the temple was destroyed, when he was in captivity
in Babylon, and he opened his windows three times a day toward
Jerusalem, where the temple had been, and there he prayed to
the Lord. Again, Daniel was a man of faith,
and all those of faith in the Old Testament time, they looked
past the sacrifices They look past the tabernacle in the wilderness,
they look past the offerings, they look past all of these types
and shadows, and they saw Christ. Even the smitten rock, the water
that flowed from it. Paul says to the Corinthians,
they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and
that rock was Christ. And so it's very important for
us The second real lesson here is that Jonah, his eye is not
on a literal temple, it is upon Christ. And it is that same Christ
when he came that said that Jonah himself was, as a sign to the
Ninevites, that as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the whale's belly, it is said so in In the Gospels there, here
it is the fish's belly. So shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. If Jonah
was saved, he was saved by Christ. Saved by that one salvation that
he testifies here in verse nine. Salvation is of the Lord. So, Whatever triumph, whatever
trouble, whatever difficulty you may be in this evening, however
far off, however low, may you be held as Jonah was in your
affliction to cry unto the Lord, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to make your prayer to him and your hope to him. It is he that
Mercy comes through the Lord Jesus Christ alone because Christ
has died and risen again. It is his blood that has been
shed and it is as the hymn writer says, mercy through blood I make
my plea, God be merciful to me. Well let us look a little bit
more deeper at what we have here, the prayer of the afflicted and
so I want to look firstly at Jonah's affliction and then his
prayer and then his thanksgiving. Firstly, his affliction. In every affliction, every trouble,
every trial, there are those unique parts of it. And yet, as we said at the beginning,
that there are aspects that are common with all the people of
God, or that may exceed that, that is here, exceeding what
you and I will go through to give us that help and hope to
pray. So with Jonah's affliction, we
looked last week at how he came into it. And it was through a
path of disobedience, of rebellion, of refusing to do the will of
the Lord that he's come into this position. And maybe just stop there and
really consider how many times it is that the troubles that
you and I get into are self-procured troubles. And though it may not
be so very clear as what we have with Jonah, sometimes at first
we don't see that we've procured it unto ourselves. But then when
we see under the light of God's word that the way that we have
been walking has been contrary to the Lord. You can't escape
in reading the first chapter here that Jonah's path was in
disobedience and rebellion. But there is many, many today
that are living lives and they're thinking Allies are not too bad. We're walking rightly according
to the Lord, and he'll be pleased with my life and my charity and
my good deeds. Others it may be, even with a
profession of religion, walking in a very careless, prayerless,
distant, godless, worldly way. and yet not really convinced
of it, not really convicted. And then when troubles come,
and we may start to then go over our life or examine it in the
context of the Word of God, and then begin to see that there
is a real cause, a cause that we didn't see at first, A cause
that we can easily see with Jonah but don't easily see with ourselves. So may it be as we think of the
affliction here and the afflictions that we are in, is there a cause? The curse causeless shall not
come. It is a time when we should search
our ways When the children of Israel came
back out of captivity in Babylon, they started to rebuild the temple,
but then had great discouragements and opposition in doing it, and
so they quite easily stopped, but then they made their own
sealed houses. They neglected the Lord's house,
and so what the Lord did He touched their crocks. He touched their
money. He touched their lives. He brought
trials and troubles and disappointments there. They couldn't see the
link, the cause. But it was through the prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, that was to come and testify to them that
the reason why these things were happening was because God's house
laid waste. while they were building up their
own. And so that was a case where
they had the affliction and trouble, but they didn't see at first
that it was as much a self-procured thing as what Jonas was. It was because of their actions
that God had brought these things upon them. So when we think of
Jonah's affliction and then transfer that to ours, may we search and
try our hearts and our ways and examine honestly, remembering
we have a deceitful heart, really, are we living godly lives? Are we living close to the Lord
or are we just living for self? Has the Lord any controversy
with us? And the only way that we'll find
out is by comparing our lives with the Word of God. But here is then Jonah with this
added to his outward terrifying experience of being in the great
darkness and no doubt smells and all the tossing and noises
and it must have been a terrifying place that he was in. And yet
to know that the reason why he was in it was because he had
run away or tried to run away from the Lord and not do the
Lord's will. So this was what aggravated his
affliction by thinking of what had gone before and how he had
been brought here. But what does he actually feel
as he is in this position? Apart from the terrifying experience
itself, we have other expressions that really point to not just
the outward, but inward as well, that which was going on in his
soul. He says in the words of our text,
out of the belly of hell, cried I, or the grave, a very low place,
brought down even unto what was equivalent to be death. And then we have In verse 3,
cast me into the deep, and this was literally all thy waves,
all thy billows, thy waves passed over me. But we can view this in a spiritual
way as well, where the soul feels to be in deep waters, great troubles,
great searchings of heart, great concerns for eternity of what
is due to their sin and what the Lord will do with them. And
Jonah had been running away from the Lord, but now he says, I
am cast out of thy sight. Fewest to be so far away from
the Lord as to be even out of his sight. How low do we feel
sometimes? How low do God's people get,
like Jonah, to feel like this? To have their soul fainting within
them as we have in verse 7. These are the times that he is
to be brought to pray to the Lord. He is under the hand of
the Lord. and all that is happening to
him and all that he is feeling, the Lord is ordering this. This
is a prepared place, remember. In verse 17 of chapter one, we
read, Now, what is your prepared place and my prepared place? What is that which the Lord has
appointed for us? that is a place of trial, a place
of affliction, a place of trouble, a place where these feelings
like Jonah has are going on in our souls. The Lord knows how to bring his
people into places, unpleasant places, but they are places where
they pray when they weren't praying before and when they seek right
things that they weren't seeking before. It is a place where the
Lord brings them into and then in answer to prayer brings them
up out of as well. We think of the various places
that God's dear people had been brought into, the many times
that David was brought into extremity. We think of the time when he
fled to the Philistines and they recognised him and he really
feared for his life. You can read it in Psalm 34,
this poor man cried and the Lord heard him. and delivered him
out of all his distresses." Again, it's a prophetic psalm of our
Lord Jesus Christ. But then we have David at Siclang
a bit later, and the men that were with him were talking of
stoning him because the city was burned with fire. Their wives,
their children had all been taken captive by the Amalekites. But
we read that David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. But to really enter into what
David was coming into, with even his companions, his friends,
seeking to stone him, and David lost his wives as well. Then we think of Jehoshaphat,
king over Judah, when the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir
came against them, a great multitude, and he cried to the Lord, he
says, we have no might against this multitude, neither know
we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. Which was, they did
know what to do, and they were doing that which was right. But
to be brought to that, was brought to a real extremity and a very
low place. We have this in Psalm 107, where
as you read through that psalm again and again, the psalmist
is picturing the people of God brought to a very low place.
They fell down, there was none to help. Then they cried unto
the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them. out of their
distresses. We think especially of the part
in that psalm that speaks of those that do business in great
waters. They that go down to the sea
in ships that do business in great waters, these see the works
of the Lord, his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth
the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof, They mount
up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths. Their soul
is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger
like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their
distresses. He maketh the stormer calm, so
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they
be quiet, so He bringeth them unto their desired haven. And
these things are put unanswerable to in a spiritual way as well
as a natural way. And it is these places that are
made we see whatever trial and burden and a place that you're
in tonight to see it a place prepared by God to bring you,
to bring me, to cry and to the Lord, and noticing the aggravating
factors of it, looking at what we deserve, what we have done,
our sins, our failures, and those things are not an obstacle to
prayer and to crying to the Lord. So this is the affliction, and
we notice then his prayer in the second place. And the first
thing is that his prayer is made in this place. He doesn't wait
till he comes out of it. He doesn't wait till things improve. We read in the words of our text
that it is not only a crying by reason of mine affliction
unto the Lord, but it is out of the belly of hell. It is in
this same place that he is crying. May we be also instant in prayer. May our prayer be made when we
are in the depths, when we are feeling miserable, when we are
feeling low, when we are feeling self-condemned, when we are feeling
that there is really no hope but there is in the situation
set before us here. Now, this applies, of course,
to those that know they are God's people. Jonah doesn't cast off
the fact that he is one of the Lord's people. No. He says, Jonah, then Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God. His God, verse one, out of the
fish's belly and said, God was still his God. And this
is a great comfort, the people of God, that God does not cast
off his children. When he brings them into places
like this, it's not to destroy them, it is in mercy, it is to
bring them back to him, It is to teach them, to instruct them,
to chasten them, but they are still His people. They are still
His sheep. He still loves them. And maybe you always remember
that. But that doesn't mean if we do
not as yet know that we are His people and we're brought into
trials and troubles that we can't also Cry to the Lord in this
way. Maybe for the very first time. The Apostle Paul said one thing,
that though he did persecute the people of God, he did it
in ignorance. You might say with Jonah here,
he didn't do it in ignorance, it was a blatant, outright disobedience. But put it in this way, that
there's more hope. if it could be said, for those
that sin in ignorance, those who have never known the Lord,
but the Lord first brings them into trouble and then directs
them in a path of prayer. And I direct any that are in
trouble tonight to the path of prayer that Jonah walked here. So he says, and Again, it is
put in the language of those that have already looked. He says in verse four, yet will
I will look again toward thy holy temple. As the Lord's people,
he had already looked there, and to put it in the way of the
Lord Jesus Christ, as seen by faith, and we in the gospel day
see more clearly, those that already in their lives have looked
that way. They already have known that.
But when Jonah has to say, I will look again, when you and I have
to say, I will have to look again, it means that we've looked away.
There's been a time of desertion, a time when we've looked away,
and now the Lord's bringing us back. Now, if there's a looking again
sinner, with us tonight. May you be encouraged with Jonah.
Join with him and look again with him. That same God, that same one
that pointed you to the only way of deliverance, none other
name given among men, whereby we must be saved. And so Jonah,
what does he do? He looks again Not a new way
of salvation, not a different way, but the only way, the one
way. Then in verse seven, he remembers
the Lord. Again, remembering one that he
already knew. In one sense, you can't remember
something you've never experienced before. If you've never been
to Australia, you can't remember Australia because you've never
seen it, you've never known it. But Jonah, he remembered the
Lord. Now maybe sometimes it is with
those who have been brought up under the sound of the truth
and they may have heard the word from a parent or grandparent
or even a great-grandparent and they've forgotten it and years
and years and they've gone away. and lived like the heathens.
And then they've had trouble and they've remembered, remembered
the word that their forefathers had spoken to them. Now it's
not remembering it and experiencing it, but it's remembering it as
it has been set before them. And if that is the case with
you this evening, may you again, in this sense like Jonah, remember
that which has been set before you, that which grandparents
have read to you and prayed over you, that in your trouble you
remember that, you remember those blessings that you've had through
perhaps those at the time you thought they were pretty funny
people and strange people and couldn't understand them or work
them out at all. But now you think to what they
said and how they lived and where they went when they were in trouble
and how they prayed. So in that sense, there can be
a remembering the Lord. Now Jonah, he says in the end
of verse nine, salvation is of the Lord. So all his prayer is. And you know, you might think
in this second chapter, we're going to see a lot of things
that we're going to be able to pray, a lot of petitions. But
what we see a lot of is a confessing of the condition that he was
in and how he felt that condition and how it was bringing him to
remember, to think, to look again toward God and to pray toward
God. No doubt there's many, many words
that were prayed that are not recorded here. But what is so
evident? is that what he was seeking for
was mercy, mercy. He says in verse eight, they
that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And to go after any other help
or deliverance than mercy through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
is vain, it is empty, it will never deliver, it will never
save a soul. Remember when the Lord spoke
the parable of the two in the temple, the Pharisee and the
Publican? The Pharisee could only speak
of all of his good works and what recommended him to God.
Well, Jonah hasn't got anything to recommend him to God, has
he? And nor had the Publican. And the Publican, he pleaded,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jonah's been brought to plead
for mercy. Mercy can never be deserved.
Dave, you and I are brought to a place where we've run out of
good deeds to plead before the Lord, we've run out of our own
works, and all our eye is upon is on the Lord and on His mercy,
and that He will save us. And this is the right way. Salvation
is of the Lord. It is accomplished by the Lord
Jesus Christ in His perfect life and obedience in his sacrificial
death upon the cross, in his lying in the grave those three
days and then rising again from the dead, in his ascension up
into heaven. It is through the Lord Jesus
Christ alone that there is salvation. Jonah, the type of the Lord,
Jonah, he was saved in this way, pleading mercy through the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the seed of the promised Messiah, if dear
Job could say, I know that my Redeemer liveth, so could Jonah. I know that my Redeemer liveth.
And so his prayer, his prayer was for mercy. And you know,
when we're brought into places like this, then it's not just
empty words, wasted words, but real prayers and real words.
flowing out of the heart and was wanting a real deliverance
and a real salvation. And so this is Jonah's prayer. If your condition brings you
to cry to the Lord, that's how his prayers are described here. I cried by reason of mine affliction. That's how his prayer is described.
So if you have squeezed out prayers and groans and sighs and impossible
situations and situations that you've got yourself into, the
Lord will not despise the prayer of the destitute. He won't cast
it out. Jonah, he testifies more than
once here. The Lord heard his voice. Verse
two, and thou heardest my voice. What an amazing thing that the
God of heaven and of earth could hear a voice of a man and a man
in the depths of the sea and in a whale, in a fish. He hears even the groans, the
sighs that cannot be uttered. My prayer came in unto thee into
thine holy temple. He had a sense of this, he knew
it, he knew that his prayer was answered, he knew that it was
heard, he knew that salvation was of the Lord. And so I want
to look in the last place of his thanksgiving. We are to remember when we have
been in trouble and the Lord delivers us and hears our prayer,
Remember to give thanks, and when we've made promises, when
we've been in trouble, or vows, as Jonah had here, he says that,
I will pay that that I have vowed. And no doubt his vow was, Lord,
if thou bring me out of this whale's belly, then I will go
to Nineveh and I will preach and do as thou hast said. And
he did. We may have promises and, you
know, as soon as we get out of trouble, our hearts are so deceitful,
we can say, well, that would have happened anyway. And if
the promise is something that's hard for us to fulfil or we don't
like to, we'll make some excuse to not do it. And very often,
I found it very profitable if we've been in trouble of some
kind and we've been brought out, to then take myself in my mind
to when we weren't delivered, to when we were still in trouble,
and to say to myself, now suppose, suppose the Lord hadn't delivered,
suppose we were still in this trouble, you were still praying
for help, how would you feel now? And it helps one to see
the reality and the wonder of answered prayer. Because Satan
is a wonderful one that after answers have been given that
have been really remarkable, he'll turn around and he says,
it would have happened anyway. It's nothing special. Don't bother
to give thanks. He'll point to many people in
the world that haven't prayed and they've still had deliverances
like you. And you go away and you're like
the nine lepers that did not return to give thanks unto the
Lord. Where are the nine? Don't be
amongst the nine. Jonah, he said, I will sacrifice
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I'll pay that that I have vowed
salvation is of the Lord. And he's saying this while he's
still in the wasp belly. And you might say, well, how
can you that is going to be delivered. Well, it is very evident. You know, when the children of
Israel came to the time when Moses said, Moses first came
back to them, and he said the Lord had met with him and heard
their cry and was going to deliver them. And they believed and they
rejoiced. They gave thanks, but they were
still in Egypt. They were still in captivity,
but they still praised the Lord. And no doubt afterwards when
they had to go through the nine plagues and Pharaoh still would
not let them go and we read very soon that they were so afflicted
and troubled they wouldn't even listen to Moses. But it is right
when we believe at first that we will truly be delivered to
give thanks to the Lord. I always remember one time in
Australia when We were trying to sell the house, my house that
I had when I was on my own, and now we're married, and there
was a promise bound up with that, that it would sell, and it would
sell before our firstborn was born. And so there was many,
many cries to the Lord that he would appear, and no one seemed
to be taking any interest over this property at all. We didn't
even have anyone going down around it, We reduced the price down
and down to try and meet the market without making it to be
a giveaway and not an answer to prayer. And then one Lord's
Day, or it is on the Saturday, I was preparing the services
for the Lord's House. And it was before I was in the
ministry, it was a reading service. But the Lord so drew near and
he blessed my soul. And I came out and I said to
my dear wife, I said, the Lord's appeared for us, the house will
sell, our prayers are answered. And no one had come round, no
one was inside, but I knew, and I remember the faith I had there. And you know, I think it was
on the Monday, someone came round. By the Thursday, the papers were
all signed, the house was sold. And it was proved to be exactly
right. And I knew that. I knew it before
it had taken place. And I believe Jonah here, he
knew before the Lord spoke unto the fish and it vomited him out
on the dry land, Jonah knew the Lord would do it. He knew he
would deliver him and save him out of that. So there was a deliverance
first in a spiritual way, where he brought to believe it, he
found his God. He knew his God had heard him.
And then there is a deliverance in the physical way. And you
and I, we need to know these two sides of it. We don't want
to just get out of, as it were, the whale's belly and then still
be in disobedience and still be as unprofited as when we went
in. We do want our trials to work
for good and to bring us to the Lord, bring us back to him. And I believe this is the main
message of the Lord to us as a nation and to churches at this
time, to bring us back to himself, to look again towards him, to
walk again in his ways. So may we be like Jonah in this,
in our afflictions, in our prayers, in the Lord's appearance, and
in thanksgiving, and in praise to the Lord. I cried by reason of mine affliction. Dear friends, do that. Pray by
reason of what you're in, not despairing, Not despairing. It's easy to
do that, isn't it? There's places that we get into
to get so low and so despondent and so despairing. But may we
cry, pray to the Lord by reason of this very thing and by the
very situation that we are in. May the Lord appear in that way
so that we are filled with faith and persuasion The Lord has appeared,
he will appear, and he will bless us and he will deliver us. And that we return then with
thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.