May I please the Lord to bless
his word to us this evening as we consider it together. Let us turn to the book of Jonah
chapter 2 and reading verse 4. Jonah chapter 2 and reading verse
4. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy Holy Temple. I'm sure the Book of Jonah is
familiar to all of us I expect. It is a very interesting account
and of course naturally it's got some appeal. But also it is a very wonderful
book with regards to the spiritual life of the child of God. And as we read this account of
Jonah, I wonder if there are any here that say, well, that
describes me. I really am, or I have been like
Jonah. No, it's nothing to be proud
of really. But yet, sometimes it may be
an encouragement to us when we can find in the Word of God an
account which lines up very well with our own spiritual experience. And in particular we see here
in Jonah his refusal to obey the Word of the Lord. And I'm sure if you and I are
honest We will find in our hearts those things, those occasions,
those times when we have not truly obeyed the Lord. And therefore the case of Jonah
may well come into our hearts and touch our hearts so that
we have a realisation that this is an account of somebody that
we can take up and enter into. Well we know that the first chapter
really depicts the situation, the physical situation which
occurred in Jonah's life. And no doubt he'd been in that place in Tarshish,
never dreaming of what was going to occur in his life. There he
was, in Tarshish, preaching the Word of God and God came and
instructed him and he thought better of it. He thought he would
go somewhere else. He didn't want to go to Nineveh.
In fact, he didn't want to obey the Word of God. That's really
the whole thrust of this account. He was unwilling to obey the
word of God. Sometimes things may be difficult. It wasn't easy for Jonah. It
wasn't easy for him to go to Nineveh and preach against it. There are things in our life
which are not easy for us to do. In fact, the Christian life
has never been an easy life. It's always been a life whether
it's opposition, opposition from our own hearts, and opposition
from this one or that one. We should therefore not be surprised
to find that we do face opposition in our lives. And of course the
great enemy of our souls, our great adversary, the devil, always,
without fail, desires that our walk and conversation may be
contrary in opposition to that which the Lord would have us
to do and to say. So we should not therefore be
surprised if we can find an echo in our hearts with some of the
paths that Jonah was called upon to walk in. Very miraculously, God had a
plan for Jonah. My friends, what a blessing if
God has a plan. A wonderful plan for you and
me. Might not be a plan that we perhaps
have thought too much about. But the Lord has a plan for all
his people. And we can be assured That plan
will be walked out. That plan will come to pass. There may be temptations. There
will be temptations. There may be opposition. There
will be opposition. But God's purposes never fail. They always come to pass. You and I may wriggle. You and
I may make excuses. You and I may try and turn things
around, but be assured of this, we will never succeed in opposing
the will of God for us. Because God's way is perfect,
and God's way is right. Well, we have this account here
of Jonah, and he was thrown into the raging sea. thrown into the
raging sea. We're not told what his true
thoughts were when that took place. We're not told. Nevertheless, it must have been
a fearful thing because he was disobedient and he knew he was
disobedient to God. And it must therefore have been
a frightful thing to have been thrown into the raging sea. But the Lord had a divine purpose
for Jonah. And God had prepared a fish,
a great fish, to swallow up Jonah. And God prepares situations for
us in our lives. The scene which may appear impossible,
God makes a way. God provides a solution. Jonah would not have thought
of this solution in his life. And so here he was, swallowed
up by this whale, this great fish. And he was in this belly
of the fish three days and three nights. What did he do in those
three days and three nights? Well, we're not told actually.
We're not told what he did. We're not really told his thoughts
either. But after three days and three nights, something happened. And what happened? He prayed
unto the Lord his God, out of the fish's belly. It would perhaps
seem that Jonah was so hardened and so rebellious that not under
the worst situations was he going to pry, until the Lord blessed him and came to him and caused him
to pry out of the fish's belly. Now that's an encouragement to
us to know that we cannot ever be found in any place where we
cannot pray to God. Whatever place we may be found
in, there is no place where we cannot pray to God. And here was Jonah then, in this
fish's belly, and we read then, Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his
God, out of the fish's belly. It was his God that had told
him what to do, It was his God that he disobeyed. It was his
God that an ordainment should be thrown into the sea. And it
was his God that now caused him to pray. And we're told now of his spiritual
experience. We're told now how his heart
was moved. And he said, I cried by reason
of my affliction unto the Lord. He hadn't cried before. You might
have thought, well Jonah, God's told you to go to Nineveh, what's
the first thing you should do? Pray that God will help you.
Pray that God will enable you. But no, he didn't. He turned
his back upon God. The devil was a very happy person,
wasn't he? We have to be very aware in our lives of not ignoring
and forgetting to pray. In our time of need, here was
a time of need for Jonah. And did he pray? No he didn't. Maybe so in our case. We may
not have prayed when we should have prayed. The situation has
developed. It hasn't got any better, it's
got worse. Until the Lord brings into our
heart that development, so that we then realise the scene we're
in. And so here was Jonathan. He
cried by reason of his affliction unto the Lord. And he heard me. He must have heard Jonah, otherwise
he wouldn't have been delivered. And he heard me. And again, be
encouraged this evening. There can be no place too distant,
too involved, where you cannot pray and God will not hear. And there are some very terrible
places in this world, sometimes terrible places that we may get
ourselves into. We don't know how to deliver
ourselves from such a situation. Well, Jonah prayed and the Lord
heard him. He describes what it was like. He says, out of the belly of
hell cried I and thou heardest my voice. You may think that
sounds a bit extreme, Jonah. Well, in actual fact, it's not
extreme because it's what it was made to Jonah. Sometimes
the Lord permits us to go into places, and I hope we might be
delivered from situations, but it may be the Lord allows us
to go into places which are to our spiritual mind, hell itself. There is really no peace there,
there's no true happiness there, and it is, as it were, a living
hell. And we will then understand what
Jonah was speaking. Out of the belly of hell, cried
I, And they heardest my voice." See the encouragement. God didn't
cut him off. He deserved to be cut off, didn't
he? He disobeyed God. He turned his back. He'd gone
the opposite way. Everything appeared to go swimmingly well
for him. Suddenly, there was a change. God brought a change. He brought
a great wind. My friends, believe you me, God
won't allow you to wander on aimlessly. in the path you want
to walk, contrary to the path that God directs you in. You
will not be allowed to continue that in order to cause things
to come into your life, to change your mind, to change your steps,
to enable you to do the will of God. You see, Jonah still
had to go and fulfil the word of God. He wasn't going to be let off
the hook. It wasn't as though that God had said, well Jonah,
now I've taught you a lesson, now you can just carry on your
life. No Jonah, you've got to go back and do that which I told
you to do in the first place. How much better it would have
been for Jonah if he'd obeyed the voice of the Lord. Perhaps how much better in our
lives it would have been if we'd obeyed the voice of the Lord. Never forget the devil is always
trying to make us go in an opposite way. And he will do those things
which suit the situation. Here was Jonah, he went down
to find Joppa and he found a boat. There was a boat going to Tarshish. Oh, there's been a provision
for me here. and he had enough money in his pocket and he could
pay the fare. It seemed to be alright. The Word of God tells
us in the Proverbs this, There is a way that seemeth right unto
a man, but the way thereof are the ways of death. Never assume
that if you're walking contrary to God, that God isn't mindful
of what you're doing. Never think that you can ignore
the word of God, God's commands. And so here was Jonathan in this
position and confessing as he looked back in his life and able
to say yes, the Lord heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried
I and thou heardest my voice. What a blessing it is, God hears
our cry, He hears our prayer. And so may we never forget we
have a God who does hear and a God who does answer prayer. And then he said, For thou hast
cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods
compass me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Now, in this very serious situation,
what did he say? He said the words which we read
tonight for text. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight. Well, Jonah, is that important?
Did that matter? That you were cast out of the
sight of God? You tried to run away. Sure,
it's just what you wanted to do. to try and hide from God. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight. But in that situation, what did
he do? What did he do? He said, yet
I will look again towards thy holy temple. He was very much
aware of what it meant to worship in the holy temple. He knew what
it was to enjoy the reality and privileges of true worship. And so although at this time
it appeared that he was cast out, I'm cast out of thy sight,
yet he didn't give up, yet He turned his attention, his thoughts,
to the Holy Temple. What a blessing that is for us
today, if we are able to do just the same as that. If we are able
to come and turn our thoughts truly towards the things of God,
towards the Holy Temple. What was the Holy Temple? The
Holy Temple was the place where the Lord condescended to abide. He came down. He dwelt there
in the holy place. It was the place where sacrifice
was made. It was a place where blood was
shed. It was a place where atonement
was made. It was a very blessed and important
place for Israel a very important and blessed place for the Church
of God. And so here's Jonah then in the
fish's belly, and there he is, crying to God, and in his mind
looking towards the Holy Temple. Well, it's an example for us,
is it not? In our lives. We may be found in far off places,
perhaps physically and perhaps spiritually. We can become far
off in our spiritual life. When you lie far off, it's not
so easy to come back, it's not so easy to look. Things of time
become a big temptation powerful influence in our lives. We don't
realise the truth that we are, appear to be cast out of Thy
sight. We don't have dealings with our
God. We carry on in our own life. We wrap ourselves up as it were
in the world and we do not pray as we should and we do not understand
the condition that we truly got into. And that was really what
had occurred to Jonah for those three days. But then, there was
this change. Then there was this return, as
it were. Returning to the Lord. It was
God's grace toward him. It was God's unmerited favour
towards him. Jonah did not deserve it. My
friends, often we do not deserve the favour, the unmerited favour
of God. We do not deserve His grace. We do not deserve His mercy. But here was Jonah receiving
the favour and blessing of God. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, yet. Yet. It follows on. He didn't stop. He didn't say,
I am cast out of thy sight. He said, I am cast out of thy
sight, yet. I will look again toward thy
holy temple. Well, what a blessing it is.
if the Lord comes and causes us to consider the true condition
that we're in and not to just be left to our own devices and
left to ourselves to just carry on aimlessly in this poor sinful
world. David, another man of God, he
knew what it was also to walk in a way contrary to the Lord. And we read in the 31st Psalm
this, For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine
eyes. I'm cut off. Perhaps we felt
sometimes to be cut off. For I said in my haste, I am
cut off before thine eyes. Nevertheless, Thou heardest the
voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee." See, here
was that situation then. The Lord heard his supplications. Exactly the same as it was with
Jonah. The Lord heard his supplications. He heard his cry. He heard his
prayer. Nevertheless, Thou heardest the
voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. Well, we may
have been there. We may be there tonight. We may
be saying I'm cut off from before thine eyes. It seems the Lord
is ignoring me. It seems the Lord has forsaken
me. It seems the Lord has forgotten
me. Well, that's what David said
in his haste. We may say hasty things sometimes. We do say hasty things, don't
we? We're very foolish. We make wrong statements quickly,
in the spur of the moment, and they're hasty, they're not good.
I am cut off from before thine eyes. But may there be in our
lives, like there was in David's life, nevertheless, Nevertheless,
although he appeared to be cut off, although he'd spoken and
said he was cut off, nevertheless, the Lord heard the voice of his
supplications when he cried unto thee." It's a blessing to recognize
that if we are amongst the Church of God, there will come from
our hearts a cry to God, a cry to God. And a cry really is an
involuntary expression. And if we're in that kind of
situation, we may feel to be sinking, we may feel to be cast
out, we may feel to be cut off, but nevertheless, in those desperate
situations, there may still, there will still go, a groan
perhaps, a cry from your heart. Why? Because you cannot really
give up. You cannot really give up. You may have uttered those words,
you may have spoken in that way, but the truth is, you cannot
really give up. And it is because there is still
a spark of life in the soul. And when there is a spark of
life in the soul, that spark does not go out. And it's revitalized. God revitalizes it. And David goes on to say, O love
the Lord, all ye his saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful,
and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage,
and he shall strengthen your heart, or leave that hope in
the Lord." So it is a blessing if we recognise the Lord has
not forsaken us, although perhaps it may appear to be so, and we
know we deserve it to be so. And yet the Lord is faithful
and the Lord is still gracious. And it's like this. I will look
again toward thy holy temple. You just can't give up. One part
of you wants to give up. But the spark of life in your
soul will not allow you to give up. So, you will find a statement
to echo the seed in your heart. Yet, I will look again towards
the Holy Temple, because there is your hope. What is your hope in the Holy
Temple? What did the things in the Holy Temple direct the worshippers
to? My friends, without any exception,
they worship everything in the temple directed the worshipper
to Christ. Without any exception. You can
go through all the things that were in the temple, which have
been in the tabernacle, and they all point to Christ. The building
itself points to Christ, the doors point to Christ, everything
points to Christ and therefore it will be a wonderful experience
when we are able to come and say, yet I will look again to
the Lord Jesus Christ. I will look again. I will look
again. Those words in Isaiah are very
beautiful. Look unto me and be saved. or the ends of the earth, for
I am God, and there is none else." This is the only place of refuge,
and yet the Word tells us God is a refuge and strength, a very
present help in trouble. Now these words are inspired,
but they are written by men, and they are written by men who
have passed through these paths at these experiences and therefore
they write that which they know, the things that they walked in. Yes, I will look again toward
thy holy temple. And so Jonah was able to look
again to that holy temple. It didn't matter how difficult
the situation appeared. Now the blessed spirit of God
is working in his heart, and although everything appears to
be against him, he's still able to make this wonderful statement,
yet I will look again toward thy holy temple, and he just
explains it a bit more, what it's like, he says, the waters
compassed me about, even to the soul, the depths closed me round
about, the weeds were wrapped about my head, I went down to
the bottoms of the mountains, the earth and the bars about
me forever." That was the description of what Jodah felt to be like.
It wasn't easy at all, was it? There was tremendous opposition
he was facing. And yet, this was the way that
the Lord was teaching him. And this was the way the Lord
was going to deliver him. Now don't forget, When Jonah
was in this situation, he didn't know whether he was going to
be delivered. He didn't know how he could be
delivered. Try and imagine it, ourselves
in the fish's stomach, being churned about, pitch black, water,
weeds. How ever were we going to be,
would we be delivered from that situation? And that's what Jonah
was in. We know the result. Jonah didn't
know the result. He knew the scene he was in.
And it was a desperate situation. But he's able to tell us, through
our encouragement, the Lord didn't leave him there. And in fact,
what the Lord did for him was this. Yet, hast thou brought
up mine life, That spark brought up my life from corruption. Oh
Lord, my God. He just couldn't let go, could
he? Oh Lord, my God. There was all this hope, there
was no hope anywhere else. And that's just as it is sometimes. The Lord brings us to desperate
situations where there is no hope anywhere else. but in the
Lord God himself. He tells us then, when my soul
fainted within me, that means he was ready to give up. When
my soul, his innermost being, that which was eternal, when
my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. Why did he remember
the Lord? Because the Lord brought him
to remember. It was the Lord's mercy. It was
the Lord's favour. The Lord caused him to remember. But it wasn't until he was about
to faint away, desperate situation, then I remembered the Lord. Now that's a time of wonderful
relief, isn't it? When the Lord comes to us and
enables us to remember the Lord. We might think that's such an
obvious thing. Surely I don't need to be told a statement like
that. Surely it's so blatantly obvious. The Lord allows us sometimes
to come into these situations where we have to prove It is
of the Lord and it's not of ourself. You will never be able to pat
yourself on the back and say, well of course I remembered all
these things and they came back to me and what I thought they
would. No, you have to say praise God
for bringing us into this situation. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thine
holy temple." Now, he'd said this, yes I will look again toward
thy holy temple. Well, there was a looking. But
now he had faith to pray. Now he had faith to pray to the
Lord for deliverance. There was a looking and now there
was a blessing. And now there was a fulfilment
of it. And his prayer came in unto thee. into thine holy temple. Yes,
Jonah, what a blessing you've been favoured to have, and what
a blessing the Church of God are favoured to have. Although
this experience as such is unique because of the actual elements,
in reality it's not unique. It's a path that the children
of God do walk down, and it's a path they walk down and it
brings honour and glory to God. And so we read, his soul fainted
within him, but he remembered the Lord and his prayer came
in unto thine holy temple. Again, let us not lose sight
of the blessing of this holy temple. It means the blessing
of coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. I came to Jesus as I was, weary
and worn and sad. Yes, we have to come. We're brought
down. He weakens our strength in the
way. And that means our strength of
opposition to God. My friends, He weakens it. He
weakens our strength in the way so that we come and we call upon
His name and we cry unto God Most High. We pray to the Lord
Jesus Christ that he will hear us. Christ becomes precious. Christ becomes a living reality. We realise it's only through
Christ that we can be accepted. We see our sins, our sins melt
up, our sins of disobedience, they melt up and we need forgiveness. How can we achieve that? It's
only through what Christ has done. And so may we rejoice in
that truth, I came to Jesus as I was. Well, Jonah couldn't get
dressed up, could he? He couldn't put on some special
clothes or anything to come to Jesus. There he was in the fish's
belly, in a terrible state. That's just so with you and me,
my friends. Bless God for that. I came to Jesus as I was, weary
and worn and sad. And it is when we're weary and
we're worn and we're sad, with a failure of our efforts, it's
then we come to Jesus. And it's then, as it were, the
Lord Jesus stretches out His hand and He takes us. Yes, remember,
Peter, jumping over the side of the ship, walking on the water,
looks all round, sees all the storm, begins to sink. What had he done? He'd taken
his eyes off Jesus. What did he say? Lord, save me. The Lord held out his hand and
took him, grasped him. You see, you won't be left to
sink. You may think you're going to sink. You may think you're
going to perish. Remember the mercy to Jonah. Be encouraged by statements that
Jonah was able to write. My prayer came in unto thee. It didn't go back. It didn't
come back to him. It went in. It went into the
holy place. There he was in a fish's belly. He prayed. So that can be so
in our lives, wherever we are. When we state we're in spiritually,
there's no place too far off, no place too dark. Yes, well, I will look again
toward thy holy temple. Are we looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ? Are we looking to his finished
work? Do we see in that finished work the glory of redemption? the wonderful atonement? Do we
see the importance which we may not have appreciated before?
Sometimes the Lord leads us into these paths to deepen our spiritual
experience and to make things precious to us which we didn't
observe before. Things that we just took for
granted as it were and passed over our heads didn't really
mean anything. and the Lord brings us into a
time of real need, then it is that Christ, then, is the one
thing needful. It is then that Christ is made
precious to us. It is then, when we rejoice in
what Christ has done, that He went to the end of the law to
satisfy that law for us. Well, Jonah says, they that observe
lion vanities forsake their own mercy. A little warning for us
not to observe lying vanities. You see the devil will try and
bolster up vanities before our eyes. My friends, forget about
them, get rid of them. They are hopeless and they are
of no benefit. And then he comes and tells us,
but, he says forget all about that, but there is something
I will do And remember here he was, still in the fish's belly.
He was still in this situation. What did he say? But, I will
sacrifice unto thee with a voice of thanksgiving. He didn't say,
well as soon as I recover I'm going to offer a sacrifice of
an animal. He said this, but I will sacrifice
unto thee with a voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. salvation is of the Lord." With a voice of thanksgiving.
It's good to thank the Lord for his mercies. It's good to thank
the Lord for his deliverances. It's good to thank the Lord for
his revelations to our soul. And so here he says, remember
here he was, in actual fact he hadn't been delivered, He hadn't
been delivered, but the statement was, he was going to praise the
Lord. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with a voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. Sometimes we make vows. I don't
hear very much about vows today, but sometimes people do make
vows and I say, well if God does that, I will do this. Then God does that. They don't
keep their half of the bargain. I will pay that I have vowed. Now for any here who have vowed
and not paid, to become a pay that you have vowed, so that
God may be honoured and glorified. Surely this is The great end,
isn't it? The honour and glory of God.
Sure it was so in the case of Jonah. The honour and glory of
God. What did he come and say? Salvation
is of the Lord. It meant that God was to have
all the honour and all the glory in saving poor old Jonah. And
my friends, that's just the same in your life and my life. God
will have all the honour and glory in saving our soul and
we shall be pleased and wanting to acknowledge this truth salvation
is of the Lord. So bless God for it and it will
be to the honour and glory of God. Now in this case you see
here then the Lord brought this upon Jonah And when Jonah came
to acknowledge this truth, what was the result? Deliverance. Freedom. The Lord spake unto
the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. But Jonah
had to make these statements while he was still in the fish's
belly. The Lord didn't say, OK Jonah,
you can get out on the dry land and then perhaps you'll say a
few good things. What are you going to say? No,
Jonah had made those vows. He said what he would do when
he was delivered. And the Lord did come and delivered
him. I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving.
I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And
the Lord spake unto the fish. Oh, we have a great God, don't
we? We have a great God who knows all about us. He knows where
we are. He knows where we live. He knows
where we work. He knows where we go to school.
He knows everything about us. He knows how to deal with our
souls. To bring us into a situation
where all our hope is in what Christ has done. All our hope
is in this great and glorious salvation. Because without it,
we are forever lost. Oh then may we bless God tonight
for such a statement as this. As Jonah said, he said, I am
cast out of eyesight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. Remember what he says, I will
look again. He had looked before and he was
now going to look again. Maybe so in your case. You may
have looked to Christ before. Now your desire is, you want
to look again. Yes, look again. Look again. You know, there was that statement. Look and live. Look and live. Remember that occasion in the
wilderness. Children of Israel had sinned,
hadn't they? And they had been bitten by those serpents. They
were dying rapidly. All those who had been bitten,
they were dying. And Moses had commanded to make a brazen serpent,
held it up on a pole. And all those who looked, lived. And that's the same today, my
friends. You and I have been bitten by sin and we're in a
desperate need. We need Christ. We need to look
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look and live. Look to His finished
work. Look what He's done. Bless God
for it, the wonder of a daily love, the cost of our salvation,
the shed blood of the Saviour, dying upon Calvary's tree to
save our souls. Look to Calvary, look to the
temple, look to the work of Christ. There is hope, there is salvation. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight. I will look again toward thy
holy temple. Amen.