Let us turn again to God's Word.
And I'll read once more the opening verses of the second chapter
in the book of Jonah the prophet. Jonah chapter 2, reading the
first four verses. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD
his God out of the fish's bellows, and said, I cry 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. For thou hast cast
me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, when the floods
compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, yet I will look again towards thy holy temple. And in particular, these words
at verse 4, this last verse that we've just read, Then I said,
I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again towards thy
holy temple. Remember that this man Jonah
is spoken of as a sign by the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter
12. We see there out at the scribes
and Pharisees would have a sign from the Lord and He answers
them. Chapter 12 in Matthew verse 19,
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there
shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, because
they repented at the preaching of Jonas. And behold, a greater
than Jonas is here." He's a sign. He's a sign primarily of the
resurrection, but also a sign of repentance. And I said, last
Thursday that I wanted today to consider something of the
ministry of Jonah as a prophet who speaks much of the necessity
of repentance and so coming to consider these words that I've
announced as a text chapter 2 and verse 4 Then I said, I am cast
out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. I want us to think of the repentance
of Jonah or his prayer of repentance this morning. It's clear that
there's a connection here with what has been said in the previous
chapter. In fact, it's a discourse that
flows quite naturally through from one chapter to the other,
the opening words, here in chapter 2 there. Well, the then being
spoken of are the events that we have in that first chapter
of the book, and we did on Thursday try to say something with regards
to what is recorded concerning Jonah's history. And I spoke
in particular of the way in which God pursued this prophet, this
disobedient prophet. Remember those words that we
have in chapter 1 verse 3, having received God's commandment, Arise,
go to Nineveh, cry against it, We're told in verse 3 of chapter
1, But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence
of the LORD, and went down to Chopper. And he found a ship
going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof, and went down
into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of
the LORD. But The Lord sent out a great
wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea,
so that the ship was like to be broken." God doesn't leave
the Prophet to himself, to his own devices, to his own disobedience. How telling is that word! at the beginning of verse 4,
but the Lord sent out. And the margin indicates that
the Hebrew word literally means to cast forth. To cast forth
is the same word as I said on Thursday that is also used in
verse 5. of that opening chapter and again
at verse 15. Remember how in the midst of
this great storm the mariners are casting forth the wares that
were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them. Now casting these things overboard
and then ultimately, verse 15, they took up Jonah and cast him
forth into the sea. Well, it's the same word, it's
a strong verb that is used here at verse 4, the Lord sent out,
cast forth. a great wind into the sea. If we can envisage God, as it
were, taking the storm out of his treasures and throwing this
storm after Jonah as he seeks to flee from the presence of
the Lord. The psalm speaks of God. Psalm 33, 7, He gathereth the
waters of the sea together as a heap. He layeth up the depths
in storehouses. He has a storehouse full of these
terrible things, and so here we see God pursuing the disobedient
prophet. Or again, think of the language
of the Psalm, Psalm 77, thy ways in the sea, thy path in the great
waters, thy footsteps are not known. There is a mystery in
all the ways of the Lord. And so the Lord pursues him,
he's cast overboard, but then we see how the Lord had made
preparation. Verse 17, how the Lord had prepared
a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights. Our men are to enter
into their closet, says the Lord Jesus, and pray to their Father
in secret. And here is this man, he's brought,
as it were, into his closet. He's shut up in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights. And this is the very
place from whence he will pray to the Lord. And we have the
record here, this remarkable prayer recorded in chapter 2.
in which he gives evidence of his repentance toward God. God had given his words, God
had spoken in the way of commandments. There in the opening words of
the book, the word of the Lord it says, the word of the Lord
came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has
come up before me. And yet, we might say the word
of the Lord was not enough. He must be brought to such an
extremity, this man, before ever he will take heed of what God
is saying. And that's what we have there,
you see, in that opening chapter. his willful disobedience and
yet how the Lord pursues him and deals with him we might say
in very severe ways. Does he not remind us of the
language that we have in the psalm? Remember the 107th psalm
that speaks of God's providence and his dealings with men in
the various circumstances of life and we read there in Psalm
107 of those that go down to the sea Verse 23, they that go
down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters,
these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.
For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth
up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heavens,
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. Can we not say
in some ways that's applicable to Joseph and to Jonah and his
experience? And then those words of verse
28, then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He bring
us them out of their distresses. All there was to be deliverance
for this prophet but the Lord has to bring him to that place
of confession and that place of repentance and so looking
at these words this morning in chapter 2 and verse 4 then I
said I am cast out of thy sight yet I will look again towards
thy holy temple first of all to say something of the conviction
of sin and the sense of rejection three days and three nights in
the fish's belly as I said and it's a sign as we saw there in
Matthew chapter 12 verses 40 and 41 it's a sign of the resurrection
the Lord Jesus himself speaks of it This is a sign that he
will give to those scribes and Pharisees, and it's a sign of
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus obviously
considers it as a very literal event. It's as literal as his
own resurrection from the dead. As Jonah was three days and three
nights in the fish's belly, so the Son of Man will be three
days and three nights in the bowel of the earth. It's a literal
event that we have recorded here in this book. I know that there
are those so-called theologians and yet liberal and modernistic
in their outlook and they say, oh, this is just a story. In
the Old Testament it's full of fables. We're not to take these
things literally. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ himself
took this literally. And if this is not true we might
say the implication is that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ himself is not true. The Lord is dealing with this
man. God is sovereign in all his ways and he is brought of
course ultimately to acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of God.
He says there at verse 9, I will sacrifice unto thee with the
voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have owed. Salvation is of the Lord. Oh,
thank God. Salvation is of the Lord. But how this man is brought to
that experience. He felt utterly rejected by God. And how it's described here.
Verse 5 he says, the waters compassed me about even to the soul, the
depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about
my head, I went down to the bottom of the mountains. Oh how his
course is constantly a downward course. As we remarked on Thursday
there in verse 3 of chapter 1, we're told how he went down to Joppa and finding
a ship he went down into the ship. Downward course, you see,
the course of disobedience, ever going downward, ever, as it were,
feeling that there is a descent, a departing from God and the
ways of God. And see how here he is brought
to acknowledge the hand of God in all of these things. What
does he say in verse 3? Thou! He's addressing the Lord,
he prays unto the Lord and he says, Thou hast cast me into
the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed
me about, or thy billows and thy waves passed over me. He was that man who was culpable
He was guilty of sin, of disobedience. And he acknowledges that when
he speaks to those mariners in verse 12 of the previous chapter.
He says to them, Take me up, cast me forth into the sea, so
shall the sea be calm unto you. For I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you. The mariners cast him overboard
and they did that at his own bidding, at his own instruction. But what is he saying here at
verse 3 as he prays to God? He acknowledges God's hand in
all of this. God was in all of these things. God was even in the casting of
the lots. How were those men? They were
heathen men, they were superstitious men, they're calling on their
various gods, and then they say, one to his fellow, come let us
cast lots, that we may know for whose cause his evil is upon
us. And they cast the lots, and the
lot falls upon Jonah. Why did the lot fall upon Jonah? Or the hymn writer says, the
fictitious powers of chance and fortune I defy, my life's minutest
circumstance is subject to his eye. God is in this. And again
I remind you of the words of the wise man, there in the book
of Proverbs. In Proverbs 16 and verse 33,
we're told, "...the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing
thereof is of the Lord." It's all of the Lord. No chance, no
fortune. That's fiction. All things, everything,
is under the sovereign hand of God. And of course what we have here
it's literal history as I said and this is a real experience,
a physical experience that this man is going through. Think how
terrible it must have been in the midst of the storm with the
seas raging and he's cast into the waters and he sinks to the
depths. to the very foundation of the
mountains, he says, and then he's swallowed by a great fish,
and he's there in the fish's belly. But it's not just a physical
experience that is being described. All of these things are reaching
into the very depths of his own being. He is experiencing something
in his own soul. or does he not say as much? In
verse 5 he says, the waters compass me about even to the soul. Verse 7, when my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord. Whatever Jonah is, he is the
Lord's prophet. He is a spiritual man. He's a
sinful man, he's a disobedient man. But the Lord is dealing
with him and bringing him to the place of true repentance. And he begins with this felt
sense of the consequence of his sin, he's being rejected. He's
being rejected of God. And that's what he says in the
text, then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. I am cast out of thy sight. Why? This was the very thing,
of course, that he desired in his foolish disobedience. What
was he wanting to do? He was wanting to depart from
the presence of the Lord. That's what we're told, is it
not, there in the third verse of chapter 1. He rose up to flee
unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, it says. And went
down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid
the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them unto
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Oh, this is what he
is bent on all the time. He wants to be away from God,
he wants to be away from the presence of God. And now, and
now he recognizes what the consequence of all this is, I am cast out.
I am cast out of thy sight. Again, the language of the wise
man, Proverbs 14, 14. The backslider in heart will
be filled with his own ways. All friends are folly of backsliding. And in some measure, are we not
all guilty of it? Not open backslidings, but how
often do we backslide in heart? And God has to come and deal
with us, and sometimes in severe ways. And the backslider, the
backslider in heart, it says there in the Proverbs, is filled
with His own ways." The dealings of God, you see.
Again, look at the language there in Jeremiah 2.17. The Prophet,
speaking as God's mouthpiece says, "...Hast thou not procured
this unto thyself, in that thou wast forsaken the Lord thy God,
when He led thee by the way?" or the folly of forsaken God
and departing from that way, that narrow way, that leads unto
life, going into by-path metal, wandering out of the narrow way,
backsliding in harm. All your iniquities have separated
between you and your God and your sins. have hid His face
from you. I am cast out of thy sight, says
the prophet." He feels then something of the bitterness of his disobedience,
the bitterness of his backsliding from the Lord. Again, what does
God say concerning His ancient people Israel when they sin against
Him and go after their idols behold I will feed them he says
even these people with wormwood and give them water of gall to
drink it's a bitter thing the consequence of our sins and our
disobediences and our backslidings we have to feel that it's a bitter
thing and we brought time and again are we not to feel our
helplessness we cannot recover ourselves It's easy to depart
from the Lord. It was easy for Jonah, in a sense. It's quite easy to disobey. It's so native to us, we might
say. What's our nature? Why, it's fallen. We have fallen natures. The way
of disobedience is an easy way. And it seems that things open
up so quickly for Jonah. He rises up, he flees on to Tarshish. How does he get there? Well,
he just goes to Joppa and he finds a ship. And he pays the fare and he's
on his way. The doors just open so readily
for him. Easy to depart. And yet, impossible,
really impossible to return. Heman says in Psalm 88, I am
shut up, I cannot come forth, here is Jonah, he's shut up. He's shut up now in the belly
of that great fish. And yet God is in it all, because
God has prepared the fish. and Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights but God has shot him up
you see has shot him up into that little
house of prayer and there he's going to have to learn what it
is to pray and to pray in faith and so in the second place I
want us to see how his repentance is really rooted in faith What
does he say in the text? Yet, I will look again toward
thy holy temple. I am cast out of thy sight yet, I will look again toward thy
holy temple. He's looking again, he's obviously
looked to this place before, you see, he knows what prayer
is. This is the record of a backsliding prophet. It's not the record
of a person who is, as it were, turning to the Lord for the first
time. It's someone who knows the Lord. But here is repentance,
you see. It's looking again. There's a change here. And I
know this is the Old Testament, but when we come to the New Testament,
the word that is constantly used and rendered repentance in our
authorized version in the New Testament, has that basic idea
of an afterthought, a change of mind. That's the word that
we have in the New Testament scriptures for repentance, an
afterthought. a change of mind but so fundamental
a change and this is surely Jonah's experience his life turned upside
down his life turned inside out oh there's a complete turning
about here he was fleeing from the Lord and now he wants to
come to the Lord He was fleeing from the presence, and that presence
that he was fleeing from, of course, was not God's omniscience.
God is in all places. We know that there can be no
escaping from that omniscience of God. Again, I remind you of
the language of the Psalmist in the 139th Psalm, that Psalm
that speaks so much of God's omniscience. that God is in every place and
knows everything. He's omnipresent, He's omniscient.
And what does David say in that psalm? If I take the wings of
the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even
there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold
me. He couldn't flee from that omnipresence
of God. The presence he was trying to
flee from was God's special presence, God's gracious presence. And now he wants to return, he
wants to be where God is. And this is why he turns now
to the temple, he's turning to God in prayer. All he would now
seek to come and to draw very near unto God. I will look again,
he says, toward thy holy temple. Verse 7, When my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord. Oh, he remembers the Lord now.
And see how it's the covenant name. It's Jehovah. It's the
great I Am that I Am. And my prayer, he says, came
in unto thine holy temple. What an experience this man had
had! What a deep feeling there must
have been in his soul, that feeling of his sin, that feeling of conviction. Where does he feel himself to
be? Well, he speaks of his experience in the fish's belly as being
in the belly of hell. The end of verse 2, out of the
belly of hell. cried I, and thou heardest my
prayer." Now, hell there, the margin tells us the Hebrew is
literally the grave. It's the realm of the dead. It's
not that place of hellfire that's being spoken of, really. It's
out of the grave. He's in that place of spiritual
death. as he cries unto God. Again, the language that he uses
in verse 6. Thou hast brought up my life,
he says, from corruption. From corruption. This is the
expression he uses there. Or as the margin says, from the
pit. Oh, what a place this man is in. And yet, What do we have
in his prayer? We have the language of faith.
Throughout his prayer we have the language of faith. He says in verse 7, My soul fainted
within me. All his fainting is overwrought
by this experience. And yet it's all the language
of faith and we see it. Oh, we see it so clearly in what
he says there at the end of verse 6. And mark the language, the
tense. Yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God. It's the perfect tense. The deed
is done. The deed is done. Thou hast brought
up my life, he says. He doesn't say, speaking in the
future tense, thou wilt. bring my life up, he's still
in the fish, he's still there in the fish's belly, and yet
he can speak of his deliverance as if it has already occurred. Thou hast brought up my life,
he says. There at the end of verse 6.
That is the language of faith. That is the expectation of faith. You see, repentance and faith,
they come together. It's a prayer of repentance,
it's a prayer of faith. These are concurrent graces. Where there is real repentance,
there will be true faith. But faith, you know, must always
have the primacy. Faith is the chief thing, is
it not? Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin, we're told. And so his repentance is seen
to be genuine repentance because of its proximity to his faith. Yet hast thou brought up my life,
he says. All this is the language of a
believer. Though he be a disobedient prophet,
he is a true believer in God. And look how we see something
of the progression of his faith here. In the text he says, I
will look again. I will look again. But what does he say in verse
7? My prayer came in unto thee. He begins by looking but then
we find that he's entering in. There's progression in faith. And where is it that he is looking
all the time? It's God's holy temple. I will
look again toward thy holy temple, we read in our text at verse
4. And then in verse 7, my prayer
came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. Oh, this was the
very place, of course, where the children of Israel were to
look. When the temple was built and
dedicated in the days of King Solomon, we have the record of
that remarkable prayer that the king prayed at the dedication
in 1 Kings chapter 8. And look what he says concerning
the house of God, the temple. 1 Kings 8.29 That thine eyes
may be opened toward this house night and day, even toward the
place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there, that
thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall
make toward this place. Or how they would pray toward
the temple of the Lord. And then Repeatedly in that prayer
he speaks of different circumstances in which the people would have
to look to the temple. Verse 33, When thy people Israel
be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against
thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and
pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house, then hear
thou in heaven. Verse 35, When heaven is shut
up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee,
if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn
from their sin, when thou afflictest them, then hear thou in heaven. And so it is throughout, whatever
situation or circumstance they might be brought into, what are
they to do? They are to look, they are to
look to the temple of the Lord. And that's very telling, isn't
it, in verse 38 of that eighth chapter of 1 Kings. What 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 hand toward this house. Then here though
in heaven thy dwelling place and forgive. Nor doesn't Jonah
feel the plague of his own heart. Doesn't he feel something of
what his rebellion, what his backsliding was? And he looks,
he looks towards the temple. They all did this. All remember
how Daniel did it. There in Daniel chapter 6, when
Darius, at the instigation of the presidents, had made a decree
that all who made prayer were to make it towards Darius. What does What does Daniel do? He ignores that decree. He goes
to his own house, he opens the windows towards Jerusalem, and
prays three times a day, looking to the temple there in Jerusalem,
though he be far off in the land of exile. Here is Jonah then,
in the fish's belly, obviously completely disconcerted. How
could he know where Jerusalem was? How could he know the precise
place to which he was to look? The temple of the Lord, he couldn't
know that at all, but he was a spiritual man. And when he
is looking to the temple of the Lord, what he is really doing,
he is looking to his God, he is looking to his God who is
there in heaven. That's where he looks. He looks
up. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven
is my throne, the earth is my footstool. Where is the house
that ye build unto me? Where is the place of my rest?
This prophet is not just taken up with the externals. The idea
of looking to a physical building is looking to the Lord God, and
we know ultimately what the what the temple is. It's a remarkable
type, of course, of the Lord Jesus Christ. He reminds the
Jews, he reminds his disciples of that fact there at the end
of John chapter 2. Destroy this temple, he says,
in three days I will build it up. And those foolish Jews, they
think he's speaking of the temple standing there in Jerusalem.
But he was speaking of the temple of his body. And isn't Jonah himself a sign
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus? He would after three days.
He would after three days rise again from the dead. Oh, he is that one who is the
resurrection and the life. He says, I am the resurrection
and the life, he that believeth on me, though he were dead. Yet
shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall
never die. Oh, believest thou this? Well,
Jonah believed it. Jonah is delivered from a living
death as he looks to the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, Christ is that
One, the only One that we can look to for a real repentance. Is He not exalted a Prince and
a Saviour? to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sins. This is where Jonah is really
looking. Yes, it speaks its Old Testament
language, of course it is. My prayer came in unto thee into
thine holy temple. How do our prayers enter in? It's in Christ in whom we have
boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. And that's
the way wherein Jonah came. And his praying was not in vain. The Lord heard him. And the Lord answered him. I
do like that hymn that we sang, our second hymn, 967. and that fourth verse that were
a grief I could not bear did so not hear and answer prayer
but a prayer hearing answering God supports me under every load
or we can never pray to this God in vain he hears our prayers
he heard the prayer of Jonah even though he was experiencing
a living death and he answered him He delivered him. There was deliverance from the
belly of the great fish. Verse 10, the Lord spake unto
the fish, and he vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Deliverance. But not only deliverance, there's
complete restoration. as we see at the beginning of
chapter 3 the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time
what a mercy when God's word comes again he disobeyed God's
word, he rejected the word of God but God comes with his word
again and isn't it a mercy when God comes to us in all our disobedience
and all our backslidings and God's word comes to us again
and again and again that's the God that he is And so the prophet
is restored, recommissioned. The rise go on to Nineveh, that
great city. Preach on to it the preaching
that I bid thee. Why God repeat what he had said
at the beginning? But this time obedience. So Jonah
arose and went on to Nineveh according to the word of the
Lord. Oh God grant that we might have grace to do that that the
Lord bids and that we might be those who would come to seek
of this God that spirit of real repentance that godly sorrow
over all our sins Paul tells us godly sorrow work as repentance
to salvation not to be repented of the sorrow of the world work
as death oh there's much sorrow in the world I'm sure there is
at this time how fearful people are pandemic I sooner call it
a plague it's the hand of God is it not the men are fearful
but what does the sorrow of the world accomplish very little
it works death godly sorrow work as repentance to salvation not
to be repented of or the Lord grant that we might learn then
from the experience of this prophet these things that are written
for our learning or the Bible for our learning,
is it not? And the prayer of this man is
prayer of repentance, is prayer of faith. Then I said, I am cast
out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple. And he lived and prove that salvation
is of the Lord. May the Lord bless His word to
us. Amen.