Jonah chapter two, reading from
verse seven to the end of the chapter. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee, into
thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And
the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon
the dry land. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. One of the most encouraging things
about the Bible is the honesty with which the writers of scripture
describe their own spiritual troubles and those of others. No one can read the Bible, no
one can read the scriptures and imagine for a moment that the
lives of the saints and believers in times past were trouble-free,
or that their spiritual journey was accomplished without serious
hurdles and setbacks. And in this, we have much in
common with them. You know, there are those who
teach that trouble in a believer's life is a consequence of unbelief
and a result of disobedience. If men and women simply trust
and obey, trust and obey God, they can overcome all their troubles
while bathing in the light of God's good pleasure. so that
they prosper by their obedience while others suffer due to their
disobedience. If ever there was a recipe for
pride in the heart of a man or a woman, then that's it. Which
is one of the reasons why I suspect that possession of wealth and
riches in this world is a great deterrent to people understanding
the truth of the gospel. The trouble with that construction
is it doesn't reflect what the Scriptures teach. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived a
perfect life and trusted his Father implicitly. So there was no one more fitted
to trust and obey than the Lord Jesus Christ and yet he was a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Job lived righteously before
God and yet was tested fearfully. There were few poorer or more
persecuted than the Apostle Paul. And indeed the Saviour promised
all his disciples and all his followers that trouble would
come by trusting and following Christ not from being faithless. He told his disciples in John
15, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted
me, they will also persecute you. And I repeat what I have
said before, trouble in a believer's life is never punishment. It may be chastening, it may
be correction for redirection, it may be discipline to exercise
and to strengthen us in the Lord, but it is never punishment for
sin. The troubles that we have in
this world are merely, it might not seem
like this, but are merely a light touch on the tiller of our vessel
by our sovereign God to point us once again in the right direction
in following him. That chastening is always profitable,
and constructive and it is always blessed and it is always an evidence
of the love of God's or the love of God towards us,
the care of God towards us. And here Jonah is chastened to
recover and to restore and to redirect a wayward sheep. Jonah was not being punished.
The Lord Jesus Christ died for Jonah's sin. Jonah was not punished
for his sin. Christ was punished for Jonah's
sin. Jonah was chasing to get him back on the right track,
having wandered from the face of the Lord. and he is being
dealt with in the same way as the Lord deals
with us. Therefore, we can look at Jonah's
experience and we can transfer it to ourselves. We can see ourselves
in Jonah's situation. God dealt with our sin entirely
in Christ as he did with Jonah's. And every believer is ultimately
blessed thereby. Chastening is a blessing. Chastening is like pruning. Those of you who are gardeners,
the cuts can hurt and the stems will weep, but the plant is stronger
and the flowers and the fruit are more praiseworthy of the
gardener's skill. In Hebrews 12, verse 11, the
Apostle Paul is speaking about this very subject and he says, Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth
peaceable fruit of righteousness, the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them which are exercised thereby. So whatever our trials,
whatever our troubles, whatever our problems, they are purposefully
sent to us to bring us closer to the Lord, and while they are
in the moment grievous and hard to bear, they afterward yield
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Let us hold that thought. Let
us take that thought into our troubles day by day. and we will
be blessed as we read of Jonah and what he experienced and how
he reacted to it. Our lesson today deals with Jonah's
trial, which we have to agree in the light of the Apostle Paul's
statement, assuming that the Apostle Paul wrote the book of
Hebrews, we have to assume in the light of the Hebrews' statement,
for Jonah was not joyous, but grievous. The trials the Lord
brings upon his people are real and severe in the flesh and they
taste bitter to our souls. They taste bitter to our souls
and yet they yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. The distress
and the trauma experienced by Jonah can hardly be overstated. Being thrown overboard in a storm,
being swallowed into the belly of a great fish. It's the epitome
of dreadful. It's the stuff of nightmares.
And yet Jonah understood the hand of God was in it. He knew it held a spiritual lesson. And Jonah explains it in terms
of his soul fainting. We don't use that kind of language
very much these days but that's how Jonah explains it and actually
it's a good example of scriptural language. The Apostle Paul speaks
of this in the New Testament as well. The soul faintings of
the Lord's people. Jonah says, when my soul fainted
within me. And so this was his description. This was the way in which he
explained this sense, this feeling, this spiritual trauma that he
was experiencing. And he says that it prompted
him to turn again to the Lord. He understood this experience,
this casting into the sea, this swallowing by the fish, the whale,
this being taken down onto the depths of the ocean. He understood
it. as a spiritual act of God. And he said, when my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord. You see, there's the pruning
and there's the fruit. There's the heart and there's
the remedy. Now it came hard upon the experience,
but it nevertheless proves the pattern that the apostle was
giving us in Hebrews. In the belly of the fish, Jonah
is convicted of his sin. And his willfulness is subdued
by the Lord. That willfulness that caused
him to get on the boat in the first place, that drove him away
from the face of the Lord and from the instructions that he
had been given to go and preach in Nineveh. That willfulness
is subdued by the Lord until he has no more strength to resist
and no more will to run away from the Lord. That's what our
trials effect in our life's experience. In the mercy of God, he halts
Jonah in his tracks. The Lord doesn't halt everyone
in their tracks. The Lord doesn't send a storm
and a fish for everyone. He sends that storm and that
fish to those that he loves and those whom he is bringing back
to himself. In mercy, the Lord halts Jonah
in his tracks as he flees from the face of God. In love, God
shows him his foolishness and exposes his ingratitude towards
his saviour. And when it seemed that Jonah's
exhausted soul might fall, never again to rise, it is the Lord
who lifts up his servant's head and turns the prophet's mind
to recall God's power and goodness. It's the Lord that gives repentance
and hope and that stirs up Jonah's faith in his Redeemer. I'm sure that Jonah was familiar
with the Psalms of David when he wrote this little autobiography
of his experience. I am sure that he was alluding
to Psalm 27 where David had written, verses 13 and 14, I had fainted
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. How appropriate is that little
phrase to what Jonah is telling us right here? David had written
in Psalm 27, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. How appropriate, how
suitable was that for Jonah? What does David then go on to
say in verse 14? He gives advice, he gives direction,
he gives the prophet Jonah. I love this. Here is David that
we've just been speaking of with Mephibosheth. Here is David by
the direction of the Holy Spirit, giving Jonah advice as to how
to deal with this predicament he finds himself in, being a
chastised man, being recovered by the Lord. What does David
say to Jonah? He says, Brother Jonah, Wait
on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. And if David said it to Jonah,
David says it to us. And if Jonah received it and
acted upon it, then we have every reason to do the same. When we
are in such predicament, such trials, such discipline, such
chastening of the Lord, when we experience troubles, when
we experience problems, whether there's a direct connection in
our own hearts, in our own minds to why this trouble is upon us,
see it all as the means by which the Lord is bringing us closer
to himself and wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord, be of good
courage. How long did Jonah have to wait? Three days and three nights.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen
thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. And Jonah did. He took David's
inspired words as a pattern, and he said, When my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord. and we should too. What I want
to do today is to take a few points from these verses to give
us all the means, let's call it the ammunition, to be able
to respond suitably when the Lord brings us into trials and
causes our own souls to faint under the duress of difficult
times. And the first thing that we learn
is that Jonah remembered the Lord. I remembered the Lord. So let us be clear. You can only
remember what you already know. And Jonah knew the Lord. He was a believer in Almighty
God. He was a believer in the Lord
Jehovah. Now, of course, Jonah had not
forgotten that there is a God, but he had forgotten, or rather,
he had neglected to remember the power and the goodness of
God. Jonah had become preoccupied
with himself. He had become self-centred. His motivation in acting as he
did was not the glory of his creator and his saviour and his
king as it should have been. And so God reminded the prophet
of his creator and his saviour and his king. That's exactly,
this is the pattern. This is what God is doing in
this circumstance, in this experience of Jonah. God reminded the prophet of his
creative, controlling power in nature, in the waves and in the
fish. This was God's storm, this was
God's fish. In truth, it wasn't hard to notice.
Jonah didn't have to be really, really bright to notice the connection. He was at the bottom of God's
ocean in a creature of God's preparation. And furthermore, it was quite
obvious that there was no deliverance apart from God's deliverance.
And a man must know his need of a saviour before he will call
on the name of his saviour. That's why we preach the Gospel.
That's why we endeavour to introduce this God, this sovereign God,
this glorious God, to men and women, that He might show them
their need of such a saviour. A man must feel the burden of
sin before he can desire to be rid of it. And so God showed
Jonah his sin. And then God reminded Jonah of
his sovereign dominion over all things. Let us be clear, if God calls
a servant to serve his cause, the instruction comes with divine
weight and authority. Jonah's going and preaching to
Nineveh was not a proposal that Jonah should consider and decide
what he wanted to do. It was a command to be obeyed.
And here, by this means, the Lord enforces Jonah's understanding
of this matter. But the Lord also reminded Jonah
of his goodness and his grace. It wasn't all hard, strict, disciplined
learning. There is also in this, Jonah
remembered the Lord. And he remembered the Lord of
power, but he remembered the Lord of grace. He remembered
the God who is sovereign and creator, but he remembered the
God who is good. and our God is good. May we never
forget this in the midst of our trials. Our God is good and he's
good to us. He's good to his people. Asaph,
the prophet, wrote in Psalm 73 verse 1, truly God is good to
Israel even to such as are of a clean heart. Now let me paraphrase
that because I hope you are not thinking that God is good to
Israel is talking about that nation there in the Middle East. God is good to his elect whom
he has made righteous in Jesus Christ. That is what Asaph is
telling us. And I also admire the uninspired
but equally beautiful words of Samuel Medley when he says, when
sore afflictions on me lie, he is, though I am blind, too wise
to be mistaken, yea, too good to be unkind. so that when we,
when you and me, are beset with trouble, when we are sore tried
under the challenges of this life, even to where we feel our
soul is about to faint under a sense of hopelessness, let
us remember the Lord. Let us think on his sovereign
power. Let us think and dwell upon his
caring goodness, his liberal grace. Let us remember his mercy
in opening a way of salvation and providing a personal deliverer. Let us remember God who has come
as man to redeem the very souls that feel so faint because he
loves us so much and he cares for us so scrupulously. And these remembrances are tonics
for fainting souls. And so Jonah remembered God. So that's the first point that
I want to make. I've got a few but I'm not going to tell you
how many in case it frightens you. But here I wanted just as
I finish this first point as a little aside that I want to
mention and I don't have a good place to put it other than inserting
it here but it crossed my mind as we were thinking about this
as I was preparing and I just want to leave it with you. Those
of us who are parents and grandparents, we do well to teach our children
about God and the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have done well
if we have done that. And I say it for this reason,
even if they do not follow as we might desire, Who knows, but in time to come,
when their own heart faints within them, that the Lord may remind
them of the things that they knew years before, and have neglected
to remember, and may cause them to remember that to the saving
of their souls. That was just a little parenthesis
there. Here's the second point. So the
first thing we said was that Jonah remembered the Lord. The second thing is this. Jonah
prayed and was heard. He says, my prayer came in unto
thee, into thine holy temple. And I take this reference to
the temple to be an allusion to Christ who is symbolised by
the temple and the temple furniture throughout the Old Testament. We've mentioned this before,
so I'm not going to repeat it, but that is what I believe, that
Jonah was referring to the Lord when he makes reference to the
temple here. And God the Father always hears prayers that are
offered in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ said, I
am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, no man cometh unto
the Father but by me. And that's true for salvation
and it's true for daily approaches in prayer. Jonah's prayer was offered through
the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was
a prayer of repentance. The first thing he says in this
prayer is, they that observe lying vanities forsake their
own mercy. And Jonah was speaking of himself. He had personally observed lying
vanities. He had done so by refusing to
do God's bidding. He was the man who had rejected
the true God by asserting his own will and imposing his own
carnal reasoning on God's instruction to preach the gospel. He said,
no, that's not going to work. I'm not going to do that. Forget
it. I'm out of here. I'm gone. That was Jonah's approach
to this matter. He was observing lying vanities,
he was reasoning in his own soul as to what was right and what
was wrong rather than being obedient to the word of the Lord. So that in this phrase Jonah
acknowledged his sin and he sought forgiveness. Lying vanity is
self-will and Jonah recognised that it was forsaking mercy. to observe such lying vanity.
Lying vanity is a denial of God's way. It's a form of idolatry. And let's not imagine that believers
are above idolatrous thoughts. It is the essence of all man-made
religion. It's the antithesis of salvation
being of the Lord, which is what Jonah comes to later in this
little passage. So that Jonah's prayer was a
prayer for forgiveness. It was a prayer of repentance.
It was also an appeal for deliverance. He says, I will sacrifice unto
thee. And every sacrifice offered in
scripture by the Lord's people pointed to Christ. So he was
looking to Christ when he speaks about this sacrifice. He was
looking for a deliverer from the lying vanities that he had
observed. And if you desire deliverance
from sin, if you desire deliverance from your suffering, from your
hardship, from your trials, it will be found only in Christ. He is all our cleansing. He is
all our righteousness. He is all our acceptance with
God. He is all our reconciliation,
all our comfort, all our consolation. He is all our reward. He is all
our joy. He is all our peace. And Jonah's prayer was an offering
of thanksgiving. Jonah knew where thanks must
be directed, not only for temporal deliverance. If he had got out
of this fish's belly, then he knew where he was going to offer
thanks, but for eternal life, for salvation from sin and hell. Thanks be to God. which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we've said that
Jonah prayed, he remembered the Lord and then he prayed to the
Lord. The third thing that Jonah said
in this prayer was that he will pay his vows. I will pay my vow. And this I take to be a rededication
of Jonah to the Lord. He is rededicating
himself to the Lord. He has prayed, remembering the Lord, who he
is, what he has done, his power and his goodness. He has repented,
and now he rededicates himself. Rededication upon confession
of sin and a request for deliverance. He is saying effectively, I will
go where you will have me go and I will do as you will have
me do. Some churches are big on members
rededicating their lives to the Lord. But I would just like to
point out that Jonah's was a secret affair. Okay, we all know about
it, but in essence it was a secret affair. This conversation was
heartfelt and intimate. It was between Jonah and his
God. Now brothers and sisters, we
neither need a priest to represent us, or an audience to observe
us when we deal with the Lord. Let our prayers be genuine. Let them be sincere and let them
be private as we confess our sin and seek his deliverance
and return to our first love. And let us be careful to do as
we say. Shame on Jonah if he vowed and
didn't fulfil his promise. And shame on us if we make promises
to the Lord when we are in need or when we are sick and we forget
them when we are well. Let us pay our debts to the Lord. They are outstanding until they
are paid. and like every outstanding debt,
they will be a burden to us until they are settled. The fourth
thing that Jonah said in this little prayer was, salvation
is of the Lord. This became his settled opinion,
his settled conviction. Jonah's simple declaration is
a statement of his confidence and a testimony of his experience. He is testifying that salvation
is of the Lord. If it comes, it comes by the
Lord. And this little phrase is perhaps
the most quoted passage from the whole book of Jonah and it
has quite rightly adorned many a gospel sermon because it encapsulates
the gospel of God's grace. We have said it many times that
any contribution that men and women imagine they can make to
their salvation. Any worthiness that they believe
they possess, for God to smile upon them, renders their experience
of grace void and ineffectual. If salvation is not all of God
and if our righteousness is not all of Christ's obtaining, then we've got occasion to boast.
We have reason to glory in ourselves, but not before God. Brothers and sisters, I trust
that we all are convinced that our acceptance is only by the
cleansing blood of Christ. Our righteousness is only by
the imputed righteousness of God. that neither is there salvation
in any other. If any part of Jonah's deliverance
depends upon the action of Jonah in the belly of the great fish,
then he is without hope. He is on the ocean floor. He
is in the belly of hell. He says, the earth with her bars
was about me forever. But if salvation is wholly and
completely the work of God in Christ, as Jonah says, then there
is hope for the hopeless and reason to trust in the arm of
power and in the promise of grace. That's the gospel. The form of
the word that is used here in this little phrase, salvation
is of the Lord, is big. There's a letter in it that makes
it broader, makes it inclusive, if you like, so that every kind
of salvation Every kind of deliverance that men could need comes from
the Lord, whether we're thinking providentially, whether we're
thinking spiritually. Jonah is telling us, in the way
in which he phrases this, that all salvation finds its source
in the Lord. Whether we think of Jonah's physical
location in the great fish, or the deliverance from trials in
our own lives, and the snares of sin, or principally and most
gloriously our eternal redemption, our acceptance in Christ. The
statement holds good for all of these things. Salvation is
of the Lord. And finally, here's my last point.
We're told that the Lord spake to the fish. No sooner had this
humbled prophet made his confession than the Lord spoke to the fish
and instructed it to spew Jonah onto dry land. Now the where is not important,
the location is not specified, it doesn't matter. Jonah had been heard and God
gloriously answered. That's what matters. For three
days and three nights, Jonah typified death in the belly of
the whale and signified thereby the death and burial of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The whale could not hold Jonah
any longer. than God allowed. Nor could death
and the grave hold our Saviour. Jonah's experience, the Lord
tells us, is symbolical of the death and resurrection of the
Saviour. And here we see the same power
and goodness of God that was manifested in Jonah's experience
revealed for our good, for the good of his people, for the good
of his elect in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let me mention again the wisdom and goodness of God,
the power and kindness of our Saviour. Whatever your trouble,
whatever your predicament, whatever your trial today, God will take
care not to leave his little ones over long in the belly of
hell or in the belly of the whale. We know that our salvation does
not work to our timescale. God appointed a day. There was
an appointed time, a time of love, a time of making willing
according to the mercy of God. And nor will our trials work
to our timescale, but they will not extend a moment longer than
their purpose requires. for the accomplishment of God's
purpose and will for our good. What is two or three days compared
to eternity? Hold out faith and patience. Hebrews 10, 37 says, for yet
a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry. Let us think about that verse
when we're going through our troubles, when we're going through
our trials, when we're going through our sicknesses, when
we're going through our pain. Yet a little while, and he that
shall come will come, and will not tarry, and it will be worth
it all when we get home. This astonishing miracle of Jonah's
deliverance from the belly of the whale signalled our Saviour's
own detention in the heart of the earth for the salvation of
his people. And why did the Lord stay three
days and three nights in the earth? I have no doubt that the earth
would gladly have vomited Christ out and given up the body of
the Lord of glory instantly, as soon as he had been laid in
the tomb, if it could have done. But the Saviour waited patiently
to the appointed time, and he taught us thereby to wait upon
the perfect timing of our Lord. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ attests His victory. It works to His timescale, according
to His purpose. It is His success, it is His
glory, and He died for our sins and was raised again for our
justification. Jonah's history points us to
Christ, Christ's death and resurrection assures all believers that they
shall share in the resurrection to come. John 11, verse 25 says
this, Jesus said unto her, Martha, at the raising of Lazarus, Jesus
said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, Yet shall he live, and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. What more could we
ask than that promise? To strengthen our faith and encourage
our fainting souls. May the Lord bless these words
to us today. Amen.