Let's look tonight to Jonah,
chapter 2. Jonah, chapter 2. The title of my message this
evening is, Jonah's Prayer of Faith. Jonah's Prayer of Faith. Jonah, chapter 2, and reading
the first nine verses. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly, 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. For thou hadst cast
me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed
me about. All thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters
compassed me about even to the soul. The depths closed me round
about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. And I went down to the bottom
of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God. 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 which I have
vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah's Prayer of Faith. In reading
this prayer, I thought of several New Testament scriptures which
speak of faith, For instance, in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse
6, we read, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh unto God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. Jonah believed. Jonah believed
that God is. We see that as he cried unto
the Lord. And not only did he believe that
God is, but Jonah believed that God is a rewarder of those who
diligently seek Him. And that's what we see in his
prayer, a diligent prayer. And then another verse of Scripture
in Romans chapter 4 in verse 18, which says, Against hope,
believed in hope. Abraham had no hope in his body
or in his wife's body. He was a hundred, almost a hundred
years old and she was about 90. He had no hope whatsoever that
they could possibly have a son. But the scripture says against
hope, he believed in hope. And Paul goes on in that passage
in Romans 4 to say that Abraham was strong in faith. Jonah, humanly
speaking, surely he had no hope of being delivered from the belly
of this fish. But he believed in hope. Just like Abraham against hope,
he believed in hope. Jonah's prayer of faith. Now
when we read this prayer and think about the condition that
Jonah was in, we also think about this passage in Psalms 107. If you'd like to turn here, this
is a favorite psalm because we have several conditions that
men find themselves in. Then they seek the Lord. And each one of them ends with
these words, Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his wonderful
works to the sons of men. Well, let's read here in Psalm
107, beginning with verse 23. They that go down to the sea
in ships. That's Jonah, right? He went
down to the sea in a ship fleeing to Tarsus. that do business in great waters. That's what he was doing in his
prayer. He was doing business in great
waters. These are 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. Jonah had
gone through that, hadn't he? God caused that wind to blow
and the storm to come up, that tempest we read about in chapter
one of Jonah. The ship was certainly going
to be broken up and the mariners, the sailors would all drown in
the sea. They mount up to the heaven,
that is the waves. They go down again to the depths. A friend of mine who was in the
Navy in World War II told about being in a cyclone one time on
a ship and how high those waves were. And you would go up and
then come down just as hard as you could. That ship would hit
the water again. Mount up to the heaven. They
go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because
of trouble. Jonah, he was in trouble. Can
you imagine that? Can you imagine being inside
the belly of a fish? It had to be dark. In the midst of the sea. They rail to and fro and stagger
like a drunken man and are at their wits end. Those sailors,
I'm sure they staggered as they picked him up to throw him overboard. They were at their wits end.
They had no other alternative. When they cast lots and that
lot fell upon Jonah, even though they rode with all their strength,
they had no alternative. He had to be thrown into the
sea. Then, then, then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. And he bringeth them out of their
distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they
be quiet. So he bringeth them unto their
desired haven. Now here's the last word. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness. Oh, that we, that you, that I,
that we would really praise the Lord for His goodness, for His
wonderful works to the children of men. We think of His work
of salvation, don't we? His wonderful works that God,
out of His great love, would give His Son to save, to redeem
men and women like you and I. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His wonderful works for His goodness and for His
wonderful works to the children of men. Now let's go back to
Jonah, chapter 2. One of Matthew Henry's comments
on this passage is, and I quote, Here is a fierce struggle between
sense and faith, but faith had the last word and came off conqueror. So I want to take these two things,
sense and faith, and let's look at them in this light that Jonah,
the sense that he had and then his faith. There are three things. First, there's three things about
what Jonah sensed, what he sensed. First, he sensed that he was
afflicted. Notice that in verse 2, Jonah
chapter 2 and verse 2. And he said, I cried by reason
of mine affliction. He sensed that he was afflicted,
that he was in affliction. And that word which is translated
hell in the remainder of the verse When he said, Out of the
belly of hell, cried I. You know that's that word that
is also translated grave in many places. And he describes his
grave. He was in his grave as far as
he was concerned. And he describes his grave. This
is what he sensed, that he was in his grave. And his grave was
in the deep, a place where the billows and waves rolled over
him. over his head. The great fish
took in water. We may imagine when he speaks
about the weeds, the great fish took in water and with the water
came in seaweed and wrapped around the prophet's head. He sensed. He was in affliction. He was
in affliction. He sensed that he had descended
to the bottoms of the mountains. or the floor of the ocean, the
sea. In his journey in the belly of
the fish, he saw no way, no way of escape. All doors of hope
was barred. Notice he says the earth with
her bars was about me. It was as though he was buried
alive. That would be an awful thing,
wouldn't it? We've read of cases years ago when people would be
buried alive, be in some kind of a trance or something like
that. I remember reading a book entitled,
I believe, The Log Cabin. And it was a story of the, actually
the beginning of Princeton University. of Princeton University where
men were trained for the ministry and one of the men who was very
prominent in that, they thought he died and they had him laid
out ready to have his burial and he sat up. He wasn't dead
at all. But if they had waited, if he
had stayed unconscious for a little bit longer, And we've all seen
pictures where they take the mirror and put it up to the person's
nostrils to try to see if there's any life, any breath. Buried alive. That's what Jonah
had. He sensed that he was in affliction. Affliction of the
worst kind. And I thought about the fact
he was a prophet of God. He lived, we saw the time in
which he lived. He may well have read the book
of Job. He may have read about the fact
that Job was on that dunghill scraping his body with those
pot sherds and everything that he had owned, all of his riches,
all of his things in this world and his family, everything was
taken away from him, but God restored double fold. He may have read that. He may
have read about Joseph being sold by his brothers going down
into Egypt in the first book of Genesis and how he was forgotten
there in the prison only to be delivered and to be made the
prime minister of Egypt. He may have read the Psalms where
David fleeing for his life, speaking of himself like an animal being
hunted by King Saul in the cave of Adullam. But all of these
men that I've just mentioned, Job, Joseph, David, all of them,
the Lord delivered them out of their affliction. But he never
read of anyone being delivered out of the belly of a fish. He'd
never read that before. Sense told Jonah, there's no
hope. There's no hope for me. The second
thing about his sense, he knew that it was the Lord. It was the Lord's doing. You notice in verse three, the
words thou and thy. Thou hadst cast me into the sea. Thy billows and thy waves passed
over me." Jonah certainly knew better than to attribute his
circumstance to bad luck or some accident. It was just an accident
that when they threw me overboard, a fish opened its mouth and swallowed
me. No, Jonah knew better than that.
He knew that the men had thrown him overboard, but the first
cause was God himself. He knew that ultimately it was
the Lord who had cast him into the sea. Think about David's
words in Psalm 39. Let me read these to us. Psalm 39, verses 9 and 10. David
said, I was dumb. In other words, he was speechless.
I was speechless. I opened not my mouth. Now notice,
because, Lord, you did it. You did it. Remove thy stroke away from me. I am consumed by the blow of
thine hand. Jonah sensed he was in affliction
and he knew, he sensed that it was the Lord. It was the Lord. Now God is not the author of
sin. We all know that. He is not the
author of sin. But He is the author of evil. And when we say evil, we're not
talking about moral evil. We're talking about things that
afflict man. Nothing happens without God's
will, without God's purpose. After the message last Wednesday
evening, Groover told me, he said, you know, that book is
a scary book, isn't it? I never had thought of it like
that. But it is, when you stop and think about how God deals
with people. How he dealt with Jonah. As far as sense is concerned,
Jonah knew that he was afflicted and he knew that it was God's
hand that was against him, God's hand who was afflicting him. And number three, the last thing
about his sense, he concluded the worst about himself. In verse
four he said, I am cast out of thy sight. Now, if we could have
been with Jonah or have spoken to Jonah, When he uttered those
words, I am cast out of thy sight, we might have asked, but Jonah,
but Jonah, isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what you desired when
you bought that ticket and got on ship to flee from the presence
of the Lord? Isn't that what you wanted? To
flee from the presence of God. You know there's a proverb, Proverbs
14 and verse 14, which says the backslider shall be filled with
his own ways. The backslider shall be filled
with his own ways. The chastisement for the backslider
many times is giving him his will, his way. Jonah, he got
what he wanted, didn't he? He wanted to flee from the presence
of the Lord, from the sight of God. Well, now he said, I'm cast
out of thy sight. Notice in verse 7, he says, My
soul fainted within me. Literally, literally, it is my
soul enfolded itself within me. My soul enfolded itself within
me. Now, I thought about that, and
I thought about on the news sometimes, I've seen this, you've seen this.
This is what came to my mind, when there's a multi-story building
that they want to bring down. And so they set the charges of
explosives in certain places and they film it, and we see
that the building, those charges go off as they're timed and in
places so that the building, it just comes down upon itself. That's the object, right? To
come down upon itself, not to fall out into other areas. And that's what Jonah says here.
My soul is enfolded within me. This is how Jonah felt, nothing
to lean upon, nothing without to lean upon,
and nothing within to lean upon. As Paul said, without were fighting
and within were fears. Jonah said, my soul fainted in
me. Sense told Jonah that he had
no one to blame but himself. He had no one to blame but himself. His soul enfolded within him. But now let's look at Jonah's
faith. And really, I pray God will help me to bring out these
four things about Jonah's faith, that we will all be impressed
with his faith. I don't know if you've ever considered,
but we see a man of great faith here. First of all, Jonah prayed
unto the Lord his God. Notice that in verse 1. Then
Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly.
The fact, now listen, the fact that he prayed it all shows that
he had faith. You know, in the book of Job,
we're told that one mark of a hypocrite, this question is asked, he will
not always call upon God. That's a mark of a hypocrite.
He will not always call upon God. and one mark of God's people,
of those who know God, those who trust God, those who believe
in God, yes, he will, she will call upon God. His faith is demonstrated
in the fact that he prayed it all. He called upon him because
he knew that he was his God. He knew this. He is my God. He was in affliction and this
caused him to cry, as verse 2 said, and I cried by reason of my affliction. Don't we know that there was
that within Jonah that told him, it's no use to pray. What he
sensed What do you do by sin? It's no use to pray. Forget about
it. Your situation is so bad, it's
not going to do you any good to pray. But Jonah prayed. I think about the beginning of
Psalm 73, when the psalmist said, Truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, as for
me, Jonah, I'm sure he may have thought the same thing. God is
good. God is good to Israel, to his
people. But as for me, here I am in this
fish. You know, earnest prayer is often
born out of affliction. Many times our prayers become
so haphazard and so formal, we don't even hardly think of them
as prayer. But when God brings affliction,
we get down to business then. We get down on our knees then,
don't we, and cry like Jonah. I cried unto the Lord. Got serious
about this now. demonstrated his faith. Now the
second thing about his faith, Jonah took comfort in God's mercy. We know this because he said,
I will look again toward thy holy temple. Now Jonah didn't
know which way was up, hardly. He didn't know which way was
east, west, north, or south, but yet he said, I will look
again toward thy holy temple. He knew. Now this is what he
knew. He was in that fish. He couldn't
see anything. He didn't know where he was other
than at the bottom of the sea. But he knew that in Jerusalem
there was a temple. And it was all about God being
merciful to sinners. That temple in Jerusalem. He
knew it was all about God being merciful to sinners. He knew
there was a priest in that temple. He knew that. He knew there was
a brazen altar in that temple. And he knew that there were sacrifices
offered upon that altar that were a sweet-smelling savor unto
God. And he knew that in that temple
there was a mercy seat sprinkled with blood. He knew that. He knew that God is a God of
mercy. He knew that it was at that mercy
seat that God had declared, there I will meet with thee, and I
will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between
the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony. Jonah, he knew that God is a
God of mercy. I'm thankful tonight that I know
that. Aren't you? I'm thankful that God taught
me one time that mercy deserved is not mercy. I don't deserve it. There wouldn't
be mercy if you did. Did Jonah deserve mercy? Of course
not. We've seen his rebellion. We've
seen God dealing with his sin by having him put into the ocean. Did he deserve mercy? Of course
not. But no one ever deserves mercy.
That mercy seat, or the temple. The temple is a picture of Christ,
isn't it? He said, destroy this temple,
speaking of His body, and in three days I will raise it up.
And that mercy, and He's the priest. He's the priest who offers Himself
as a sacrifice upon His deity. He's the propitiatory, the mercy
seat. Jonah took comfort in God's mercy. And number three, Jonah's confidence
in God grew, or his faith, I believe, grew. You know, faith is a grace
that grows. It's like any other grace. And
the most important thing, you know this, you know what I'm
going to say here, you know The most important thing about faith
is the object. The object. Someone said, well,
I have great faith. Well, is your great faith in
Christ? Or is your great faith in your
faith? I wouldn't think it's very great if it is. The most
important thing about faith, whether it's little faith, small
faith, or great faith. Remember that woman who the Lord
said, it's not made to take the children's bread and give it
to the dogs. And she said, truth, Lord. That's
right. But even the small dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from the table. And our Lord said, I have not
seen such great faith in Israel. There were two people that the
Lord Jesus Christ commended for having great faith, and both
were Gentiles. Both were Gentiles. We see Jonah's faith grows, I
believe, because notice in verse 6, chapter 2, verse 6, where he's at the bottom of the
sea, he was assured of God's deliverance. Thou hast brought
up my life from corruption. Oh, but Jonah, you're still in
the fish. You're still in the belly of
the fish at the bottom of the sea. That's true, but he speaks
of it as present. I think about the Apostle Paul
in the New Testament, Romans chapter 8, when he said, Who
shall deliver me from this body of death? Who shall? That's future, isn't it? Who
shall deliver me? I thank God. That's present. I thank God through Jesus Christ. He's the one who's going to deliver
us. We see Jonah, even though he
was at the bottom of the sea, he confesses that the Lord has
brought up his life from corruption. His deliverance had not yet come,
but he speaks of it as present. And in that chapter in Hebrews
11 that speaks of faith, we are told, Now faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He had not
seen his deliverance yet, but he had faith he hoped for. And
the last thing, Jonah offered the sacrifices of praise in verse
9. He said, But I will sacrifice
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. And does he not by these words
show his assurance that he has been forgiven, that he has been
reconciled, That he has been washed from his sins and that
he has been restored to that place of fellowship and communion
with God. All took place inside the belly
of the fish. Now here, let me ask this question. How are you and I, how are we
to relate to this prayer and be encouraged? Well, let me just
say this. When we are tempted to believe
that all is lost, that there's no hope, look to the temple. Look to Christ. Trust in Him. When tempted to give up, tempted to give up, to go back,
to turn back, Remember when Pilgrim left the City of Destruction? That man went with him. Can't
think of his name. Someone help me. Who went with
him? Pliable. Pliable. And they fell in that slough
of despond. Pliable. When he got out, he
headed back home, didn't he? Pilgrim. He got out too, but
he didn't go back to the city of destruction. He made his way
to the cross, the cross, to Christ. When tempted to give up, trust
in the Lord and His grace. Remember David said, I had fainted. I had fainted. I had quit. I
had given up. If unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I would have
given up. I would have fainted, he said.
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living." Let me just remind us, we walk by faith,
not by sight. Jonah, his faith, his prayer
faith is what we see here in this chapter. The Lord willing,
we'll take up next time with him being vomited out upon the
dry land. Now let's sing a hymn before
we're dismissed.