"What makes you pray?" Jonah 2
Last week we left Jonah sitting in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the sea. So here he is in a crisis situation and he does what most of us would do. He prays. There’s something funny about this situation from the standpoint that he’s turning to the God he ran away from and God doesn’t seem to mind. I mean how would you feel if someone treated you like dirt and then when they got themselves into a jam you were the first one they turned asked for help? Most of us would feel used and we would want to say, "You didn’t want anything to do with me before so what would make you think I would want anything to do with you now?" And that would be a normal fleshly reaction but keep in mind two things. One, Jonah’s not dealing with a man he’s dealing with God. And second, God was the One who arranged the circumstances that have made him turn around. In other words, he’s doing the very thing God wanted him to do.
I Jonah’s prayer of desperation.
a) Keep in mind that he’s in a real fish. This is not some kind of an allegory of a person’s troubles. This is a real man who is trapped by real circumstances. And at this point in his life he only has two choices. Prayer or despair. He can either give up or he can look up.
Despair is the attitude where there is no hope or where a person doesn’t want the hope that’s offered. You may have heard the story about the man who fell over a cliff and grabbed a branch on his way down. He knew he couldn’t climb back up and as he looked down he saw that there was a drop of two hundred feet to solid rock. He started yelling hoping there would be someone walking along the cliff. "Is anyone up there." A voice from heaven says, "Yes, I’m here. All you have to do is let go and I’ll catch you." The man hesitates and then he yells, "Is there anyone else up there?" Not everyone wants the help that God has to offer even though that’s the only help there is.
Despair takes over when we decide to give up hope. When for one reason or another we come to the conclusion that life as we know it has no purpose and there’s no chance of improvement. Is it possible for this to happen to a Christian? Well known Christian psychologist Henry Brandt defines his job as, "Working with miserable Christians." Unfortunately, he has never had to worry about job security. There seems to be no shortage of those seeking help for their emotional discomfort. Many reasons exist for this discomfort, but one significant source of this low-grade despair is a twisted understanding of guilt and despair. There are believers who for one reason or another have no hope.
There’s nothing wrong with having problems but there is a problem when you start to think your problems are outside of the purpose and beyond the power of God. According to a study in Psychology Today the reason people commit suicide is they come to the conclusion that there’s no way out of their problems and death is the only answer. That’s what I mean by despair.
Jonah had to decide. Would he give up or give in. Would he pray or just lay down and die. And I don’t think it was an easy decision for him. After all, he was in the fish for three days. I wonder if it didn’t take him three days to decide that it was better to serve God and live then hang unto his pride and die. Pride is a powerful force in the life of each of us. There are a lot of things that we do or won’t do because of our pride. Our pride finds its best expression in our will in the sense that we determine that we will do only the things that we want to do and nothing else.
Jonah’s allowed his pride to determine how he would serve God. He was willing to serve God but it would have to be on his terms. He decided where he would serve and who he would preach to. And when you look at it in this light you have to ask yourself whether he was serving God at all or simply doing his own thing and appeasing his conscience by calling it service for God.
Regardless of what he was doing or why God had brought him to the point where he realized he had two choices. He could turn from his hard-hearted and sinful ways and live or he could harden his heart even further and die. It’s like the verse in Deuteronomy 30:19 where God spoke through Moses to the Israelites and said, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live." And by the grace of God Jonah chose life. We know this by his prayer.
II Jonah’s prayer of repentance. (Verses 4-9)
a) Jonah repents and when I say repent I mean exactly that. Repentance literally means a change of mind. And from a biblical standpoint its a change of mind about sin. It means seeing sin for what it is as an act of rebellion against God and then turning from sin and submitting to God. Its a change of mind that results in a change in our behaviour. And here we see that Jonah uses four sentences that express his repentance. In verse 4 he says, "I will look again to thy holy temple." He was turning his sights away from Tarshish and back to Jerusalem; back from the lure of the city back to the worship and service of God. And then in verse 7 he says, "I remembered the Lord." This indicates that he had tried to forget Him in the sense that he wanted to leave Him behind when he got on the ship for Tarshish. In verse 8 he says, "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." Lying vanities are another way of describing the useless works of man. He recognizes that when he was going his own way and doing his own thing he was turning away from the only one who could help him. And then in verse 9 he concludes by saying "I will sacrifice unto thee: with the voice of thanksgiving: I will pay that I have vowed." There are three things here. His sacrifice was the Old Testament expression of faith, his voice of thanksgiving indicates a change of attitude and then his vows express a return to his previous commitment.
His repentance involves three things. He’s turning back to the right path, the one he had been on. He’s openly acknowledging the foolishness of his ways and he’s putting God back on the throne of his heart. If you notice the progression its just the opposite of what we might expect. There’s a physical move followed by a psychological choice and then there’s a spiritual commitment. Think of how the same thing happened to the prodigal son. His circumstances in the pigpen made him think about the stupidity of his situation and he determined to turn his heart back toward God and his father. There was a physical situation that pressed him to make an intellectual choice that resulted in a new spiritual direction.
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the real evidence of spirituality is the attitude of thanksgiving. You really know that a person has a relationship with God when they have a grateful attitude. If Jonah could be grateful to God when he was sitting in the belly of a fish what right do you and I have to groan and grumble about how rough we have it? I remember hearing Corrie Ten Boom in Toronto back in the early seventies. She told the story about how the Nazis had murdered her father and her sister. She talked about her struggle with bitterness toward those who had done such horrible things and how God had given her the victory. The one thing that stands out in my mind about her was her attitude. In spite of everything she had been through she was grateful to God for His goodness to her. She didn’t focus on her suffering her eyes were on God.
When we lived in New York we went to hear Joni Erikson who you all know has been a quadriplegic since she had a diving accident in her late teens. She made the statement. "I would rather be in this wheel-chair and know Jesus Christ as my saviour then be walking around without Him." Again, in spite of her physical problems she has an attitude of gratitude. She’s not preoccupied with what she’s missing but she’s grateful for what she’s got.
Or what about the apostle Paul. We have his testimony in 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 he says, "Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not. In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands."
In spite of everything he endured for the gospel and suffered at the hands of those who rejected his message he could say, "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift." God’s gift of eternal life was so fantastic that he couldn’t think of words that would adequately express his gratitude.
What am I saying here? Are you Jonah? Have you spent some time in the belly of a fish? Are you like Corrie Ten Boom? Have you had any of your family members murdered before you very eyes? Are you like Joni Erikson? Are you able to get up and walk around? Or like the apostle Paul have you been whipped, imprisoned or shipwrecked for your faith? Because all these have endured terrible things and yet they were grateful. Why? They looked beyond their suffering and saw there was a purpose even though they didn’t know what the purpose was at the time.
b) So, Jonah had repented and his repentance was demonstrated by his gratitude. Some might wonder whether a Christian needs to repent of sin. The argument is that once we have repented and renounced sinful ways there is no longer any need for repentance but I believe repentance is an ongoing process in the Christian life. Besides, we see other examples of believers repenting in the scripture.
We have David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 34:4-6 where he says, "I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." He recognized the need to turn from the sin that seems to creep into the life of those whose desire it is to live for the Lord.
In Ezra 9:5-6 we have the prophet praying on behalf of the believing community that has strayed away from God. He says, "And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the LORD my God, And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens."
And then in Job 42:5-6 we have the words of the man who God describes in chapter one as being the most upright man in his day. He says of God, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
If David who was called the man after God’s own heart, Ezra who was always referred to as the scribe of God and Job who was the most righteous man of his day all felt the need to repent of sin; where does that leave the rest of us?
c) So he repented or turned from his sin and came back into a proper relationship with God. I can’t help but notice that there’s something missing from this story. We have a man whose sole purpose in life was to preach the word of God and he fails to do the very thing he was sent to do and pays the price for his disobedience. No matter how you look at it this is a religious story but it doesn’t have any kind of religious trappings. There are no church services, no committee meetings, no hymn books, no one takes up an offering and no one starts a building program. What we have here are the basics. We have one man and His God doing business where it counts. Regardless of any kind of religious expression his faith might have had in the past or will have in the future the bottom line is this. Will Jonah let God be God? And isn’t that where it all comes down with you and I. It doesn’t matter what church we belong to, whether or not we tithe or if we attend services on a regular basis. The bottom line is, do we or do we not have a relationship of obedience with the living God?
When I say relationship of obedience I’m not referring to someone who has made a decision. I’m talking about an ongoing commitment that overshadows every part of life. I remember visiting a lady in Guelph whose husband had passed away a couple of years earlier. He had been a deacon in our church and he and his wife had been very faithful. I was at her home one day and I asked how she was getting along and she shared how things didn’t seem to be settling down the way she thought they would. Here’s what she meant. A few days before I was there something came in the mail from the government. She read it a couple of times and couldn’t seem to understand what it was they wanted. Without thinking about it she started walking out to the shed behind the house where her husband had a little workshop. She just said to herself, "Al will understand what this was all about." The problem was, Al had been dead for three years. What was the problem here? The problem was, she had a relationship with her husband where she not only depended on him for certain things but she had shared everything with him. Their lives had been intertwined. That’s what I mean by when I talk about having a relationship with God. He is involved in every decision of our lives.
Most of us read Paul’s words about prayer and feel as though no matter what happens we will never be the kind of Christians we ought to be. Paul tells us to, "Pray without ceasing." When we hear this we have the image in our minds of someone on their knees beside their beds for three or four hours at a time and we know that’s not us. Many of us have some real struggles about the whole area of prayer. We believe in prayer, we talk about prayer we even sing about prayer. The problem is very few of us know what it means to really pray. I think when Paul told us to pray without ceasing he was simply talking about having a running conversation with God and not a formal time of prayer. You’re walking along the road and you thank Him for the beauty of creation when all of a sudden something that’s been bothering you comes to mind and you share it with Him the way you would with a friend. After discussing it for a while you can commit that concern to Him. Even though something distracts you from talking to Him later on you just pick up the conversation and go back to talking to Him again. This is what it means to be praying without ceasing. Its not affected by your posture. You don’t have to be on your knees. Its an attitude of prayer. Its what it means to have a relationship with God. So Jonah prays, then he repents and then God delivers him.
III The prophet’s deliverance.
a) Someone said the fish had his own opinion about the events. He was heard to say to another fish, "I had a prophet for lunch three days ago and he didn’t agree with me. He must have been a baptist." It simply says, "The Lord spoke to the fish and he vomited Jonah up on dry ground." It took three days to get the prophet’s attention but the fish responded immediately. I guess the term dumb animals in inappropriate. The animals know and respond to the voice of their creator.
b) The fish heard the voice of God but why did God tune into what Jonah had to say? I think it was his attitude. David says in Psalm 34:18, "The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." When his heart was broken by his sin and his spirit was humbled before God, God responded to him.
c) Why was he in the fish for three days? As I said, it may have had to do with his will. It may have taken that long for God to allow him to think over his options and come to the point of surrender. Then again it demonstrates for us that it was God who was in control and not Jonah. Even though from a human standpoint it may have appeared as though God’s purposes had been fulfilled there were other reasons for him to stay there for three days. God had a purpose beyond Jonah’s situation in that his being in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. His experience would be a prophetic image of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It also proves the words of Peter who said, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time."
Conclusion
1. What do we learn here about the nature of God?
God is merciful. Mercy is love shown to those who don’t deserve it. God is patient. He gives Jonah three days to think about his situation. God is longsuffering. The word longsuffering means it takes a long time to come to a boil. And the good news is, what He is to Jonah He is to us. Hell deserving sinners that we are, God is patient and long-suffering with us not only before we were saved but even after we are and when we should have known better.
2. What do we learn here about the nature of man?
Our sinful and rebellious will must be broken and sometimes we are so determined to go our own way that God allows us to have a taste of the consequences of sin so we will be willing to turn back to Him.
3. What do we learn about man’s relationship to God?
Regardless of what our position is or what kind of excuses we might try to use obedience is never an option. The call to obedience is a summons to a life of discipleship. Discipleship is best summed up by Jesus words in Luke 9:23 when it says, "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." There are but three requirements for those who would be Jesus disciples.
i Deny yourself. The psychological condition of denial means telling yourself that something isn’t true even though it may be obvious to everyone around you that it is. I read somewhere where a ladies husband had died. She refused to accept it. She couldn’t bear the thought of living alone. So, she pretended he hadn’t died. She kept him propped up in his chair at the kitchen table. It was a few months before someone happened to drop by and notice that he didn’t quite look like himself. Was he dead? Yes. Did he look dead? Of course he did. Why didn’t she accept it? Because she didn’t want to. She was living in a state of denial. We are deny ourselves. We are to treat our flesh which is our sinful nature as though it were dead. It may not act dead but we are to treat it like it was.
ii Take up his cross daily. Walk as Jesus walked. He was always conscious of the fact that He came to give His life for the sins of the world. He was always aware that His purposes in this life were to be fulfilled beyond the grave and not before it. This taking up the cross was not a one time act but a daily habit. It means living for eternity and not just for the things of time. We are to deny ourselves and take up our crosses and then we are to follow Him.
iii Follow Me Jesus says. Following His example, in obedience to His commands, listening for and obeying His leading.
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." After giving this call to discipleship Jesus asks a question. "What would it matter if you gained the world and died."
There was a rich man who died in London many years ago. He left a large endowment to a hospital in England. His will stipulated that, as a condition of the gift, his ashes be brought to the board room for each board meeting and placed at the head of the table. For more than a century the secretary of the board added to the minutes of each meeting the words, "Jeremy Bentham, present but not voting." He was here, but his presence didn’t make a difference. When we are committed to denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following the Lord that kind of commitment will make us different will result in our lives making a difference.
4. I believe we have the story of Jonah for three reasons. First, it demonstrates the mercy of God to rebellious man. Second, it shows how those of us who have failed to be obedient can still have a second chance. And third, we see how God in His grace never turns His back on us. One principle that seems to be woven through the book is this, "Disobedience results in suffering and obedience in receiving the provision of God results in our salvation and blessing."
