I Am Jonah
Part 2: The Psalm of Jonah
Pastor Ryan Akers
Recap: Jonah/prophet- Jonah means messenger of truth/also called the reluctant prophet. Jonah 1:1-2(READ). You know when the bible says a city was wicked it was wicked. Regardless of their wickedness God wanted to give them an opportunity to repent and turn to him. So he tells Jonah to go there and be His witness. Instead Jonah says NO! Gets in a boat and travels 2000 miles in the opposite direction towards Tarshish. He runs from God. But God sends a storm that was so big it was about to destroy the boat. The captain went down and told Jonah to pray to his God hoping it would work to stop the storm.
Instead of praying Jonah tells them after casting lots and seeing jonah is the guilty one who brought the storm on these men to cast him overboard. He believed his death would calm the storm. They didn’t want to do that but in the end they felt like they had no choice. They throw him over and the last verse of chapter one says, “Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.”
This is where we pick up the story. What we are about to read is called the psalm of Jonah. This poem was obviously written after Jonah had been delivered by God through the fish because it’s written in past tense. This is a prophet who is reflecting. He’s looking back at all God taught him and describing in beautiful poetic form how he felt while being trapped and unable to save himself but also the joy he experienced in his deliverance. Some of what he says is similar to some of the Psalms of David which is fine. He is mixing his feelings and thoughts with Psalms that had already been written and using them as his own. On a side note let me say that if you have trouble finding what to say in your times of prayer then open up to Psalms and begin praying the prayers of David as your own. They are powerful prayers that do an amazing job of describing how we feel about God, tragedy, grace, worship, salvation, enemies, hardships on and on in the 21st century.
Let’s start by reading this poem all at once and then we’ll go back and break it down verse by verse. Jonah 2. If you remember last week I spoke about how you and I are just like Jonah in many ways which is why the series is called I Am Jonah. Like Jonah we run from God. We don’t obey God we sin against God. We don’t follow His will we follow our will. We don’t show grace to all people instead we limit grace to those that we deem worthy to receive it.
Someone asked me a great question last week after second service. The question was something along the lines of how do we balance the grace of God with social justice and man’s laws? Should our grace extend to the point that man should be forgiven of all crimes and not go to jail? To which my response was that we must honor the laws of the land unless that law contradicts God’s law. For example if a law was passed that Christians could no longer gather together to worship then I would willfully break that law and risk inprinsonment because that law goes against the word of God which says that believers are one body and should meet together regularly. (Acts 2, Hebrews 10) When someone commits a crime there needs to be consequences such as jail time, community service, rehab, ticket etc. Grace for them comes when we stop saying, “well they deserved it” and instead go to the jail and show them a better way through sharing the gospel of Christ with them. It’s being able to love the ones who society considers the unlovable. It’s being willing to understand anyone who seeks forgiveness from God and believes in Jesus as their savior will be forgiven and made new regardless of how they’ve lived their lives up to that point. That’s what Jonah wasn’t willing to do and that’s what we are more often than not unwilling to do as well. But that’s what God does for us and so we should do that for others.
Jonah was thrown off the boat and in the time he thinks he is going to die God delivers him through this incredible miracle. Vs. 1 Jonah’s disobedience leads to his repentance. He goes from running from God to crying out to God for deliverance. Now, there are many who get more caught up with what’s happening with the fish rather than what’s happening with Jonah. People start asking, “How could he pray in a fish?” “How could he breath? What kind of fish could swallow a man? A whale, a shark?” The reality is it doesn’t matter. Everybody wants scientific proof that this could actually happen and that this wasn’t just some parable making a point. The fact is it did happen. Jesus himself says it happened. In Matthew 12 the teachers of religious law and Pharisees wanted Jesus to prove his authority by doing a miracle. They wanted a sign. And Jesus says, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgement day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.” This statement by Christ proves that what happened to the prophet Jonah is without a doubt a true historical fact. And it shows that although Ninevah didn’t have Jesus, Moses, Abraham or the law and prophets they repented and believed in God where as the people in the new testament and people today have Jesus, Moses, the old and new testament and yet we still don’t believe.
The fact that we have trouble explaining how a man could survive in a fish from a scientific viewpoint doesn’t matter because this only shows us that if God wants it to happen it happens regardless of how the laws of nature work. God arranged the fish, God willed for Jonah to survive in the fish, God ordered the fish to spit him out and the fish obeys. All of it is an incredible miracle. Someone once said, “Some men, because they cannot work a miracle themselves, can hardly be persuaded that God can do it.”unknown Because we can’t do it then it must not be possible even with God. But it happened and within this fish Jonah cries out to God. Vs. 2, “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me.” This one statement is the summary of this whole prayer. I cried out and you answered. God always answers prayer. I want to stop and grasp just how amazing this statement is because I don’t think it impacts us near as much as it should. Jonah cried out to God and he answered. This is the God who created the heavens and earth and all the galaxies. He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the holy one, supreme ruler over all creation. He is the final judge the great I AM, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Jonah calls on Him after running from Him and God still listens and answers. When we call on God, God listens and answers. He’s not a distant God that spun the top called earth and left it to be whatever it becomes. He is with us at all times. Second part of verse 2 says, “I called out to you from the land of the dead, and Lord, you heard me.” The Hebrew word used for “land of the dead” is the word “Sheol”. Sheol is another word for hell. Jonah wasn’t literally in hell but he is describing for us what his experience felt like. He felt like he was going to hell. In other words he is essentially saying, “at the point that I was furthest from God, the place where I could do nothing to save myself, where I was the most helpless and desperate and without any hope I called on God and you heard me.” This is the prayer of a broken and repentant man. Jonah felt isolated, separated from God and from life. How many of you have gone through times of Sheol? Or maybe you are right now. Times where you felt like God was a million miles away. Times where you felt all hope was lost, like life was about to end or wasn’t worth living? The good news of this passage is that even when we reach that point where we feel like we are in Sheol God still hears our cries to him and he answers. Even when we reach the point where we are completely and utterly helpless we are not hopeless. God hears and answers.
How does he answer? Let’s keep reading about how Jonah felt and we’ll see. Vs. 3-6 You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. (Technically the sailors threw him in the ocean but Jonah knows that God worked through them to make it happen. ) The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves.(Use your imagination as you read this you can almost feel the suffocation he is describing. He is giving us a heartfelt vivid description of the helplessness, the sheol, he was feeling.) 4 Then I said, ‘O LORD, you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’(This isn’t a cry for salvation because Jonah already believes. This is a statement of determination to pray in spite of his banishment.) 5 “I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. 6 I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever.Again he describes in detail his feelings of complete helplessness. His descent to death is almost complete as he reaches the roots of the mountains. In other words there is no physical hope for me is what he’s saying. The game is over. Do not pass go. I am a dead man. And then he says what? What’s the first word there? But you, O LORD my God, snatched me from the jaws of death! So you have this amazingly powerful description of a man who is at the final moment of his life, feeling helpless and hopeless, sinking to his death and then there is a but. But YOU O LORD! I love that. When Jonah had no hope God intervened. He does that so often in our lives that it’s only after the situation has passed that we can reflect and see how God moved us through it. In the moment of hardship and desperation we only think about what we are experiencing and rarely thinking about how God is moving. All of us have but God moments. My marriage was failing but God intervened. My job situation seemed hopeless but God answered prayer. My life seemed out of control but God saved me. All things are possible with God.
When Jonah found himself at his most depressing moment of life, when hope seemed lost, when he could literally do nothing to save himself God stepped in and rescued him, rescued him from Sheol. This story mirrors the message of salvation through Christ. That we, regardless of who we are or the position we hold, find ourselves separated from and under the wrath of God. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves. Just as Jonah could do nothing to save his own life, neither can we do anything to save ours. Jonah couldn’t make an animal sacrifice to atone for his sins, he couldn’t give money to the temple or worship at the temple. He couldn’t serve someone or do some other good work that people think will make them good enough to get into heaven. He was completely helpless. You and I are completely helpless. There is nothing we can do to make us right with God. By God’s grace Jonah was rescued from physical death and by God’s grace we are rescued from spiritual death through Christ who died so that those who believe will be forgiven and made new. The point is salvation both physically and spiritually isn’t possible with out God working in us. We walk through life believing we are in total control of ourselves when in fact we have no control over any aspect of our lives and unfortunately there are times that God has to take drastic measures to prove that to us. But thankfully he still, even in our rebellion, rescues us.
VS. 7 Don’t put god on a shelf and think he doesn’t care. Or put god on a shelf until you need him. God hears us and we need God everyday at all times. Jonah said that just as his life was slipping away he prayed. And that prayer went up to God and it was answered. It can be frustrating when people come to me and say, “Well I guess all we can do now is pray.” What does that mean? All we could ever do is pray. Yes God provides us medicine, technology and skilled people but all the hope we ever truly have is for God to intervene on our behalf. To give us the faith to endure, the peace to get through and the ability to praise Him regardless of the outcome. Prayer is not some last resort or last ditch effort we turn to when all other options are exhausted. Prayer must be the first, middle and last course of action we take. Hebrews says that we can come boldly to the throne of grace. We have the right as his children to come into his presence and to seek his help in all times of our lives and he will answer us in His way and in his time. We are to trust, obey and endure. The book of James 5:13-18 says, 13 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. (did you know singing is a form of prayer?) 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. 16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. Our prayers matter. They make us patient. Prayer, especially over the sick, reveals our faith in God’s healing ability. We can have faith for the sick person who may have lost faith. Our prayers lead to physical healing and/or spiritual healing in peoples lives. God provides both prayer and medicine to help people. Confession of sin in our prayers brings about spiritual healing and faith in us. Prayer is so much more than a last ditch effort or talking to an empty room it changes us from the inside out, humbles us, grows our faith and makes us more like Christ. Christ was never too busy to pray. Neither should we be.
Jonah looked to God and God answered. VSS. 8 Those who put their hope in anything but God is forfeting their opportunity to receive God’s grace through forgiveness. The word Grace here in Hebrew is the word Hesed. It means loving kindness or the pursuing love of God. When we cling to or put our hope in worthless idols such as false gods, money, jobs, material things, or our own strengths and abilities we are forfeiting the ability to experience the grace of God. You can’t pursue both God’s grace and the things of this world. It’s either one or the other. VS. 9 Jonah’s vow was that he would give his life to the Lord. Whether dead or alive it all belongs to God. His new desire is to love God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength. He also recognizes and we’ve already discussed this that salvation comes from God alone. Although he recognizes this in his poem and he will obey God’s will by going to preach to the Ninevites in chapter 3 we will still see a man who hopes that God will save us but not them. We will still see limited grace. So my hope in reading this chapter is that when he actually wrote it he was awakened to the truth that it’s not about us and it’s not about who we think should be saved but that salvation is for all who believe. Finally VS 10. The fish spit out Jonah or some translations will say vomited him out. Either way God gave the order and the fish obeyed immediately which can’t be said about Jonah who disobeyed when God ordered him.
So, what can we take home from this poem? I wrote down a couple of things. First, helpless doesn’t mean hopeless. Jonah was helpless but he wasn’t hopeless. God can and does rescue us from even the depths of Sheol. Nobody is beyond God’s ability to rescue. No matter how bad you believe life is or how bad you think you are when you call out to God he will rescue you. Second, God answers prayer. God may not always answer it in the way we expect but he will answer it in the way we need. What we need to do in our prayers is to learn to pray consistently and pray the heart of God. Pray for his will to be done, pray for the faith to endure, for a peace that passes all understanding, pray for humility, pray for your life to be used for His glory, for your example to be used to help change others, for your spiritual giftings to be used to edify the body, for the miracle of healing both spiritually and physically and above all else pray with a thankful heart. Many of the Pslams are these heart bearing vulnerable prayers that are full of praise, anger, joy, hurt, question, doubt but they all seem to end in thanksgiving. Pray your heart, pray with passion and honesty and pray prayers of thanksgiving. The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective. The god of the universe hears all of our prayers. When we come to him and confess sincerely he will always forgive. I pray that God would teach us to have grace for all men just as he has grace and love for us.
