Introduction:
1. In some ways you might say that this week’s sermon is the exact opposite of what we studied in the first sermon on Jonah. Last week’s title was, "Jonah Running from God," as you have probably noticed, this week’s is, "Jonah Running to God."
2. Before we go farther in our study I must acknowledge that some people find the events recorded in Jonah difficult to believe. However, when that happens I think we need to be reminded of what. . .
Cell #1—
Thomas John Carlisle wrote, "I was so obsessed with what was going on inside the whale that I missed seeing the drama inside Jonah."
3. Too many people miss what went on inside Jonah’s story because all they can think about is how impossible it would be for a man to be swallowed by a big fish, or a whale. What you may not know is that at least some kinds of whales are large enough to swallow a person.
Cell #2—
An average sperm whale might have a mouth 20 feet long, 15 feet high and 9 feet wide.
(Later) Star of the East
(Later) James Bartley was assumed drowned, but wasn’t found.
(Later) He was in the whale’s stomach, unconscious, but alive
(Later) He recovered & did his job again
4. Let me explain. (Cell #2) An average sperm whale might have a mouth 20 feet long, 15 feet high and 9 feet wide. Let me tell you this is a big animal. In fact, it’s about the biggest mammal on the planet. That explains how the fish or whale could swallow a person. The sperm whale feeds largely on squid. These squid are often larger then people. Whalers have sometimes found an entire squid in the stomach of a dead whale.
5. Let me be even more specific by telling you a story that happened in the late 1800’s. It happened on the ship, (Cell #1, part 2) Star of the East. In February 1891, this whaling ship spotted a large sperm whale in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. Two boats were launched, & shortly a harpooner speared the whale. The second boat attempted to get in another harpoon, but the boat was overturned in the process and one man drowned. Another man, (Cell #2, part 3) James Bartley, disappeared & was assumed drowned. In time the whale was killed and drawn to the side of the ship where it was tied fast & the blubber removed. The following day the stomach was hoisted onto the deck. That’s where James Bartley was. (Cell #2, part 4) He was in the whale’s stomach, unconscious, but alive. (Cell #2, part 5) He recovered & did his job again.
6. We serve a God who can do more than just watch from the wings. Let’s get into this morning’s scripture passage.
Cell #3—
1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish,
2 and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.
3 "For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.
4 "So I said, ’I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5 "Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 "I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 "While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple.
8 "Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness,
9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD."
10 Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. (NAS updated)
Prayer.
Cell #4—
I. Jonah’s Cry to the Lord 2:1-3
1. This took place from the stomach of the fish. You may notice that much of the prayer is stated in the past tense. Which doesn’t make any sense if the prayer was taking place while Jonah was in the belly of the fish. That is where the prayer was prayed, but apparently Jonah put it in poetic form later. It is actually in the form of a psalm. He wanted this to be a prayer that he and others would remember. The lessons it contained were too valuable to forget.
2. We don’t know how long Jonah was in the fish before he prayed. Perhaps he was barely there before he began a serious prayer meeting. Others have made something of the fact that many translations speak of how he was in the belly of the fish 3 days and 3 nights and "then" began to pray. I suspect the prayer recorded here isn’t the first one he prayed. His first prayer would probably have been something like, "HELP!" Although he was encouraged by the pagan sea captain earlier to pray, there is nothing recorded in the book to indicate that he actually did pray. This is Jonah’s first recorded prayer and I might add, it’s a good one.
Cell #5—
Jonah cried to God out of the belly of hell.
(Later) Sheol, the place of the dead, often of those separated from God.
3. Jonah cried to Lord out of the belly of hell. You may not have any idea what I’m talking about, but let me assure you it is in the text of what’s said in Jonah. Some of our translations don’t use the word "hell" in verse 2. Instead the word is translated, "Sheol." That name obviously doesn’t mean a great deal to most of us but let me explain it in basic form. (Cell #5, part 2) Sheol was the place of the dead. It often spoke of those who were separated from God." So you can see how Jonah viewed the situation he found himself in. At first, he thought himself too far gone. He was convinced at first that God had given up on him and he was hopeless. 2
4. At least that was part of it. In a very real way Jonah knew he was getting what he had coming to him. Remember he was the one who told the sailors on the ship that they had to throw him overboard it they wanted to life. Here’s the real point. . .
Cell #6—
Jonah knew His punishment was from God, notice his statement,
(pause) "All Your breakers and billows passed over me.".
5. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think we have Jonah’s first prayer here. I think that because if you look closely at the prayer you will discover something very interesting. . .
Cell #7—
Jonah’s prayer was not a prayer for deliverance. His prayer was actually one of praise and thanksgiving for having been delivered from certain death.
6. During those three days and nights, I’m convinced he endured something that changed him forever. I don’t mean he came out of that fish’s belly perfect, the rest of the book will illustrate the fact that he was still far from perfect, but I believe he was a changed man.
Cell #8—
The words, "the waters encompassed me," were just that, mere words to everyone else but Jonah, but to him, those words were connected to vivid terrifying memories. There was only a hairs distance between him & death at the time.
TS— That leads to the second major point of the sermon. Let’s look at. . .
Cell #9—
II. Jonah’s Renewed Faith in the Lord 2:4-9
1. The winds of change have moved through Jonah’s life. It was a very tough experience, but it had moved Jonah back to his relationship with God. . .
Cell #10—
Jonah wasn’t hopeless, but for the time being he was helpless. The Lord prompted him to faith from the depths of despair.
2. I have a question that I believe is pretty logical. What was there about what had gone on that got Jonah’s attention and put him back on what you might say was the, "straight and narrow."
Cell #11—
As Jonah lay in the fish’s belly he reflected upon the miracle that he was still alive.
3. He wasn’t in good condition, & misery would have sounded good to him at that point, but he probably realized that God in his mercy would have killed him quickly, not left him there to literally stew in the fish’s stomach.
4. I don’t mean to suggest that this situation was an easy one for Jonah, it was not. In fact, it was anything but easy. He probably didn’t know how much more he could take. 7
Cell #12—
In verse 7, Jonah said that he his soul fainted, or literally was covered within him. The word is used for faintness from extreme heat, thirst or exhaustion. Jonah cried out to the Lord from the worst situation imaginable.
5. In other words, it wasn’t easy. Can you imagine swimming in stomach acid for 3 days and nights. I suspect the picture of being faint from exhaustion, may have come from Jonah trying to remain awake so that he didn’t die. It wasn’t just the stress of the situation he was in, it was also that he was past the point of being tired.
Cell #13—
III. Jonah’s Deliverance by the Lord 2:10
1. We don’t know where the fish vomited him out, the Bible doesn’t say. It was probably near Joppa, where he had originally sailed from. Should that be the case it meant Jonah ended up right back where he began. I suspect there was a little bit of Divine humor in that. When you disobey God you find yourself working hard, but getting nowhere.
2. This passage is in the form of a psalm. I like the way the Interpretation Commentary summarizes this section of scripture. It is very much on track.
Cell #14—
This is the psalm of those whose lives have been shipwrecked, who are at the end of their rope, for whom the bottom has dropped out. They may have lost a loved one, a job or experienced the break up of a marriage. Like Jonah, the disaster may even have been of their own making.
3. So what should we do if we find ourselves in this situation? We can pray. . . Yes, even if we’re the reason the bottom has dropped out. We have a God who loves us when we mess things up, who cares about us even though we’ve caused our own problems. That’s the kind of God we serve.
Conclusion:
1. Scripture is full of stories of God forgiving people who don’t deserve another chance.
2. My favorite Christian author is Philip Yancy. I want to share a quote from his wonderful book, What’s So Amazing About Grace. It illustrates what I’m talking about. Yancy writes,
There is a simple cure for people who doubt God’s love and question God’s grace: to turn to the Bible and examine the kind of people God loves. Jacob, who dared take God on a wrestling match and ever after bore a wound from that struggle, became the eponym for God’s people, the "children of Israel." The Bible tells of a murderer and adulterer who gained a reputation as the greatest king of the Old Testament, a "man after God’s own heart." And of a church being led by a disciple who cursed and swore that he had never known Jesus. And of a missionary being recruited from the ranks of the Christian-torturers. I get mailings from Amnesty International, and as I look at their photos of men and women who have been beaten and cattle-prodded and jabbed and spit on and electrocuted, I ask myself, "What kind of human being could do that to another human being?" Then I read the book of Acts and meet the kind of person who could do such a thing-now an apostle of grace, a servant of Jesus Christ, the greatest missionary history has ever known. If God can love that kind of person, maybe, just maybe, he can love the likes of me. Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less. It means that I, even I who deserve the opposite, am invited to take my place at the table in God’s family. 9
3. Jonah reminds us that no matter how far we’ve strayed from God He is eager to welcome us back home. Are there consequences of rejecting God and His ways? The answer is obviously yes, remember Jonah was thrown into the sea and spent 3 days and nights in the fish. However, don’t miss the bigger point, God forgave Jonah.
4. Some of you here this morning may have given up on yourselves. You may have decided that after the mistakes you’ve made, there’s nothing you can do but accept your fate. God eagerly waits for you to turn to Him so that He can forgive you and give you the fresh start you long for.
1) Adam Clarke, Adam Clarkes Commentary on the Old Testament, (Cedar Rapids, IA: Parsons Technology) 1999.
2) J. D. Douglas, Ed., New Commentary on the Whole Bible: Old Testament, (Based on the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary) (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers)
3) Cyril Spaude, People’s Bible Commentary: Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House) 1994.
4) James Mongomery Boice, The Minor Prophets, Two Complete Volumes in One Edition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications) 1993.
5) Elizabeth Achtemeier, New International Biblical Commentary: Minor Prophets I, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) 1996.
6) James Limburg, Interpretation: Hosea - Micah, (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press) 1988.
7) E B Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House) 1956.
8) Billy Smith, Frank Page, The New American Commentary: Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers) 1995.
9) Philip Yancy, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing)
