The Prayer of a Returning Backslider

In this part of the sermon: Martin clarifies that Jonah's prayer in Chapter 2 is a literary description of his spiritual exercises, not a verbatim transcript, reflecting the struggle between nature and grace.

Martin uses the analogy of 'sanctified incoherence' to describe the struggle between nature and grace in Jonah's prayer, where thoughts overlap and leapfrog, reflecting the internal conflict.

to our study tonight, it would be a consideration of the prayer of a returning backslider. The prayer of a returning backslider, or how grace triumphs over nature in the heart of a disobedient Christian. By way of introduction, let me mention in passing that no responsible commentator whom I have consulted, and I've consulted no fewer than eight or nine of them in great detail in preparation for the study of the word of God tonight, none of them takes the position that what we have in chapter two, which has been read in your hearing, is an exact transcript of Jonah's prayer as he actually conc...

4:20 - 5:47 Read in full sermon

The point: When God's afflictive arm is bared, your response to that affliction becomes the true index of the state of your soul.

Martin quotes Patrick Fairbairn, who describes affliction as 'God's net' catching a wanderer or 'the rod' bringing him back to wisdom, illustrating the purpose of divine discipline.

And there we see the grace of God that hitherto we have not seen, operative as we've looked at his external circumstances. I can do no better than to read from Patrick Fairbairn's commentary when speaking to this very issue, the place of affliction in the life or in the lives of the people of God. He says it is always interesting, and may be profitable as well as interesting, to mark the workings of a soul when struggling with the strong boost of affliction, especially if that affliction has come in the immediate train of backsliding and appears as the net in which God has caught a wanderer fr...

19:00 - 20:02 Read in full sermon

The point: When God's afflictive arm is bared, your response to that affliction becomes the true index of the state of your soul.

Martin shares his pastoral experience of seeing God's rod of affliction leave some professed Christians 'embittered and sour and entrenched in his course of disobedience,' contrasting them with a 'true Jonah'.

There is a class of professing Christians, in whom even the heaviest afflictions are found to work no spiritual good. The flesh is bruised, but the spirit is not sanctified. Earthly delights are cut off with a stroke, but yet no springs of heavenly consolation are opened up. A valley of Baca, that is, a valley of weeping, but without its wells of living water, a wilderness with no manna from above, our Canaan in prospect, a sorrow that either works death or leaves, with delusive hopes to a new refuge of lies.

20:33 - 21:09 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin argues that Jonah's primary concern was not deliverance from the fish, but the restoration of conscious communion and fellowship with God, which he had previously despised.

Martin poses a hypothetical scenario to the children: waking up in a fish's belly and asking what their first prayer would be, to highlight Jonah's unexpected primary concern.

Now, my question is this. If you were to wake up finding yourself in the belly of a great fish, and you started to pray, what would be number one on your prayer list? All the children here now, you think for a minute. If you were to wake up in the middle of the night, and you found yourself in a strange environment, it was all damp and a terrible smell, and it was all kind of slimy, and yet you felt some motion, and you felt around and said, where am I?

22:28 - 23:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: As surely as forfeited communion with God is the great sin of the backslider, so restoration to that communion is the greatest burden of the backslider's return.

Jonah's prayer is described as a 'messenger that ran right from the belly of the fish into the very throne room of God,' emphasizing the direct access and efficacy of his prayer.

I remember Jehovah. And then there's a beautiful imagery here. It's as though he regards his prayer as a messenger that ran right from the belly of the fish into the very throne room of God. And my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple.

28:39 - 28:59 Read in full sermon

The point: If you only wince, whimper, and complain when the rod of affliction comes, seriously doubt that you know anything of the grace of God in truth.

The prodigal son's return is used as an analogy for the backslider's return, emphasizing that the primary concern is reconciliation with the father, not just material comforts.

As surely as forfeited communion with God is the great sin of the backslider, so restoration to that communion is the great burden of his return. You see, the backslider's return finds something analogous in the prayer of the prodigal. He did not say, I will arise and go to my father's red table. Here I've been eating upon husks.

30:38 - 31:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The man of unbelief says, All these things are against me. The man of faith says, All of these afflictions are for me.

Martin uses the vivid metaphor of God's goodness being 'tattooed on our spiritual behind by the rod of affliction' to illustrate how faith discerns God's love even in chastening.

even into Thy holy temple. Here is the recognition of the goodness of God in the midst of the affliction. That's one of the peculiar abilities of a man or woman of faith who lies under the smarting sting of God's rod, but can see the goodness of God. For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourgeth every son, whom he receiveth.

44:27 - 45:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The man of unbelief says, All these things are against me. The man of faith says, All of these afflictions are for me.

Martin quotes Fairbairn again, who marvels at Jonah's use of Psalms, identifying with former saints and finding light in Scripture amidst his unprecedented darkness.

If you read over beforehand what you're going to read, and plan how to read it in a way that is interesting and follows your own natural inflections, I thought of summarizing it in my own words, and I said, no, that would spoil it. Let me give them the best. Fairbairn, speaking to this very principle of the faith manifested by Jonah, there's still a further manifestation of faith in the words of Jonah, and one which forms another special mark of sanctified affliction, although it lies less upon the surface than those already noticed, and may even escape the observation of the hasty reader. I r...

48:08 - 49:38 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: God responds by speaking to the fish, which obeys, and then speaks to Jonah, who also obeys, demonstrating God's triumph by grace in his prophet's heart, despite remaining…

Martin recounts a humanist's joke that the whale vomited Jonah because it couldn't stand his desire to take credit for salvation, using it to contrast with the biblical reason for the fish's action.

Deliverance in all of its dimensions, Jonah says, is of Jehovah. And someone is humanist, really, who has said at that point, because the desire to take credit for some part of salvation is so native to both the human temperament and also probably to the beastly temperament, even the whale couldn't stand it any longer and he had to vomit up the poor prophet. Well, that's not the reason he vomited him up because we read in verse 10, the Lord spake to the fish. You say, Pastor Martin, you seem to be an intelligent man.

57:53 - 58:28 Read in full sermon