The Prayer of a Returning Backslider

Introduction: God's Restoration of a Backslider

0:05 Will you please follow in your own Bible as I read from the book of Jonah, the last verse of chapter 1, Jonah 1, 17, and reading just the ten verses of chapter 2.

0:27 Remember the commission has come to the man of God. He has deliberately and willfully rejected that commission. He has sought to flee from all that would remind him of the claims of Jehovah, God of the covenant, and God has taken in hand to deal with his backslidden, disobedient servant.

0:51 And now we read in verse 17 of chapter 1, And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and he said, I called by reason. I called by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he answered me.

1:18 Out of the belly of Sheol cried I, and thou heardest my voice, for thou didst cast me into the depth, into the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me. All thy waves and thy billows passed over me. And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes. Yet I will look.

1:45 I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The deep was round about me. The weeds were wrapped about my head.

1:57 I went down to the bottoms or the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars closed upon me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me.

2:16 I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple. They that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy, that I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

2:39 The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah. Upon. The dry land.

2:51 In our study of the book of Jonah last Lord's Day evening, we noted the process by which God in grace restored his backslidden and disobedient servant and child, Jonah. By noting the various activities of God and the responses of Jonah to those activities, we tried to bring into broad perspective that process of God's grace by which God, as then, so now, restores his children who err from the way of righteousness, who step out of the path of obedience, and in that sense become what is commonly called backsliders. Well, as we consider those various factors of God's activity and Jonah's reaction to that activity, we simply noted in passing the place which Jonah's prayer had in the restorative process, promising that this Lord's Day evening, God willing, we would turn and examine that prayer in greater detail. And so we shall tonight rivet our attention upon that prayer because God has seen fit to leave the record of its constituent elements here in the word of God. And if I were giving a title,

The Nature of Jonah's Recorded Prayer

4:20 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 conceived it in the belly of the great fish. Since the book itself was obviously written after the entire incident, what we have in chapter two is Jonah's prayer. We have Jonah's literary description of the various exercises of his mind and his soul while in the fish's belly, but we must not press into that that he actually composed the prayer as it is before us in this exact combination of words. It would be to press upon the passage something that is neither warranted by the circumstances nor demanded

5:47 by the highest view of Holy Scripture. All Jonah is obligated to do, according to his own testimony, is to give us a transcript of those elements which entered into his dealings with God as he is being brought back into the way of obedience. And as we attempt to think our way through the prayer tonight, and it's a difficult prayer to outline because it does not have a one-two-three progression, but the thoughts overlap one another and some of the thoughts leapfrog one another. And some are a recapitulation of thoughts introduced earlier.

The Circumstances of Jonah's Prayer: External and Internal

6:25 And in trying to sort out the various strands of the prayer, I have found it helpful in thinking through the prayer to consider it in three categories. First of all, the circumstances in which he prayed. Secondly, the substance of his prayer. And then thirdly, the sequel to his prayer.

6:46 First of all, then, the circumstances in which Jonah prayed. They are stated very simply as to their external dimensions in the language of verse 1. Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fish's belly. So the external circumstances of his prayer are described for us in these words, out of the fish's belly.

7:21 Now try to put yourself in Jonah's situation. He has been cast overboard according to the testimony of chapter 1. We read in verse 14, We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life. Lay not upon us innocent blood.

7:40 Verse 15, They took up Jonah and cast him into the sea. And when Jonah is cast into the sea, in all probability, the language of chapter 2 indicates that he was not immediately swallowed by the great fish. There is a clear indication that he probably sank down into the depths of the sea to the point where he could say in verse 5 of chapter 2, The waters compassed me about even to the soul. That is, I felt the waters were about to take away life itself.

8:19 The depths of the sea were about to take away life itself. The deep, not the surface, the deep was round about me. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the roots of the mountains, and he felt as though the earth itself was closing over him forever.

8:37 Now some commentators differ in their interpretation of these passages, and they say, well, once Jonah recognized that he had been swallowed by a great fish, and that the fish probably dived to the bottom of the ocean, then in that sense the weeds were about him, etc. But I find that rather strained in the interpretation of the language. It appears, though I would not dogmatize, that what happened is this. Once the sailors cast Jonah into the sea, though the seas immediately cease from their tumultuous heaving, as we read in chapter 1 and verse 15, the end of the verse, the sea ceased from its raging.

9:17 Jonah begins to descend into the sea, the depths of the sea, and he descends to the very point where some of that subterranean growth actually finds himself entangled in it. He feels that the waters that he has perhaps begun to suck into his lungs are about to snatch out life itself. And he says he's gone down to the very roots of the mountain, and at that point, when life seems to be almost snatched away, he has a strange sensation. He finds himself being moved by an object external to himself.

9:56 And when he comes to his senses and tries to conceive of what has happened, and his rational faculties begin to interpret the dark, damp, and no doubt foul smell of his present environment, it dawns upon him that he has actually been swallowed by a great fish. And he is now somewhere in the depths of the ocean, he is in the belly of a great fish, and in that situation, he begins to turn his mind and his heart to his God, and in this simple, unadorned language says, Jonah prayed out of the fish's belly. And surely it is warranted to say that when God begins to deal with a man to bring him back from his path of waywardness, there is no place that will be inappropriate for earnest, fervent prayer to the living God. The external circumstances of his prayer is this strange, uncomfortable, eerie, frightening place, the belly of the great fish. But the Scripture is far more concerned to open up to us not so much the details, of the external circumstances of his prayer,

11:24 but the internal circumstances out of which he prayed. And these circumstances are what one author calls the great struggle between nature and grace. And that's what makes any kind of a logical, structured exposition of this passage very difficult. Because when nature and grace are struggling in the soul of a man, there is often a struggle between nature and grace.

11:51 And there is often an element of what we would call sanctified incoherence. As nature breaks through and speaks its language, and then grace breaks through with greater strength and speaks its language. And then nature again speaks, silencing the voice of grace, and then grace breaks through and speaks its own language. Well, that's precisely what we have recorded for us here in chapter 2.

12:17 One thing is clear, that the internal circumstances was one that Jonah regarded as his affliction. Verse 2, I called by reason of mine affliction. He called out of the belly of the great fish. That's the external description of his circumstances.

12:40 Internally, I called by reason of my affliction. Now notice the voice, as it were, of nature, of discouragement, of despondency, and despondency, of despair, breaking out in the language of verse 4. And I said,

12:59 from before thine eye, here's the language of a man who says, I've had it. God is done with me. Not only has he allowed the sailors to cast me into the sea, and in that sense, they have rid me of my presence, my presence that caused all of their distress. But as it were, what they have done is but a symbol of what might happen.

13:25 What my God has done. I am cast out from his very presence. And here is the language of despair. We see it again in verse 7.

13:35 When my soul fainted within me. He says his soul was in a state of swoon. It was about or had fainted within him. So here you see is the voice, the language of nature, of despair, of despondency, of dejection, of unbelief.

13:54 And yet on the other side, on the other hand, there is the breaking through of the principle of grace that is within the soul of the man. We look at verse 4, and no sooner does he say, and I said I am cast out from before thine eyes, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The one who dwells between the cherubim, from whose presence I feel I am to merciful God, and I'll look towards his holy temple. There's the principle of grace, it's breaking through the voice of nature.

14:33 We find the same thing in the latter part of verse 6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed upon me forever. I felt I had had it, and there that the sea would be my burial grounds. Yet thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.

14:55 And as he's in the belly of the great fish, contemplating that mighty deliverance, that came when the great fish prepared by God came and swallowed him, he reasons within himself, surely God did not bring deliverance at that time for naught. And here he sustains me by a perpetual miracle. I'm able to breathe and think and be a rational creature in the belly of a great fish in the depths of the ocean. And so grace breaks through, you see.

15:25 We find the same thing in the latter part of verse 4. I'm sorry, of verse 7. When my soul fainted within me, remembered the Lord. Here the soul is fainting.

15:43 He feels he's cast out from before his presence. Yet now, he says, I remembered him. I deliberately brought him to mind. And I began to meditate upon the nature and the character of my God.

15:56 So you see the circumstances in which he prayed, externally, far from favorable. Out of the belly of the great fish. And all the strangeness and the eeriness of that circumstance. And then with this tumultuous internal struggle that he calls his affliction.

16:18 It is out of that situation that he cries to the living God. So his circumstance can rightly be called, as he describes it, his affliction. Both outward and inward. And before we pass on to look at the substance, of the prayer I want to say by way of application.

Application: Affliction as an Index of the Soul

16:37 In Jonah we see illuminated the great truth taught elsewhere in Holy Scripture. That affliction is the great index of the true state of the soul.

16:50 Affliction sent by God become the great and accurate index of the true state of the soul. Here is a man who if you could have seen him, if I could have seen him, in all we knew of his history was what we saw from the moment the word of God came saying, Go to Nineveh. And he set his face like flint to go up to Joppa, to find his ship, to go to Tarshish. We would say that man is no true son of Israel.

17:22 He is not one whom we described this morning from Romans. Who acknowledges whether I live or die I am the Lord. Surely that man has no right to claim to be a true man, a true man of God, and a true son of the covenant. Ah, but you see affliction brought to light the true Jonah.

17:43 That was not the true Jonah that we saw, running from the presence of God, running from the commandment of God, openly flaunting and disobeying the law and the rule and the government of God. And when a true child of God walks in a path of disobedience, the afflictive arm of God is bared, and it's his responsibility, the response to that affliction which becomes the true index of the state of his soul. Isn't this the teaching of Matthew 13, the parable of the sower? There is that response in which someone receives the word with joy, but when tribulation, persecution, when afflictions come, then the true state of the soul is laid bare. As the teaching of Hebrews 12, he says it is for chastening that ye endure, and if ye do receive and endure chastening, this is the mark of your sonship. And as with Jonah, so with us. Affliction, as it were, takes us not only into the depths of the sea to behold Jonah praying out of the belly of the great fish, but that very circumstance of affliction takes us into the depths of his soul.

19:00 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 from the fold. Isn't that a beautiful analogy? Affliction, God's net going after his wandering child, or the rod by which he would bring him back to wisdom and obedience. The effect would be quite uniform.

20:02 The means would always reach their intended aim if in the persons so dealt with there were always the element of sincere and living piety. You see what he says? Wherever you have religion, then when the net goes out to catch the wanderer, or the rod is laid on the back to restore the wanderer, the effect would always be wholly positive. But, he says, this is far from being the case.

20:33 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.

21:09 A sad case, truly, when the medicine of God's righteous discipline makes itself known only in its bitterness, or tends but to deepen the wound it was intended to cure. And I've lived long enough as a pastor to see that happen, to see God's rod of affliction, to see God's net of affliction go out to a wandering Joe, to see God's net of affliction go out to a wandering Joe, to see God's net of affliction go out to a wandering Joe, only to leave that professed Jonah embittered and sour and entrenched in his course of disobedience. Where is that same net and that same rod going forth upon a true Jonah, one who is truly the Lord, yet in a way of disobedience? That affliction has become to him what it was to Jonah, the very means of his restoration. Well, then, let us hasten on, having looked briefly at the circumstances in which this prayer of the backslider was offered to God, now the substance of his prayer. I want to ask a question of all the children present tonight, a special question for you.

The Substance of Jonah's Prayer: Primary Concern

22:28 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?

23:01 And you figured it out, real smart like, that you were in the belly of a great fish, and you started to pray to God, what would your number one prayer request be? You say, I'd say, Lord, get me out of this mess. Well, probably most of us would pray that way. But it's an interesting thing when we turn to Jonah's account of his prayer, and we analyze the substance of his prayer, first of all, as to its primary concern.

23:32 We do not find that deliverance from the belly of the great fish was its primary concern. No. You say, Pastor, you're kidding. You mean Jonah's down there in the belly of that great fish, and when he starts to pray, his first prayer is not, O Lord, have mercy upon me and get me out of here?

23:52 No, that's not his first concern. There is no indication in the prayer that deliverance from the affliction was the great concern. Rather, it was the very thing which he earlier despised that now becomes his greatest longing, in the belly of the great fish. Chapter 1 in verse 3 says, Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

24:26 So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Then we read that in his account of his own activity to these pagan sailors, he made it plain that that was his concern. Verse 10, Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, What is this that thou hast done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

24:59 You remember in opening up that phrase, the presence of the Lord, we said it points to everything that to Jonah would be a reminder of Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the place where the temple was, the place where the law had been given, the place where, as it were, almost on every piece of real estate, there was a reminder of some mighty victory, or some solemn dealing which God had had with his people. He was not fleeing from the presence of the Lord in the sense that he thought God was a local deity as the pagans did. No, no. Otherwise he wouldn't be praying in the belly of a great fish.

25:34 But he sought to rid himself of everything that would be a reminder of God's relationship to him as a true son of the covenant and as a prophet of God. And now when he begins to pray, my concern of his prayer is the restoration of that which he despised. For notice his complaint in verse 4. And I said, after describing what happened to him, he's cast into the sea, into the heart of the seas.

26:12 The waves and billows are over him. And his first thought is, I am cast out from before thine eyes.

26:25 The awareness that he sensed himself out of the orbit of the peculiar plainness and mercy of God toward him. So his complaint is, I am cast out from before thine eyes. Now what is his desire? Verse 4b.

26:47 Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. Now that cannot mean a physical look. For he had no compass. Even if he did, I doubt it had luminous dials.

26:59 He had no sense of evil. East, west, north or south, down in the belly of a great fish somewhere in the ocean. So it could not mean that he would literally look toward the temple at Jerusalem. What he's saying is, fearing the cast out from before thine eyes, and that my condition is the result of my own, and I turn my back upon the presence of God, I will now turn my face towards him.

27:30 And the thing I despise, I will now treasure above all else. And he says, I will turn myself towards thy holy temple. That is, I will deliberately think upon all that is peculiar to Jehovah, the God of Israel. All that is peculiar to Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the God of sacrifice, the God of the priesthood, the God of the law, the God of the covenants.

28:00 Everything he sought to flee from, he now fills his mind, with thoughts of that glorious God, and of the peculiar relationship he sustains to that God. This is borne out not only by the complaint, by his expressed desire, but then by his specific activity in verses 7 and 9. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. Where I ran to get away from every remembrance of him, now in that posture, I call him near by the act of remembrance.

28:39 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.

28:59 So you see, there was this preoccupation with the presence of God, with the peculiar manifestation, manifestations of the presence of God in the temple, in the place of his peculiar dwelling. And then in verse 9, he uses the language of a pious Israelite. I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed.

29:27 What was the primary concern of Jonah's prayer? I say negatively it was not deliverance from his affliction. It was the restoration to the conscious communion and fellowship of God. Restored and active communion with God is the great and primary concern of his prayer.

29:53 Communion that would be restored in the ways appointed. He prays. He meditates. He vows.

30:01 He offers up the only kind of sacrifice he could offer up in the belly of a great fish, the spiritual sacrifice of praise to God, the renewal of his vows of obedience. And I say all of this points in that one direction. And I want to say by way of application is surely, 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. May I repeat that?

30:38 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.

31:10 He didn't say, I'll arrive there and find all the comforts and the security items that I so sorely miss. He said, no, I will arise. Recognize that the greatest crime in his life of profligacy and all the rest was that he'd left his kind father. And when he comes to his senses, his predominant concern is to arise and go to his father.

31:51 Well, when someone, who has known the reality of that communion with God, has lost it through sin, either the sin of blatant disobedience, as in the case of Jonah, or by the multiplied sins of carelessness and the general erosion of spiritual indifference, when such a person comes under the rod of God's affliction and God begins to return him to the way of spiritual life and vigor, he will find himself in that posture of Jonah, where he will say at any cost, I must see the face of God again. I must know. Let the once again, I may know the presence of the living God. Now, why is that so? Well, for the simple reason that Jesus died to have a people in whose hearts communion with God was the greatest treasure.

33:08 This is life eternal, that they may know the only true and living God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Therefore, let us draw near all of that rich language of the book of Hebrews. And so when the principle of grace has been implanted in the heart of a man, a woman, boy or girl, and through open disobedience, or as I've indicated, through carelessness and sluggishness, there has entered that backslidden condition or the individual has entered that state.

33:52 When God begins his efficacious work of restoring such a one, the primary concern of his prayers will not be that God will somehow release the pincers of affliction. It will be that he will again know the light of God's countenance. Now, my friend, do you know anything about what I'm talking about? If you've been a Christian longer than about six months, you've probably at least once gone through such an experience.

34:24 And if all you know to do is to wince and to whimper and to complain when the rod of affliction comes, and I'm talking about things now, for the life of you, you can't figure out what they are. My friend, I seriously doubt that you know anything of the grace of God in truth. If you're a true Christian, you've walked with God only a matter of a few months in all likelihood. You know what it is to some degree or another to become a Jonah, to balk at some point of revealed divine will, and to find that the price you paid was forfeited communion with God, and then to have God take you in hand and lay his rod upon you and stretch his net out towards you, and your primary concern when God began to deal with you was, Lord, to see your face again. Well, so much for the primary concern of Jonah's prayer. Now notice in the second place the essential climate of Jonah's prayer. We're just trying to analyze the substance of the prayer of the backslider.

The Substance of Jonah's Prayer: Essential Climate of Faith

35:40 The primary concern restored communion with God. Now the essential climate of the prayer. And I fished and fished for a better way to describe it, but I didn't come up with anything better than that, if you'll excuse the fish analogy in this exposition. What do I mean by the essential climate?

36:04 Well, I mean the atmosphere that is breathed in the very setting of the prayer, in the language of the prayer. And I would say, for lack of a better way of describing it, the essential climate of this prayer is the climate of the vigorous actings of truth, faith. It is the climate of a man who is believing. What a child of God ought to believe, even in the midst of the severe affliction.

36:38 Here is a marvelous commentary on Hebrews 11, 6. But without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him diligently. Well, how do I see that the climate of this prayer is the climate of faith? Well, let me suggest three things that point out this fact very powerfully.

37:05 Number one, first of all, in the acknowledgement of the hand of God in the affliction itself, Jonah is talking like a man of faith. When he says in verse 2, I called by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, he goes on to acknowledge in verse 3, Thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me, all thy waters and thy billows over me. Well, I thought according to chapter 1, it was the pagan sailors, verse 15, that took up Jonah and cast him into the sea. Well, it was. But when Jonah gives an account of their dealings in prayer, he sees behind and beyond the hands of pagan sailors that reluctantly throw him overboard into the heaving seas. And he says, It is Thou, Jehovah, the one who has cast me into the depths.

38:19 And it is not just waves of the sea and billows of an ocean. It is Your waves and Your billows that are passing over me. And therefore, I say the essential climate of this prayer, this prayer is the climate of faith. Faith exercised in the acknowledgement of God's hand as the hand that has ordered and directed and applied all the details of this affliction.

38:51 As a man of faith, he sees beyond the second causes, and he sees his God. Isn't that the language of David? Day and night, he says, Thy hand was heavy upon me. And it's always a disturbing thing as a pastor to see God's what seemed to be, as best one can discern, God's dealings with someone in whom it is evident to most discerning believers, is in some form of a backslidden state.

39:25 Though the individual may deny it, there is not the freshness, there is not that spontaneous delight in the things of God. The rivers of living water do not flow out and refresh. The brothers and sisters where once there was vibrant, overflowing life, there is now stagnation and the stench of the backslidden heart. You begin to see God have dealings with such a person, and it's a frightening thing when they never see beyond the second causes.

39:56 Oh, well, things haven't gone too well at work, and things haven't been too well at home, and things, things, things, things, things. Those people and these people and that group and the other group. What will it take to bring them to the place where they're able to say, Thy hand has cast me into the sea? When they begin to act as men and women of faith, faith that acknowledges that the living God, who is the Savior of His people, orders all the events and circumstances of the whole for the advancement and holiness of His people, for all things work together for our good, and that good is our conformity to the image of His own dear Son. Well, the climate of his prayer, you see, is the climate of faith, faith that acknowledges the hand of God in the affliction itself. Secondly, faith in the recognition of the goodness of God in the midst of the affliction. It's one thing to acknowledge that the affliction is from God.

41:07 It's another thing to see, to recognize as a man of faith the goodness of God in the very midst of that affliction. He knows he deserves death. He confessed this in verse 12 of chapter 1. He said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.

41:36 He said, Make me, as it were, a propitiatory offering to the sea. The sea is angry because of me. If you'll get rid of me, its anger will cease. He knows he deserves death.

41:51 He has, as it were, signed his own death warrant when he told the sailors to throw him into that heaving sea. He had no knowledge, no previous information that God would cause the sea to be calm with the ultimate end, that Eve and Jonah would be delivered. He had no such revelation. There's no record of it.

42:13 And yet one who, as he feels his body being hurled overboard and feels it hit those heaving tumultuous waves, thinks to himself, Oh, God, I'm done. I've had it. And then those initial thoughts are confirmed as he sinks deeper into the sea until he's tangled in the weeds. And he says, The waters came in even unto my soul.

42:36 And he feels it's only a matter of minutes and I'm done. The bars of the earth will close over me. This sea bottom will be my grave. And now he's alive.

42:48 He's in the midst of a perpetual miracle. He's living in the belly of a great fish. He's breathing. He has all his rational faculties.

43:00 And though he's not in the most commodious quarters in the world, he's alive. He's rational. And as a man of faith, he begins to reason, Wait, if God were to give me what I deserved, the earth with its bars would have long since closed about me. If I am here preserved in the belly of this great fish, I am preserved not by accident, but because God is the same God I preached Him to be to my own countrymen, when I proclaimed to them in a period of declension as we saw from 1 Kings 14, when they deserved judgment, and I proclaimed that God would yet restore her borders in mercy. And the same God whom I feared would be merciful to those Ninevites, which is the very reason I turned heel and would not go and preach to them, I see that God is a God of loving kindness and tender mercies to me. So he's able, as a man of faith, to recognize the goodness of God in the midst of his affliction. And so he can say in the latter part of verse 6, Though I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, Thou has brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God, my prayer coming to Thee,

44:27 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.

45:01 And it's faith that reads in bold letters, God, even when they're tattooed on our spiritual behind by the rod of affliction. That's a man of faith. The man of unbelief says, All these things are against me. The man of faith says, All of these afflictions are for me.

45:30 But then in the third place, the climate of his prayer, I say, is the climate of faith, not only indicated in recognizing the hand of God in the affliction, recognizing the goodness of God in the affliction, but in making use of the word of God as he prays concerning his affliction. There is a question regarding one of the passages, whether or not it is later quoted in a later psalm, or whether Jonah quoted it because it was in an existing psalm. It's a matter of dating. That song.

46:06 But apart from that one quotation, Jonah's prayer is basically just a string together of portions of the already revealed word of God in the book of Psalms. You have no fewer than six or seven distinct references. Some of them verbatim quotes from the Psalms in Jonah's prayer. In fact, it would be accurate to say, Jonah's prayer is simply an application of biblical principles from the Jewish Psalter applied to his present affliction.

46:45 Now, isn't that an amazing thing? Here's a prophet who himself has been the mouthpiece of God, yet in his affliction, he recognizes that though he's in peculiar and unusual and unheard of and unprecedented circumstances, unprecedented circumstances, unprecedented circumstances, in a sense, he is simply one with the afflicted people of God in all the ages. And then what he begins to do, he begins to run through his mind, for he did not have a scroll and a candle there in the belly of the great fish. He begins to run through his mind the previous pronouncements of God through the psalmists and the various writers of the Psalms. And he takes that inspired book, the book of the trials and joys and afflictions of the people of God, and faith begins to feed as it were upon the word of the living God. And that word becomes that upon which he rests, as he makes his plea and his complaint before the living God. Again, I can do no better than to read from Fairbairn, and I don't think reading has to be dull.

48:08 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 refer to the use that is made of the earlier portions of the word of God, and the recorded experiences of former times. It is but a brief prayer, this of Jonah's, the whole being comprised of eight short verses, and yet it contains no fewer than seven quotations from the book of Psalms, which, more than any other book of Scripture, is a record of the believer's experiences and hopes in time of trouble. In a spirit of faith, Jonah identifies himself with the saints of former times, so far as to appropriate to himself the language that describes their trials and their deliverances. He looks back to the footsteps of the flock as traced by the fingers of inspired men,

49:38 and he sees there some gleams of light to relieve the intense darkness that now surrounded him. The staggering thing to him at first was that his case was so remarkably peculiar. He was where no one had ever been before. If he could have been thought of, and if he could have be thought him of any saint that had ever been as low and yet been delivered, it would have gone far to reassure and comfort his heart.

50:08 But, lo, he finds that such is the case. And then Fairbairn goes on to say, as he rehearses the psalmist, it was the very psalmist who said, I am cast out from before thine eyes. Verse 4 is a direct quote from Psalm 31 in verse 22. Let's just look at one of the examples.

50:31 We don't have time to trace them all out. Psalm 31, verse 22. As for me, I said in my haste that someone else was in that place where he thought he had been utterly cut off by the living God. And yet that same person said, Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.

51:06 So Jonah says, Aha! Someone else was in a situation where he felt utterly cut off, but he prayed, and that God was Jehovah, the God who changes not. And Jehovah is my God. Notice the emphasis.

51:22 Jonah prayed unto Jehovah, his God, out of the belly of the fish. And he begins, as it were, to argue with his own soul and to argue with God. Not, dear Christian, but based upon the principles and precepts all revealed. Well, the application is obvious, isn't it?

51:47 Oh, my dear friend, it is the word of God treasured up in times when there are no afflictions that will stand you in good stead in the day when affliction comes. It is the daily, it is the regular assimilation of the word of God through public teaching and preaching, and where possible in private meditation and family worship. It is that line upon line, precept upon precept, treasuring up the word of God in the heart, that when the affliction comes, and nature, and the devil, begin to speak and say, You are cut off from before God's eyes. You are going to get what you deserve.

The Necessary and Practical Climax of the Prayer

52:30 You can remember those psalms in which others felt those same sentiments, and yet they prayed, and they pleaded the promises of God, and God in mercy manifested His covenant faithfulness. And you will find yourself praying, if not in the very language of those men. You will find yourself expressing the sentiments of those scriptural concepts, and they become, as it were, handles upon which faith lays hold in its attempt to turn back into the way of obedience. And so it was faith that looked to the previous dealings of God with His people, and reasoned, if God changes not, and His covenant changes not, then there is hope even for a man like Jonah. Well, so much for the circumstances of his prayer, so much for the essentials, so much for the essential climate of the prayer. Now, finally, the necessary and practical climax to the prayer. This is the third element in the prayer itself, its necessary and practical climax.

53:41 Verse 8, An honest assessment of all departure from God. They that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Lying vanities is a term referring often to idols. An idol is anything, any object, any design, any thought, that turns away the heart from the love and obedience of God.

54:05 And I personally am convinced, Jonah is not thinking of the idolatry of the sailors, but the idolatry of his own heart. When he made his own notions his own God, and fled from the presence of God, and now he says, in essence, I've been like an idolater in turning from the living God, in regarding a lying vanity, my own notions, putting them over the word of God, I have forsaken my own mercy. And one commentator points out that this reference to mercy is not just mercy in the abstract, but in one place, David actually refers to God as his mercy. That it is the personification, as it were, of mercy as a name of God himself. And so Jonah's prayer comes to its necessary and practical climax when he owns without reservation the folly of what he's done. And oh, what a blessed moment it is in the life of a backslidden Christian when all the rationalizing, all the equivocation, all the shifting is done! And the person says, I've been a fool.

55:27 I've played the fool. That's what Jonah does. They that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy. The next necessary and practical part of the climax of his prayer, there's a hearty expression of praise to God.

55:43 I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. That's the only thing he could bring to God in the belly of a great fish. If he had something else, he would have brought it. But he brought what he could.

55:56 And it was the sacrifice of praise. Acknowledging the mercy of God. He should be dead, but he's now alive. He's been brought to his spiritual senses.

56:06 And then there is this fresh submission to the will of God. I will pay that which I have vowed. And the concept of the vow, as we see in the reading in the Old Testament, it is the solemn engagement of the heart with God concerning a matter either of duty or of additional expression of devotion to God. I personally am convinced it is at this point that Jonah is saying, God, when you laid your hand upon me as a prophet, I vowed that I'd be what you'd have me to be.

56:37 I'd say what you told me to say, and I'd go where you tell me to go. Now, Lord, I renew those vows. And you see the backslider is returned when he sees his sin is folly and then goes to the point at which he departed and says, O God, at that point, I renew my vows to you where I've been disobedient by your grace. I shall be obedient.

57:02 And then there is this whole-souled confession of that which lies behind the entire complex of all of these dealings of God that involved the great fish, heaving seas, lots, pagan sailors, this grand confession. Salvation is of Jehovah. What salvation? Well, the deliverance that God had wrought for his backslidden child.

57:31 And the greater salvation of which that was but one dimension. That salvation from sin and its consequences, from a life of rebellion and self-will. That deliverance from this present dilemma. That deliverance from this present course of backsliding salvation.

The Sequel to Jonah's Prayer: God's Activity and Jonah's Obedience

57:53 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.

58:28 How in the world does God speak to a fish? My friend, how does God make a fish in the first place? How does God make a world? How does God make galaxies?

58:44 When God makes galaxies and God makes fishes, He can talk to them. You mean that God actually verbalized? Not necessarily, but all I know is that the Word of God says that the cause, the cause for the fish vomiting up Jonah was that Almighty God efficiently and directly operated upon its fish nature. Now, how He did it is none of my business, but that He did it, God tells us.

59:20 And if you've come through this miracle of His life being sustained, it's no stumbling block to you to read that God spoke to the fish and the fish vomited Him out upon the dry land. And that brings us then, of course, to the sequel to His prayer. The sequel is God's activity. He speaks to the fish and then He speaks to the prophet.

59:41 Now, this time the prophet is better or at least as good as the fish. When God said to the fish, Vomit him up, the fish said, All right, whoops, there he was on the shore. Before, when God spoke to Jonah, he didn't obey. Now Jonah's like the fish.

59:58 God speaks to the fish, the fish obeys. Now the Word of the Lord comes to Jonah the second time saying, Rise, go to Nineveh. Verse 3, So Jonah rose and went to Nineveh. So God's activity is to speak to the fish and to speak to Jonah.

60:13 Jonah's activity is to receive the Word and to obey the Word. And he's back in the way of obedience. But alas, alas, he didn't leave his corruption in the belly of the fish. If there was some fish in some ocean into which if we entered even for an hour we could leave our corruption, I'm sure we'd all go on a hunt.

60:38 And we'd find that fish and we'd be willing for all the inconveniences of spending an hour in its belly if only we could leave our remaining sin there. But the subsequent history shows us that much of Jonah that was undesirable was still with him even after this ordeal. But thank God, the present area of controversy was resolved and God is seen triumphing by His grace in the heart of His prophet. And what a wonderful thing as we prepare to come to the Lord's table to take the posture of a Jonah tonight.

61:18 And as the children of God to acknowledge that we too have been filled with the folly of idolatry. We've made an idol of God.