Jonah's prayer from the belly of the fish reveals profound gratitude for God's miraculous deliverance, acknowledging the overwhelming depths and the perceived finality of his situation. The sermon traces Jonah's experience, drawing parallels to the Psalms, to illustrate how even in the 'sorrows of death,' remembering and calling upon the Lord brings salvation. It highlights Jonah's contrition for forsaking God's mercy through disobedience and his subsequent rededication to God's will, culminating in the powerful confession that 'salvation is of the Lord.' The message concludes by urging listeners to recognize their own need for God's saving grace, emphasizing that true deliverance, both physical and spiritual, comes solely from Him.
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Beloved Radio, friends, we greet you once more in the precious name of our beloved Savior and welcome you to the study of God's precious Word. We humbly but very earnestly pray that you are interested in the story of Jonah, that prophecy that has been written long ago, and finds its uniqueness in the fact that the prophet Jonah, a servant of God, was miraculously delivered from the belly of the great fish to be restored and recommissioned to carry out the command of God in the city of Nineveh.
We are now considering the prayer of Jonah recorded in chapter two, and particularly we would remind our hearts that the closing words of thanksgiving in the prayer are found in verses five and six. For we have noted that from chapter two and verse two through six in particular, these words are words of thanksgiving. The prophet acknowledging with profound gratitude his amazing deliverance by God, his experience in the ocean's depths are also, is also recorded when he was in the great fish and it provokes these words.
Jonah says, The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The depths closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. We can well realize, as did Jonah, more than we could, that the waters that raged around them were seeking to extinguish and could extinguish his physical life. The weeds so abundant at the bottom of the sea seemed as though they entangled him, but he declares himself brought down to the bottoms of the mountains, which are often thought of as being at the very bottom of the sea.
He considered himself cast out of the earth from its habitation and the bars of earth being shut against him to keep him from returning back. Though it appeared to Jonah at the time it happened that this was his permanent lot, yet God miraculously brought him back from what Jonah calls a pit of corruption. This would have been his portion if God had not intervened on his behalf indeed. The memory of Jonah may have recalled or recalled the words of the psalmist that are found in Psalm eighteen and verse four. The sorrows of death compass me about.
Beloved, let us recognize, as the psalmist wrote those words, the sorrows of death compass me about. He is declaring graphic and deep experiences of grief. And likewise Jonah uses similar words. They are very deep in their expression and very vivid. And as far as Jonah's experience, they certainly describe that he was going through and feeling the very sorrows of death. Jonah may also have been thinking of the words of Psalm sixty-nine. Verses one and two. where we read, Save me, O God, for the waters have come into my soul.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where the floods overwhelm me. And though these were the words of the psalmist, and even though prophetically they have their interpretation and application to the sufferings of our Savior, So Jonah likewise could certainly vividly and physically declare that he was sinking in the deepest depths and in deep waters where the floods were overwhelming him. But yet in gratitude and praise the prophet testifies, even as the psalmist declares in Psalm chapter thirty in verse three, O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the edge of the grave.
Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Now truthfully, the words of Jonah's prayer in verses two through six are words of thanksgiving for God's miraculous preservation and his deliverance to bring him from the destruction of the pit. And yet in his prayer, as we read verses seven and eight, we find words of contrition. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
David observed lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Now the prophet had seen the hand of God in that storm through which he had been. He had noticed the hand of God even in the casting of the lots by the sailors. But in the hour of deepest distress, within the belly of the great fish, he recognized and he remembered the Lord as never before, and found that God is easily entreated by the humble soul. I remembered the Lord, says Jonah. And beloved, may I say, shall not you and I take to our own hearts and consciences this fact?
No matter how deep the trial, how great the suffering, may our hearts turn to the Lord, and our memory be upon him, and our prayer come unto him. Like the psalmist of all Jonah must have learned, in my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my crying cry came before him, even unto his ears. Psalm eighteen and verse six. And again in Psalm one hundred and forty-two and verse three, When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. But there was another lesson that Jonah learned with deep contrition that is revealed in verse eight.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Now the heathen were occupied with idle vanities rather than trusting in the living and true God, and Jonah knew that. But when the heathen do so, they forsake the only source of true mercy. Now the prophet acknowledges that by his own willfulness, in fleeing from the Lord, he had also forsaken the only source of mercy. And now in contrition and repentance, he confesses it. It was a great spiritual lesson, a priceless one. one for all of us to learn. How foolish it is to forsake the Lord and disobey Him.
And Jonah gives suitable expression to the Lord as we go on reading in verse nine. And here we have the words of rededication or consecration. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the vows of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Now strange, but we find Jonah in the same position of the converted sailors on the ship in chapter one and verse sixteen. They offered a sacrifice and they made vows without doubt. The vow of Jonah undoubtedly includes the fulfilling of God's commission to go to Nineveh and preach his message.
And it is at this very point that Jonah says in the closing words of his prayer, salvation is of the Lord. Jonah had come to know, as never before, deliverance, whether for the soul or for the body, can come only from the Lord himself. The moment comes when God can and does deliver him. Now my radio friend, have you ever acknowledged to the Lord what Jonah acknowledges regarding his own predicament? Jonah knew that only the Lord could deliver him out of the bowels of the great fish and from the depths of the ocean.
Have you ever acknowledged that the Lord is the only one that can save your soul? Salvation is of the Lord. You cannot save yourself. My radio listener on saying, my friend without Christ, come to this acknowledgement. The only Savior you have is in heaven above the Son of God. who desires to save your soul even now, and redeem you through the merits of his own precious blood. And in the closing verse of this chapter two, we must see now the intervention of God. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
It is now that the chastened prophet has been brought to the place of yieldedness before the Lord, to acknowledge his error, to confess his waywardness, to turn to the Lord in repentance and contrition, then the Lord releases his prisoner from his prison. God's command to his creature, the fish, is more readily obeyed than even we are to obey the word of God, and is not this to our shame. How stubborn and how rebellious men can be, as even was Jonah.
But even the elements of creation, the very wind, the very storm, the very creatures of his creation, when God speaks, they immediately obey his voice. Would to God that we who are the children of God were as willing to obey his word as the elements and the creatures of his great creation. My unsaved radio friend, God wants you to obey his word of salvation. For he, through his beloved Son and his atoning work on the cross, desires to save you.
May I quote these words of Romans ten, verse nine, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Jonah was delivered. Neither did the great fish spew his passenger round in the midst of the ocean. But Jonah was delivered upon the dry land. And in all probability the dry land where he must have been delivered must have been the coast of Israel. Perhaps even near the city part, the sea part of Joppa from which he had sailed.
But here is God miraculous deliverance. Effectively wrong, when Jonah confessed, salvation is of the Lord. My radio listener, may I ask you the question. Have you ever called upon the Lord to save you? Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved are the words of Romans ten, thirteen. Father, we pray, Some precious soul will call upon the Saviour today for his name's name. Amen.