Jonah's Prayer
Notes
Transcript
Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:
I called to the Lord in my distress,
and he answered me.
I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol;
you heard my voice.
When you threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the seas,
and the current overcame me.
All your breakers and your billows swept over me.
And I said, “I have been banished
from your sight,
yet I will look once more
toward your holy temple.
The water engulfed me up to the neck;
the watery depths overcame me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
I sank to the foundations of the mountains,
the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!
Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!
As my life was fading away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
to your holy temple.
Those who cherish worthless idols
abandon their faithful love,
but as for me, I will sacrifice to you
with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:
Here Jonah is, inside the belly of the fish. Seems crazy. He is literally INSIDE some fish. Now if you are like me, perhaps you are remembering a scene from pinocchio.
This is important: Jonah is not some wooden puppet, there is no cricket, and this is not a Disney movie! This is the Word of God, it is History because this is HIS STORY! AMEN!
Yes is seems fantastical! But as we covered last week, the Word of the Lord is full of fantastical events!
Jonah is in the belly of the fish.
He says “ I cried out to the LORD and HE answered me!”
I cried out from deep inside Sheol!
what is Sheol?
In ancient Hebrew, Sheol was the realm of the dead. It is the most common word for the afterlife in the Bible. It appears 65 times in the Old Testament. The Old Testament uses Sheol and grave synonymously.
SO when you see this word, I want you to know that this is death!
It is used as a verb - to die - to pass from physical life
to lie down into sleep, without waking
it is used as a noun - an event - the event of departing form this life
it is used as a state of being - the absence of life
it is used as a personification - the personification of death
Sheol is used to tell us about death!
Jonah says:
i cried out from the depths of death! I was as good as dead! There was no hope for me! There was nothing but darkness, my breath was gone, my hope was vanished, my situation was so far past dire that there was nothing man could do!
Oh i cried out from this deep dark place and YAHWAH heard my cry!
Jonah had just been thrown overboard! Into a raging sea!
Listen to his words!
When you threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the seas,
and the current overcame me.
All your breakers and your billows swept over me.
This is crazy! Why?
Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.
Because for the people on the boat, they threw Jonah overboard and their storm stopped! It calmed!
But Jonah is in the same waters! And the storm for him is still raging!
Jonah says the current beat him, the waves crashed over him, crushed him, pulled him here and there!
Have you ever been to the beach and been caught in the waves? Even if you are a great swimmer, it can be hard to stand against the waves and the rush, and the breakers, and the power that God has placed in the great ocean!
Rip currents can pull you from shallow waters out into the deep faster than you can imagine! It is terrifying!
And I said, “I have been banished
from your sight,
yet I will look once more
toward your holy temple.
The water engulfed me up to the neck;
the watery depths overcame me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
I was banished from your sight! Jonah was about to learn a lesson that can only be learned in the darkness of despair and pain!
The exhaustion took over! The water was winning. He sank lower. Seaweed wrapped around his head.
This is deep!
I sank to the foundations of the mountains,
the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!
Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!
Jonah says I sank to the foundations of the mountains. What is the foundation? Its the bottom. The starting point. It’s the lowest.
I want you to picture this in your mind. Your breath is running out. You are under water. Then the bottom is coming. Seaweed. You know you are close because you can feel it. Struggling. Fighting. Can’t make it to the top.
The you feel the bottom. You have literally reached ROCK BOTTOM!
BUT GOD!
“Then YOU, raised my life form the PIT! YAHWAH my God! And I knew that I would once more look upon your holy temple!
As my life was fading away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
to your holy temple.
My life was fading, the light shined no more, the breath was gone, those last few moments before death would win the victory over me,
BUT GOD!
This prayer is a praise! This prayer is a SONG!
This prayer lifts up the almighty who never turned his back on the prophet who would run, who would flee, who would blatantly disobey the creator of the UNIVERSE!
He ran BUT GOD
He did all he could do to get away BUT GOD
He thought his life was over BUT GOD
He cried out
From under water!? How! Because GOD CAN HEAR OUR WORDS NO MATTER WHAT COMES OUT OF OUT MOUTH! EVEN WHEN WE CANNOT SPEAK BECAUSE WE ARE DROWNING GOD CAN HEAR OUR PRAYERS!
Jonah cried out, AND GOD heard his prayer.
Those who cherish worthless idols
abandon their faithful love,
but as for me, I will sacrifice to you
with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Those who cherish worthless idols will abandon them when life gets so hard and so bleeak that they realize their god (lower case g) cannot save them.
Those fishermen proved that!
BUT GOD - YAHWAH! The alpha and omega - he can save.
Jonah says, I will sacrifice.
Listen, Jonah is not talking about lambs and doves. Not here. Jonah hated the Assyrians. Jonah hated Ninevah. Jonah wanted NO PART in them. But he was sacrificing HIS COMFORT for the Lord.
I will fulfill what I have vowed!
I will fulfill what I have vowed!
Jonah was a prophet of the Lord! This means he had already vowed to speak with Words of God to the people God commanded.
Salvation belongs to the Lord
Salvation belongs to the Lord
Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
THEN!
We often want God to make things change while we are in the middle of our storm, and yet we have not gotten right with the Lord. I want you to notice that it was not until Jonah changed, that God commanded that Jonah be released from the belly of the fish.
