Salvation Belongs to the Lord

From Despair to Deliverance: Jonah's Journey of Salvation

Bible Passage: Jonah 2

Summary: In Jonah 2, the prophet finds himself in the belly of a great fish after attempting to flee from God's command. In his desperate prayer, Jonah acknowledges his predicament and calls upon the Lord, leading to his ultimate salvation and restoration.

Application: This sermon can encourage believers facing despair or feeling distant from God to turn to Him in prayer and repentance, reinforcing the message that God's grace is greater than our failures and that He is always ready to save those who call on Him sincerely.

Teaching: The sermon teaches that no situation is beyond God's reach, and even in the depths of our despair, His salvation is available. It emphasizes the importance of turning back to God and trusting in His mercy and power to restore us.

How this passage could point to Christ: In the broader context of Scripture, Jonah's deliverance from the fish foreshadows Christ's own death and resurrection. Just as Jonah was three days and nights in the fish, Jesus was in the tomb before rising again, marking the ultimate salvation provided for humanity.

Big Idea: God's grace offers salvation and restoration even in our deepest despair, inviting us to turn back to Him in faith.

Recommended Study: As you prepare this sermon, consider diving into the historical context of Jonah's story, particularly the significance of his prayer within ancient Israelite culture. You may want to explore the themes of repentance and God's mercy in the surrounding chapters using Logos, which can provide insights on the literary structure of the book of Jonah and its prophetic implications.

Introduction

I’d like to introduce myself, if you were not here last week. Pastor Jose gave me the best endorsement anyone can get, and I was very thankful. So, if you weren’t here last week, my name is Ernesto, I’m married to Franchesca, (point to her) and my four boys are sitting with her. I’m a retired sergeant from the NYPD, I did that for 20 years and one of the reasons I did not stay longer is because I aspire to the full-time work of being a pastor. I didn’t want limitations imposed by my responsibilities in the Department, I wanted to go “all-in” for ministry. And again, this is the same thing I tell everyone, the best thing you could do for anyone in my position is words of encouragement, and prayer. These are very, very helpful!

Today we are going to be in the book of Jonah in chapter two. Let us stand, if your able for the reading of God’s word.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,

“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,

and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

and you heard my voice.

3  For you cast me into the deep,

into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me;

all your waves and your billows

passed over me.

4  Then I said, ‘I am driven away

from your sight;

yet I shall again look

upon your holy temple.’

5  The waters closed in over me to take my life;

the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped about my head

6  at the roots of the mountains.

I went down to the land

whose bars closed upon me forever;

yet you brought up my life from the pit,

O LORD my God.

7  When my life was fainting away,

I remembered the LORD,

and my prayer came to you,

into your holy temple.

8  Those who pay regard to vain idols

forsake their hope of steadfast love.

9  But I with the voice of thanksgiving

will sacrifice to you;

what I have vowed I will pay.

Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Prayer:

Lord, we thank you for your word that reveals, that teaches, that corrects and that trains us. We ask that your Holy Spirit applies the words of your prophet Jonah to our lives, so that we too can rest in the assurance that salvation belongs to you, Lord. In Jesus wonderful name we pray, Amen.

i. Hook:

So, as I was preparing this sermon, I came across a story on my feed of a man an his son paddling off the cost of Chile. So, the man was video taping his son when he saw a giant hump-back whale come up from the sea and swallow up his son. And, I mean the whale completely swallowed up his son. After a few seconds, the whale spit out the son and went about its way. Could you imagine the shear helplessness of the father, just watching his son being consumed by the whale, what could he have done? Nothing! He can’t yell at the whale to let his son go, right? He just watch his son being swallowed up.

Believe it or not, the whale spit the son out after a few seconds. And in case you didn’t know, a hump back whale cannot actually swallow a person whole. Their mouth spans about ten feet, which if I raise my hand is probably taller than that. But the hump back whale’s throat is actually only less than a foot wide. So, its mouth opens up and acts like a giant funnel and feeds fish into its stomach.

In any case, the boy was interviewed and said that when he was swallowed he felt like he was going to die. And that was just a few seconds.

Pause

Our protagonist today is the prophet Jonah, who was in the belly of a great fish for THREE DAYS! And not only that, it was a fish that was, according to the Bible, appointed by the LORD.

ii. Contextual Setup:

But, before we can get to the prophet in the giant fish, we must understand how and why he found himself in there. Surely, the Lord doesn’t just call upon giant fishes to swallow up his prophet for no reason.

First, a little about prophets. Jonah was a prophet. You don’t hear very much about Jonah, outside of this book. We hear about him in the book of 2 Kings, and in the New Testament, we hear about him from Jesus. But in any case, he was a prophet during the reign of King Jeroboam II. Generally, prophets serve both Judges and Kings. They were the voice of God. This sounds great but the office of the prophet was not always the most glamorous thing. They were often hated. But, they had a connection to God that many did not. For instance, many of the prophets were able to experience and get a glimpse of the heavenly court. Isaiah chapter 6, he got a look at the throne room of God. And he gives this majestic picture of the inner workings of God’s throne room. Micaiah also looked into the throne room. So, what I’m saying is that it is a high calling. We call books like Jonah a minor prophet but there is nothing minor about him, minor just refers to length of his book. So, Jonah begins with…

Jonah 1:1 “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,”

This is a common way in which God speaks to his prophets. So far, everything is pretty standard.

Pause

Except, this is far from standard. Like I said earlier, the prophets served under a Judge or King, so they would give messages to Israel. Messages of blessings and judgment. But, in this case, the message was for a pagan nation. And it was for their salvation. Sure, Jonah 1:2 ““Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”” but like with Israel, that Judgment will come with Salvation. In fact, the book of Matthew mentions the salvation of the Ninevites. But Jonah did not like that.

Pause

Nineveh was part of Assyria and they were enemies of Israel. Jonah, did not want to see the salvation of his enemies. But, God is sovereign in Salvation. It belongs to him!

iii. Main idea:

And this is the main idea of this passage. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah had to find this out the hard way. Salvation belongs to the Lord (repeat). You should repeat this to yourselves and internalize it. This statement impacts us in two major ways. First it gives us assurance in our Salvation. Salvation is not dependent on your feeble attempts. If it is based on what I can or can’t do, I’ll certainly lose it. Second, it gives us the ability to go to God and pray for the salvation of others. Salvation belongs to God, so if your praying for a prodigal family member, you go to whom it belongs… The LORD! We can go to God of others salvation. That does not violate God’s sovereignty, he wants us to pray for the salvation of others. We see this throughout Scriptures…

Romans 10:1 “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”

James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

1 Timothy 2:1–4 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

And for those who like to read dead theologians:

Charles Spurgeon says in his sermon Intercessory Prayer, “If you have a dear one unsaved… plead with God for their soul. Salvation is of the Lord, but He bids us pray, and He delights to answer.” And for the theologically inclined… Spurgeon does not believe that this violates election. That was for the “if you know, you know” crowd.

We plead with God over the Salvation of our loved ones, again, because it belongs to him.

Salvation does not belong to Jonah… he is a messenger so… Jonah made a serious error… 1:17 states…

Jonah 1:17 “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

This is unlike our Chilean brother who was in the hump back whale for a few seconds…

And thus, our story begins…

1. Cry Out in Crisis

Verse 1: Jonah 2:1 “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,”

As I was studying for this sermon, I saw that some commentators referred to this chapter as “Jonah’s Psalm.” Which is good because Goodwill is focusing on Psalms for an entire year. And I guess the rookies are not allowed to preach the Psalms, so this is my workaround…

Pause

I’m kidding, obviously, We’re going to see a lot of biblical language, especially from the book of Psalms. Jonah’s prayer reads like a psalm of thanksgiving, its thanking the Lord of delivering him. So, we going to see that it seems as though this prayer is from the belly of the great fish, because v. 1 says so, but he is using past tense to recount his time in the whale. So, don’t be confused by that.

So, a thanksgiving prayer is pretty standard. Its a psalm that begins with a declaration of praise, which we’ll see in the next verse. then a recounting of past distress, followed by a testimony of how God delivered the psalmist. Finally it ends with a call for others to join in thanksgiving.

This is the prayer that we will be looking at today.

It begins with verse 2.

2. Jonah’s Prayer

Verse 2: Jonah 2:2 “saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.”

Jonah begins with a summarization of his distress and deliverance. What was his distress??

He was in the belly of Sheol. What is Sheol? I think Pastor Jose mentioned Sheol last week. Don’t worry I’m not going to pick anyone out. But let’s try and remember, what is Sheol? So, while Pastor Jose gave us a true definition of Sheol as Hell, in our context I don’t believe Jonah was in hell. So, at home I have this giant Bible Dictionary called the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Expanded and Revised. And I used it to get a definition of Sheol.

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Sheol

Sheol occurs 21 times in “psalmodic” type literature (

That is precisely what Jonah is experiencing. This place of darkness and silence. This separation from Yahweh. But…

Jonah cries out “of the belly of Sheol… and [the Lord] heard [his] voice.”

From this dark place of hopelessness, Jonah, not only cries out, but God heard his voice.

I remember a close family member testifying to me, said that he felt like he was in this dark place. He felt alone and abandoned. depression was taking over. He prayed such a simple prayer. He said, “God help me” and he was filled with peace.

Pause

The beauty of a psalms is that the same prayer can be prayed by others. You don’t have to be in the belly of a great fish appointed by the Lord, to pray this prayer. Call out to the Lord. From your darkest place call out to Him.

Pause

Now we move to Jonah’s description of his trial in verses 3 - 6.

3. Jonah’s Trial

Jonah 2:3–6 “For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.”

Verse 3: First, Jonah acknowledges that the Lord was the one who through him into the deep or the belly of Sheol. But more importantly the waves and billows were the tools of the Lord’s judgment. Martin Luther states,

Commentary on the Old Testament Jonah’s Deliverance—Ch. 1:17–2:10 (Heb. Ch. 2)

Jonah “does not say, The waves and the billows of the sea went over me; but Thy waves and Thy billows, because he felt in his conscience that the sea with its waves and billows was the servant of God and of His wrath, to punish sin” (Luther)

Nature itself serve God’s sovereignty.

Verse 4: Verse 4 continues with this description of being banished away, but with a message of mercy. Jonah is saying that he is cut off, yet he will be in the dwelling place with the Lord. This likely means that Jonah believes that he will once again be able to return to the Lord’s presence.

Verse 5 & 6: Verse 5 & 6 can be seen together as a further description of this spiraling into the abyss, yet with a message of hope at the very end. So, he’s saying…

Jonah 2:5–6 “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.”

We see this pattern of restating judgment and a message of hope at the end.

4. Jonah Understands

Jonah 2:7–9 “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!””

We have now reached the climax of the story as Jonah feels his life fainting away. As his life is fainting away, he remembers the Lord. This is a perfectly human experience. When we are faced with the height of our suffering when we feel utterly hopeless. We oftentimes look to God. So, if I were to do an open mic right now, any one of you can come up here and give a life testimony of being so utterly in despair, you can only look to God. This may make some uncomfortable, rightfully so, this is an uncomfortable idea.

We see throughout the Bible instances where God uses a wilderness to draw us close to him. Israel was tested in the wilderness, Paul was blinded, Isaiah 48:10–11 “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”

Jonah ends his prayer with the statement, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” But what does this mean? I’ll give you a three part definition:

a. God’s ownership - Salvation is his possession, He alone holds the right to grant it. No one can claim it as a reward.

b. God’s initiative - He initiates and executes salvation according to His sovereign purpose, not human action or worthiness.

c. God’s glory - Because salvation is His, all praise and credit return to Him, not to us.

One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

So, God owns the means to salvation. Jonah needed to be in that great fish for three days. This is Jonah’s salvific story, we all have one. We all have a story that brought you here. Some of you feel right now as if you in the belly of Sheol.

Pause

So, in the same way that the Lord appointed the great fish to swallow Jonah, now verse 10 states…

5. The Lord Responds

Jonah 2:10 “And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”

Again, we see that nature are the tools of God’s sovereignty. God speaks to the great fish and immediately Jonah is spit out. Allow me to read this quote that I found during my research of this sermon.

Amos, Obadiah, Jonah 2. The Prophet’s Deliverance (2:10)

In these verses are found the education of the pouting prophet and the affirmation of God’s sovereignty. It is God who is the most important character. He is the one who affects salvation, and he is the one who enables deliverance. Neither Jonah nor the fish had control. It was God and God alone.

I want to land this plane with with the following words of Christ, Matthew 12:41 “behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” Christ speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees, said, that someone greater than Jonah is before them. What does Christ mean by this? Obviously Christ is greater than Jonah, right? Christ is the eternally begotten Son of God, and is God. So, what is he telling the Pharisees and Scribes? Well, he’s using a story that they already know to convey a shortcoming of a prophet and how He fulfills that.

First, God sent Jonah for the deliverance of a pagan nation. Jonah runs the opposite direction. Christ’s mission is in perfect synch with the Father. In fact, like John 6:37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Christ willingly goes to the pagan.

Second, again these are the words of Christ,

Matthew 12:39–40 “But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

The work of Christ produces the salvation of you eternal bodies. The work of Christ delivers us from actual Sheol. Christ bore the judgment reserved for us on the cross of Calvary. He provides us with a eternal salvation. This is something Jonah could not do. He reconciles us with the God who created us. He does this because he is gracious and merciful.

Pause

And our brother Joe Slesinski will take us to the table were we remember what Christ did for us. Let us pray…

Prayer:

Lord we thank you for this wonderful word that you gave us. Lord we ask that your Holy Spirit apply this message to our hearts. Lord, that when we are in the belly of Sheol, we pray to you, we call out to you. We do this because we know that you are gracious, and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Let us always remember Lord, that Salvation belongs to you. Amen.