Praying From The Belly of Hell
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Jonah chapter 2 is about a prayer from a backslidden man.
Prayer is mentioned in every single chapter of the Book of Jonah.
In Chapter 2, we don’t find a flattering or fancy prayer to impress people, what we find is Jonah getting down to business with God!
In the book of Psalms, there are many short prayers recorded and many times they simply say, “Oh God!”
Peter’s prayer when he began to sink that one stormy night was “Lord, save me?
In chapter 2, we have a recording of the entire prayer of Jonah…In chapter 1, Jonah should have gone to God first for divine help in carrying the message.
He could have been spared of the chastening hand of God, but he did some things that got him into trouble…Let me give them to you:
He forgot God.
He neglected to pray.
He neglected his commission.
He fed the flesh.
He had a heart full of bitterness toward the people of Nineveh.
So that gets us to chapter 2 and Jonah is praying, so I want you to notice three things concerning his “Praying From the Belly of Hell”...
The Prayer
The Prayer
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly,
The depth of our prayers is usually in direct proportion to the depth of our agony. When we are driven to the edge of despair we find ourselves storming the gates of heaven with a boldness, an intensity and a power we never knew we had. Prayer rises out of troubles like heat rises out of fire. This is the theme of the Psalms:
In my distress I cried unto the Lord,
And he heard me.
O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave:
Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me:
Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee,
When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice:
Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
This, too, is the message of Jonah chapter 2...
And said,
I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;
Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
As we have studied chapter 1, we find God talking to Jonah, but here in chapter 2, Jonah is talking to God.
It was An Emergency Prayer.
A rebel cried out in an emergency and the Father came running.
When we say, “I have not prayed in the calm so I will not presume to pray in the storm,” we are not being pious but proud. We never deserve to have a prayer answered.
It was An Overcoming Prayer.
It overcame the hindrance of circumstances. There was no hope, yet he hoped.
Trusting in reason he would have drowned but trusting in God he was delivered.
The laws of nature were against him but the love of God uses those laws for our good.
The ravens spread food for Elijah (1 Ki. 17:4).
The lions made friends with Daniel (Dan. 6).
The fire refuses to burn the brave Hebrew boys (Dan. 3).
And a savage sea-monster saves Jonah.
His prayer overcame doubt (v. 4).
His fear said, “I am cast out of Thy sight” but his faith responded, “Yet I will again look toward Thy holy temple.”
Whether this was a glimmer of hope (Lange) or magnificent faith (Pusey), we need to know that even though we may feel abandoned by God, we will never be abandoned by God...
It was A Biblical Prayer.
Jonah bathed his prayer (1–7) and his praise (8–9) in the words of Scripture.
His prayer was, according to Kiel, “the simple and natural utterance of a man well versed in Holy Scripture and living in the Word of God.”
Faith comes from the Bible.
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Faith gives birth and power to prayer.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Our Lord spoke seven times from the cross; five of these sayings were rooted in the Old Testament Scripture. The highest form of prayer is to take God’s own words to God and expect Him to honor them.
You can’t pray God’s own Words if you don’t know them though! We must be in the Word of God.
Let’s look at this for a moment...
Jonah 2:3 says, “…all thy billows and thy waves passed over me” and Psalm 42:7 says, “…all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.”
Jonah 2:4 says, “…I am cast out of thy sight...” and Psalm 31:22 says, “…I am cut off from before thine eyes.”
Jonah 2:5 says, “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul...” and Psalm 69:1 says, “…the waters are come in unto my soul.”
Jonah 2:7 says, “…my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.” and Psalm 18:6 says, “…He heard my voice out of his temple...”
I could go on with more examples, but we can get the picture...
It’s obvious that Jonah knew something about the Word of God for this was a Biblical prayer...
It was A Life Changing Prayer (8–9).
Out of the depths rose a new Jonah. The same is true of us. Trouble produces character.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
In life’s depths we plumb God’s depths and our depths and find ourselves with our feet on the rock and a new song of hope in our heart.
I waited patiently for the Lord;
And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:
Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.
We are going to pause looking at this prayer for just a moment and look at:
The Punishment
The Punishment
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas;
And the floods compassed me about:
All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
The reason for this prayer was chastisement!
God chastises His own.
In chapter 1, verse 15, God used the sailors to cast Jonah into the sea.
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
I can’t even begin to imagine the corruption and the weeds that were wrapped around Jonah’s neck...
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul:
The depth closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
Jonah turned from the Lord, but the Lord never turned from Jonah, even in death!
What a cost Jonah’s disobedience had to it! And what a tremendous lesson for you and I today.
Obedience truly is better than sacrifice!
The Prevailing
The Prevailing
I’ll finish talking about this prayer now…I saved this for last because the prayer of Jonah was An Answered Prayer.
At the moment of death God sent His fish. Our prayers are always answered one way or another. A lady on a ship looked composed in a terrible storm. When asked why, she said, “I have two daughters. One lives in America, the other lives in heaven. Either way this ship goes is alright with me.”
Verse 4 and verse 7 speak of the holy temple...
The Jews would oftentimes look toward the temple in the time of prayer.
10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
In the Old Testament, the temple brought hope to the hopeless.
Jonah says, “I will look again toward thy holy temple.” This is the first expression of faith, though the situation looked hopeless.
He regarded this as a pledge of God’s future deliverance. It was just a matter of time.
The place of prayer here is of great encouragement to us. It shows that we can pray even though our outward circumstances are unfavorable. We must not excuse ourselves from prayer because we have no suitable place to pray.
Jonah is reaping exactly what he has sown. He fled from the presence of the Lord because that is what he wanted to do. Now he is crying, “I am cast out of thy sight.” Getting your own way is not as wonderful as it is portrayed to be. Jonah senses the pain of separation from God and broken fellowship with the Lord. He wants it back!
And, you know what? In spite of Jonah’s unworthiness, God heard his prayer.
Aren’t ya’ll glad that in spite of our unworthiness, thank God, he gives hope to the unworthy!
The temple speaks of the mercy seat…Thank God for mercy!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Jonah’s prayer goes from asking to thanking God and praising God!
Jonah thanked God in verses 6 and 7 for delivering him and for his freedom…Yeah, God heard him and give him freedom...
10 And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
Verse 8 is a sobering reminder to us...
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
The word vanity here means emptiness or dream...
In Jonah’s life, it was a lying vanity to try and justify disobedience.
He forsook his own mercy.
It’s a lying vanity to think that you can sin and get by with it. When we do this, we are simply deceiving ourselves!
In verse 9, Jonah was ready to pay the vow that he vowed.
He was finally ready to go to Ninevah and preach.
The last part of verse 9 is probably the most important statement in the entire book.
Jonah 2:9 (KJV 1900)
9 ...Salvation is of the Lord.
He’s got freedom now! Thank God for freedom!
At the end of his prayer Jonah:
Agrees with God.
Is submitted to God.
Obeys God.
Honors God.
Went for God.
Preached for God.
and saw a harvest for God.