A Prayer of Repentance

In 1969, in Pass Christian, Mississippi, a group of people were preparing to have a "hurricane party" in the face of a storm named Camille. Were they ignorant of the dangers?

Could they have been overconfident? Did they let their egos and pride influence their decision? We'll never know.

What we do know is that the wind was howling outside the posh Richelieu Apartments when Police Chief pulled up sometime after dark. Facing the Beach less than 250 feet from the surf, the apartments were directly in the line of danger.

A man with a drink in his hand came out to the second-floor balcony and waved. The chief yelled up, "You all need to clear out of here as quickly as you can. The storm's getting worse." But as others joined the man on the balcony, they just laughed at Chief's order to leave. "This is my land," one of them yelled back. "If you want me off, you'll have to arrest me."

The Chief didn't arrest anyone, but he wasn't able to persuade them to leave either. He wrote down the names of the next of kin of the twenty or so people who gathered there to party through the storm.

They laughed as he took their names. They had been warned, but they had no intention of leaving.

It was 10:15 p.m. when the front wall of the storm came ashore. Scientists clocked Camille's wind speed at more than 205 miles-per-hour, the strongest on record. Raindrops hit with the force of bullets, and waves off the Gulf Coast crested between twenty-two and twenty-eight feet high.

News reports later showed that the worst damage came at the little settlement of motels, go-go bars, and gambling houses known as Pass Christian, Mississippi, where some twenty people were killed at a hurricane party in the Richelieu Apartments.

Nothing was left of that three-story structure but the foundation; the only survivor was a five-year-old boy found clinging to a mattress the following day.

http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/a/arrogance.htm

Disobedience, coupled with arrogance can be a deadly combination.

The title for today’s message is “A Prayer of Repentance”

Our Scripture is taken from: Jonah 2:1-10 {{ Play recording }}

Jonah 2:1–10 NKJV

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, 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 floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. 7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple. 8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.” 10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Main Text

Many people today claim to be Christians but dishonor the name of Christ. When this takes place, God deals with us. He will not let us continue in rebellion as His children, for He wants us to share in His righteousness and holiness (Heb. 12:7–11).

Maybe you haven’t heard of this disobedient man named Jonah. You see, ….

Jonah was a prophet of God, and he carried all the rights and responsibilities that went with that position. God gave him the task of proclaiming God’s message to the people of Nineveh, yet Jonah ran in the opposite direction.

Jonah brought dishonor to his office, and God dealt with him. Not many things would inspire humility more than being in the belly of a fish. God will get our attention, but He will also give us a second chance just as He did with Jonah. Jonah is the story of a reluctant prophet and the God of second chances.

Throughout the Bible we see famous and well-known prayers, such as the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9–13), Solomon’s prayer dedicating the temple (2 Chron. 6:12–42), as well as Jesus’ high priestly prayer (John 17).

But in Jonah chapter two we see that Jonah prays and God responds. This prayer is often overlooked but it has very descriptive elements of prayer and repentance. As we look at it, there are four things we can clearly learn through Jonah’s prayer from the fish’s belly.

1. Prayer must be an honest cry for God’s help (vv. 1–2).

2. Prayer must include acceptance of God’s discipline and the believer’s repentance (vv. 3–4).

3. Prayer must be characterized by trust and thanksgiving (vv. 5–7, 9).

4. Prayer must be from a heart that is sacrificially yielded to God’s will (vv. 8–9).

Walk with me as we look at these four lessons we all need to learn.

Lesson One …

1. Prayer must be an honest cry for God’s help (vv. 1–2).

Encased within the fish’s belly, Jonah finds himself in a most foul and disgusting environment. God now has Jonah’s attention, and Jonah begins to pray, 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” (v. 2).

In agony, Jonah feels that he is at the point of death and that death surrounds him. His prayer is not a casual one but one that erupts from the core of Jonah’s being.

There is no room now for pretense or pretending; Jonah is now ready to be honest with God as he cries out in anguish and desperation. And Jonah tells us that the result is that God heard him.

If Jonah can pray from the belly of a fish, then regardless of our circumstances, whether self-inflicted or unforeseen, we too can pray.

Wherever we are, in whatever difficult, challenging, or even tragic circumstances, we can pray. And God is there to help us.

In times of failure, we might be tempted to reason away or even rationalize our wrong actions. Often we take the tact of thinking, I want to get my act together, and then I will pray to God.

Can you say WRONG?

Jonah tells us that it doesn’t work that way! We need to honestly pray to God during our affliction because only God can cleanse and save us. We must admit our failure to God and our helplessness to save ourselves, throwing ourselves completely upon His mercy, and admitting our dependence upon His deliverance and grace.

This is a crucial beginning point for prayer: “God, I need you. I need your help. I cannot do it by myself.” Because of our human pride, even as Christians, this can be a very difficult admission to make.

But all of us will face something in our lifetimes that even in our God-given abilities, we cannot handle. Whether brought about by our own choices, our own failures or by the hardships of this life, in such times we must humbly and honestly ask God for help.

Our second lesson for today is …

2. Prayer must include acceptance of God’s discipline and the believer’s repentance (vv. 3–4).

The first chapter of Jonah shows the prophet in rebellion and God’s severe response: Jonah is on a ship; a mighty storm comes up; Jonah is thrown overboard by his shipmates; and the storm immediately stops.

Then a fish swallows Jonah, and Jonah is at death’s door. Jonah views all of these events as coming directly from the hand of God and he was right. God wanted to get Jonah’s attention, and He knew how to get it.

Jonah accepted God’s discipline by repenting. He declared, “I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple” (v. 4).

Jonah strayed from the presence of the Lord. He was not just running away from circumstances; he was running away from God. God wanted Jonah to look to His Holy Temple.

The Holy Temple represented the very presence and being of God. When Jonah looked to the Holy Temple, he displayed repentance. Jonah stopped running and began seeking God’s presence.

Because of His deep love for us, God will be as gentle as He can be but as tough as He needs to be in order to reprove and correct us. As dangerous and intolerable as being lost at sea or being swallowed by a fish was, it would have been far worse for Jonah to continue his life in rebellion to His God.

Some of us are stubborn, prideful, and arrogant.

Obviously it would be better to have a soft heart that is sensitive to God’s reproof and easily repents instead of a hard heart that requires stronger correction. God does not correct us out of His wrath but out of His love; being disciplined by the hand of God is a clear indication that we are His children. Because not one of us is perfect, repentance should be a part of every Christian’s daily life. When we falter, let us resist the urge to cover up our wrong. Let us instead quickly respond in repentance to God’s reproof and correction so that He can cleanse us.

The third part of our lesson is ...

3. Prayer must be characterized by trust and thanksgiving (vv. 5–7, 9).

Jonah’s prayer is that with thanksgiving, we must trust God’s promise. Dark circumstances are completely closing in on Jonah. There appears to be no way out. Death’s door looks imminent. Then he remembers the Lord, and he chooses to believe the promise that God would never leave or desert him.

By so doing, Jonah comes into the presence of God. Basking in God’s presence, despite his circumstances, Jonah could not help but to raise his voice in thanksgiving to God. Jonah indicates, “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord … But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you” (vv. 7, 9).

When encountering hardship, too many Christians choose an attitude of questioning or blaming God: “God, why did You do this? I was just cruising along in life being Your follower, then this.”

At other times, Christians focus in despair upon their own failures. But Jonah responded differently. He remembered the Lord. He trusted with thanksgiving in God’s promise to always be there.

Our fourth and final lesson for today is …

4. Prayer must be from a heart that is sacrificially yielded to God’s will (vv. 8–9).

Jonah sacrificially yielded to God’s will. In verse 9, he states, “I will sacrifice to you.” In coming back to the Lord, Jonah had to be willing to follow God’s will and plan for his life. Jonah had to say, “Okay, God, I am willing to sacrificially follow wherever You will lead.”

Too many Christians have the attitude, “I will follow God as long as it is easy, convenient, and comfortable.”

Yet Christ taught us to expect anything but comfort and ease. Jesus’ own life on this earth painted a far different picture. He was misunderstood and opposed by the religious people of His day.

He was despised and rejected. Christ suffered and died on the cross for us. If we will follow Christ and His example, it will include sacrifice. “Where He leads I will follow,” are the words of a song that we should be singing wholeheartedly. We must also be ready to practice these words with the same zeal in our lives.

Conclusion

Imagine a pot of water, full to the brim, boiling on the stove. The water in the pot goes through several stages of heat before it starts to spill out of the pot. Initially, the water may look safe, since it isn’t boiling, but in actuality, it is extremely hot and reaching its boiling point.

In the same way, the Bible shows us that God is slow to anger, reaching his boiling point only after a certain amount of time of constant heat and boiling.

God finally reached the point where He had to get Jonah’s disobedience in check. Here are the facts to this point:

Jonah’s Map

· Jonah was instructed to go to Nineveh and preach repentance. (Jonah 1:2)

· Jonah refused and thought he could hide from God. (Jonah 1:3)

· As Jonah purchased a ride on a boat going to Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction. (Jonah 1:3)

· God sent a strong wind and the boat almost sank, as Jonah slept. But God reveal to the Captain and crew, just who had brought this danger to them. ((Jonah 1:4-11)

· So, the men tossed Jonah overboard, but even in His anger, God had prepared a place for Jonah, a very secluded place, a place for him to think about his disobedience. God had place Jonah in the belly of a great fish. (Jonah 1:15-16)

· Three day and three nights, alone in the belly of that great fish until he was ready to obey God and began to pray. (Jonah 1:17)

You see, when God got Jonah’s attention, Jonah prayed and responded to God honestly, at gut level. God responded to Jonah by speaking to the fish, and “it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land” (v. 10). God gave Jonah a second chance.

Whatever your background or whatever has happened to you in your life, if you choose to cling to rebellion against God or to the attitude that God will never use you, then that will be true.

Yet no one has done anything so horrible that God will not give them a second chance. If we respond to Him in honesty and repentance, He will cleanse and restore us.

There are too many people who believe that God cannot help or use you. Such lies are spoken to you only by the deceiver and not from your God.

If you’ll run to God, He will receive and help you, and He will use you to accomplish His will. All of us are in desperate need of God’s loving and merciful touch in our lives.

Like Jonah, We can repent and trust God and see our cries of despair and desperation turned to shouts of joy and thanksgiving!