Jonah Sermon 2.
Jonah’s Prayer Of Faith
You can
watch this sermon here.
Introduction
Last week we
started our new mini-series on the book of Jonah with a message titled Broken
Instruments. This is such a powerful little book. I think if you spoke to
even many non-Christians, they would have some recollection of Jonah and the
fish, or as many people remember it, Jonah and the whale. In fact, it is such a
well-known story that it is even recounted in the writings of other religions,
for example, even the Koran recounts the event. That is how famous this account
is.
Last week we
noted that God was doing something for Jonah, for the Israelites, for the
Ninevehites, and for us. Jonah showed us how God worked through a broken man,
from a broken nation, to reach an even more sinful and wicked nation, that did
not deserve to be saved. We also saw that God specializes in using broken
instruments. People who are imperfect, because when it comes to us fallen human
beings, that is all that God has to work with.
I suppose he
could just wipe humanity out and start again. Or he could create perfect human
beings from scratch with no sinful flesh to do his will. But he has chosen not
to work that way. He has great compassion for the people of this world, and has
chosen, in his infinite grace and goodness to work with us, even though we
don’t deserve it.
And this
morning we are going to continue with this theme and expand on it. Because firstly,
I think this is the overarching theme of the book of Jonah, that God has great
and compassionate mercy for sinners. Secondly this is the theme of this
chapter, because we are going to read about Jonah’s own response to his
salvation from the fish.
So, let’s
see what God has to teach us from this little passage about Jonah’s Prayer of
faith, and then we will see how this applies to us today. But first, I want to
take us to the book of Zechariah, because there is something there that helps
give us some insight into Jonah’s tribulation.
A
Consistent Theme –
Our theme for the message last week was “Broken Instruments” and it is an
important one for us to really focus on, because as I said last week, we can
over-spiritualize the heroes of the Bible and miss that they are not
superhumans who get everything right, they are there to show us that God works
through ordinary people like you and me. God wants us to lift our game, for
sure. But he specializes in turning sinners into men and women of God. He used
a prostitute, called Rahab, to save the spies in the land of Canaan, he used a
murderer, called Moses, to redeem his people from slavery, he gave a sexually
immoral man, called Samson, his strength back so he could defeat the
Philistines. This is a consistent theme in the Scriptures. Understanding this
helps us understand Jonah better. So, in light of this, I want to show you
something in Zechariah, because I think it might help us with this passage in
Jonah, Zechariah 3:1-10,
“1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing
before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse
him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who
has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” 3
Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 4 And
the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy
garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity
away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” 5 And I said, “Let
them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head
and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. 6 And
the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house
and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among
those who are standing here. 8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your
friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will
bring my servant the Branch. 9 For behold, on the stone that I have set before
Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription,
declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a
single day. 10 In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will
invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.”
Let’s
reflect on a few things from this passage, and then we can come back to Jonah
chapter 2 and make some observations there as well.
A Man
Accused – Firstly,
who is Joshua? He is the high priest of the Israelites. The nation of Israel
went through several different phases. First it was led by Prophet/Judges in
the era of Moses to Samuel, then it was led by Kings in the era from Saul to
Zedekiah, that’s the era in which Jonah lived, and then after the exile it was
led by the priests like Joshua the son of Jehozadak and others, and foreign
governors. Joshua is one of those leaders, and here he stands accused, before
God and Satan, Joshua 3:1,3 - “1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest
standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to
accuse him…3 Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy
garments.”
Joshua is
pictured here in this vision as standing before the angel of the Lord, and he
stands accused by Satan. It might not seem like a big deal to have the enemy
accuse you, but though evil likes to lie, when it can use the truth against
you, it will do it with glee. Remember Satan means “accuser”. And like any good
prosecutor he can use your own record against you.
Whoever you
are as a Christian you can feel the weight of these accusations at times. The
devil still seeks to accuse, even though he has no legal right to do so. He
loves to whisper things which will defeat us if we listen.
God’s
defense - So how
does God defend this man from Satan. Does he say the devil is wrong? No, he
says this,
“2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O
Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand[e]
plucked from the fire?” 3 Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed
with filthy garments. 4 And the angel said to those who were standing before
him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have
taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.”
5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean
turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was
standing by.”
What does
God do? He acknowledges that the devil is speaking the truth about Joshua.
Joshua’s record is not clean, his “garments are filthy”. But instead of
condemning him, he rebukes the devil and tells the angel to dress Joshua in
white.
The only way
that any man or woman can survive the accusations of the devil, is to be
clothed white by the Lord. Those whom God calls into service for him at any
level will often hear the whisper of the evil one that they are not worthy. And
what is your only response to that?
Yes that is true,
but God has made me clean! Joshua was not made righteous in his own right, but
by the grace of God. As the Lord says, “And to him he said, “Behold, I
have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure
vestments.” God knows that Joshua is not righteous in his own right. So,
God makes him new in his sight, so he can perform his role.
Then God
encourages him to live up to his calling, walk in his ways and to keep the
charge of the Lord. But the fact that he needed to be made clean shows he had
already fallen short. Like Jonah he was a broken instrument. But then God
points Joshua forward to a future day when something great will happen, “9
For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with
seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I
will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.”
God points
Joshua to the day when the sin of the land will be swept away, in one day. We
call that day Good Friday, or Easter Friday. It is the true Passover, the only
Passover that counts. When God took care of our sins in the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ.
In fact,
Joshua and his fellow leaders will serve as a sign that God will bring his
“servant the Branch.” Joshua points to The Joshua, remember Jesus is just Greek
for Joshua, who will come and save this people. The righteous branch. There is
always hope in the prophets. There is always hope.
Nowhere here
is God denying Joshua’s sin, nowhere here is God pretending Joshua is worthy of
this role as high priest in his own right. All the priests had to make
sacrifices for their own sins. God is simply showing that he makes his servants
righteous, he makes us worthy based on him, and his work. And I think this
gives us some powerful insight into our passage from Jonah this morning, so let’s
turn to Jonah 2 now.
Jonah An
Accused Man
(1:17-2:5) – Jonah was also an accused man and we get some real insight into
what he was thinking while he was in this “appointed fish”. It’s important to
note that this is simply a summary of his thoughts while he was in the bowels
of hell. This prayer reads just like a Psalm. Let’s see what he says,
“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. 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…”
We spoke a
little bit about Jonah being swallowed by the fish last week, and all I really
noted about it is that we should not seek to try and explain it in normal
terms. This was no normal fish, this was a fish God had appointed for this
task. We noted that God was doing something for Jonah, for Israel, for Nineveh
and for us. But we shouldn’t just gloss over this situation. We should stop and
think about what Jonah actually went through.
Imagine what
it was like to be in the belly of that fish, knowing full well, that you were
there, because you disobeyed your Lord, and you are under just punishment and
judgement. Imagine the horror. Can you imagine how dark Jonah’s mind would have
gotten while he was in that fish? Can you imagine the accusations that Satan
would have been whispering in his ear? Can you imagine the self-accusations he
would have been under?
Stuff like
this: “Jonah, you rebelled against the Lord, look at you now.” “Jonah, you are
such a loser.” “Jonah, you are literally fish food, this is how you will die.”
“Jonah, you deserve this, you are wearing filthy clothes”…which while he was in
the fish, was both a literal and a metaphorical accusation. “Jonah, you are a
failure.” “Jonah, you deserted your God.” “Jonah, you are not fit to be a
prophet.”
Thoughts of
anguish would have coursed through his mind again and again and again. It would
have been torment. I can only imagine how dark his mind got, though we do have
some indication in his own prayer.
We know he
was in “distress” how could he not be. We know he felt as if he was in the
“grave”, because that is what “Sheol” means. Or as the KJV says, “out of
the belly of Hell cried I”. He literally felt like he was in hell, the grave,
hades, Sheol. How could you not? This is a dark place to be.
The believer
in distress will often feel like they deserve hell or they are in hell. They
might even be experiencing hardship that feels like hell. Because, as we saw
with Joshua the high priest, the accusation that we are filthy in the sight of
God is true. Especially when our life is falling apart, because we ran away
from the call of God. It is especially crushing and disheartening for us when
our disastrous situation is of our own making. And Jonah was in this situation
of his own making.
Jonah got
his wish - What is
also terribly ironic in this passage is that Jonah in some sense got his wish.
He says in verses 3-4, “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;…”
Remember, why did Jonah run? “3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from
the presence of the Lord.”
He wanted to
flee from God’s presence, well there is no sense of God’s presence in hell, is
there? 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal
destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his
might,…” Be careful what you ask for.
So, here was
a man who was in the belly of hell, almost literally, and he stood accused. Can
you imagine what impact the accuser, Satan, was having on his mind? How he was
messing with him in this deep and dark place?
Have you
ever been in the depths of despair, or in anguish over your sin, or felt lost
in your walk with God, and the devil has swooped in to attack? If you have not,
and you live long enough such a day will likely come. So, what should you do?
Turn to
Hope (vv.6-9) – Turn
to hope like Jonah did,
“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!”
No one had
more reason to give up than Jonah did. Some had equal reason. Joseph had equal
reason to give up when he was in the Egyptian prison. Daniel had equal reason
to give up when he was the lion’s den. Samson had equal reason to give up when
he was blind and in chains and being made a mockery of.
But none of
them had more reason than Jonah. All their situations were pretty hopeless.
Except for one thing: hope in God has a supernatural source. All of these men,
and many women just like them, have overcome hopeless situations by refusing to
give up hope, even when all hope seemed hopeless.
What did
Jonah do, when he felt the utmost of despair? This, “7 When my life was
fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy
temple.” He did what we can sometimes forget to do, he turned to the
Lord in prayer and he sought him. Not only this, but he based his prayers in
the bowels of hell on the Psalms. I noted before that Jonah’s prayer reads like
Psalm, because it is one, but it also rehashes a lot of lines from different Psalms.
He Turned
to the Psalms – This
is a point that I don’t want to gloss over, that in the midst of his trial and
distress, Jonah prayed the Psalms. We did a series on this earlier in the year,
but here is an example of it from the Bible itself. Look at these references:
The
beginning of Jonah 2:2, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;” is equivalent to the beginning of Psalm 120:1 – “In
my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. The only
difference here is the words are in a different order.
Jonah 2:3, “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.” Is saying much the
same thing as Psalm 42:7 – “7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy
waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me” (KJV).
The
beginning of Jonah 2:4 “4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight”
is equivalent to Psalm 31:22 – “22 I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off
from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to
you for help.”
You can keep
going through the Psalm and see that in so many of the lines of this prayer, Jonah
is quoting or rephrasing his prayer from various different Psalms. Right up to
verse 9 which quotes Psalm 3:8, “salvation belongs to the Lord.” Jonah is
praying the Psalms, from memory, and he likely chose to write down some
examples of this when he wrote this summary of his prayer. He wrote is own
Psalm, forged from his experience in the bowels of hell.
Think
seriously about this. When you are put under pressure, what is inside of you
will come out of you. When you are in despair do you pray the Psalms? Do you
praise God?
Maybe you
don’t pray the Psalms, maybe you sing your favourite worship songs to yourself.
This is good too. Note, our worship songs are not Scripture, and therefore they
are not the exact same thing, but don’t forget that the Psalms were the worship
songs of the temple of the Lord.
It is good
to have songs of praise on our minds.
The
Israelites were not focused on singing the latest music all the time, though
they would have written new Psalms. They were focused on singing the same solid
truths again and again and again, so that these truths buried deep into their
souls, so that when they were under pressure, they could write a Psalm like
Jonah’s here, and it reflected the word of God.
Get the word
of God into your soul, by memorizing it, pray the psalms and make them part of
your walk with God, sing good solid worship songs, and when you are under
pressure, just like Jonah, you will overflow with praise for God, and you will
likely expect him to do something good.
And God did
do something good for Jonah, “10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it
vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”
Application
– So how do we apply
this sermon?
The
brutal and hopeful book. Recognize that there is no book in the world which is more pessimistic
about humanity and human nature than the Bible. And there is also no book in
the world that is more hopeful for the destiny of humanity, by virtue of what
Jesus Christ has done for us.
The Bible is
honest in its brutal takedown of human nature. And if you trust in its words, it
will also fill you with a hope that nothing else can, and nothing else can take
away.
Be
careful what you ask for, God might grant it - Jonah wanted to flee from the
presence of the Lord, so God sent him into the depths of the ocean.
Meditate
on the Psalms Regularly – Make yourself familiar with the Psalms. Sings Psalms, hymns and
spiritual songs, fill your mind with the truths of God, and you will be better
prepared for hard times, and personal struggles.
Conclusion
– God was good to
Jonah. Jonah did not deserve grace, but then again, none of us do. We all
deserve wrath, but we get grace and mercy if we turn to our Lord. Learn to pray
like Jonah when you are caught in the consequences of your sins. Learn to turn
to God when the devil seeks to attack you and accuse you. And never, ever,
ever, lose hope. Let’s pray.
