IN our consideration of Jonah chapter 2, we now come to the prayer itself. Straight away I find myself in difficulty. The difficulty is not in the spiritual teaching which we find in this prayer, but in way the prayer is expressed, and the fact that verse 1 speaks of this prayer being uttered from inside the fish.

In the last sermon I expressed how difficult I found it to see exactly what the experience of Jonah was, and I said there that, although I believed that God could have, by miraculous power, enabled Jonah to breathe in the belly of the fish, it seemed more likely that he was unconscious inside the fish, and the miracle was more in an act of death and resurrection, where Jonah did die, but was raised to life again when the fish vomited Jonah on to land. If Jonah was conscious inside the fish he would have been able to pray during that time. But the difficulty is in the way the prayer is expressed in Jonah 2. The way the prayer is expressed lends itself to viewing the prayer as an expression of praise to God, and testimony to God's faithfulness and salvation, after Jonah had been released from the fish, and found himself alive on dry land. The prayer does express the thoughts and feelings experienced by Jonah as he was swallowed by the sea and the fish, and shows that Jonah prayed in his deep need, but the words of chapter 2 also express prayer and thanksgiving in a way that suggests Jonah was looking back over his experience, and seeing how God had answered his prayer and delivered him, and kept him in his saving love.

Whatever view we may take over all this, what is important is the prayer of chapter 2 and what it expresses of Jonah's deep spiritual experience, which resonates with spiritual meaning for us to day.

JONAH'S EXAMPLE.

Jonah was in an hopeless situation from a human point of view. Humanly speaking there was no hope for him, and he knew he was going to die. There was nothing he could do for himself, so he did the only thing that was left to him, and that was to trust in God, and commit himself to God in prayer. In his extremity he may not have been able to express his prayer in an articulate form whether out loud or in his mind, but he prayed, and God knowing his thoughts and the condition of his heart understood, heard and answered his prayer.

In verse 1 we are told that Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. What this is expressing is that he committed himself into the hand of God, and surrendered himself in faith into the hands of God. This is, in the end, the very essence of prayer in need. We may be unable to express words, but our trust is still in the Lord, and our hope and confidence is in him, and we rest our souls on the promises of Scripture concerning our acceptance before God in Christ.

This is the only action a Christian can take, and it is the best action. There is no mileage in fighting God and his ways with us. We must always simply surrender ourselves to his will, and trust him that he is working all things for our good. Fighting against God brings no peace, but simply exacerbates our fear. We begin to experience peace as soon we surrender ourselves in submission and faith into the hands of God, and we do this however frightened or fearful we may be. Certainly Satan will play on our fears and seek to depress us, but we hold on to God and his faithfulness to his word.

Jonah could do this because he knew God, and God was his God. Even though he had run away from God, and sought to defy God's will for him, this was still true, and in spite of his sin he knew God was his God and Saviour. This is so important. Satan will hold up our sin and failing before us, and make it big and black, and seek to destroy our faith. It is the privilege of the true believer that we have this assurance, that God's grace is bestowed with the knowledge, not only of past sins, but all the sins we will commit in the future, and every disobedience whatever that may be, and when he called us to faith he bestowed his saving grace which covered all those failings and sins in the future. We know from the Word of God, that when Christ died for our sins, he died for all our sins, ever single one we commit throughout our earthly life, and he atoned for them completely on the cross. This has to be so because when Christ died for our sins we had not been born, and so we had at that time committed no sin. Christ died for our sins. This is the Scripture promise and testimony, and this means, as it did for Jonah, that God is still our God always, whatever we have done, and whatever our situation is, and we can commit ourselves to him in confident trust.

JONAH'S PRAYER.

Then we can learn for our comfort and strength much from Jonah's prayer and praying.

Jonah expressed before God all his feelings and fear. He poured out his pain and suffering to the Lord. He was able to lay bare his heart to God. This is the great privilege of the believer. We come to God as our heavenly Father, and as a father who truly loves his child, our Father God is ready to listen to all that is in our hearts, and we never need to fear that he will be ashamed of us, or despise us for weakness. In fact what hurts God is not that we pour out our soul in prayer to him, but when we do not pray and do not bring all our needs to him.

But notice, as you read through chapter 2, that Jonah does not complain against God or question God's way with him in the experience he was suffering. This is a sure sign of real grace. However much the way of God with us is painful, or inexplicable, like Jonah the true believer never questions God in the sense of complaint or accusation. We can ask questions before God, but they must never be made in such a way that we imply injustice, wrong or lack of love in God. When God chastises his servants it is always done in love, and in love he takes the long view which is our eternal happiness, and not just our immediate comfort.

Jonah gives a true expression of the Christian character. By this we know that our faith is real and we are a child of God.

Prayer marks out a child of God. When Paul was converted on the Damascus road, and needing help when lying blind in Damascus, God sent Ananias to minister to him, and to be God's instrument in the return of his sight. Ananias was afraid because he only knew Paul as a persecutor. Jesus quietened his fear by this evidence - “Behold, he prays”. Prayer, real prayer, is the life breathe of the believer. Prayer is the breathing of new life, which like our physical breathing is something we do, and is an evidence that we live.

The Christian's life is a life of prayer. Even when we are not praying in a formal way, or in private in a specific way, or in need lifting up an arrow prayer, we are still praying, because we live in the presence of Jesus and live for him, and in this way we are looking to him for every moment of each day.

VERSE 2.

Now let us look at the prayer itself. It seems to me that the only way I can tackle the message and teaching in this prayer is to go through it verse by verse and meditate with you on what it reveals to us of the life of faith.

So we come to verse 2. Jonah confesses that he was in distress. The idea in this word is one of expressing an hopeless situation where there was nothing Jonah could do, except one thing and that was to call to the Lord. So Jonah called to God for help. There is nothing un-spiritual in praying for help. Some people seem to feel that is wrong to cry for help to God, and that we have not right to do so. This is not true. It is true that we can't demand help, but there is every evidence in the Gospels that Jesus responded positively in love when people pleaded for mercy. So we cry for help, and if we follow Jonah's example we will cry earnestly and in desperation.

If we are like Jonah at the point of death, Christ is the only one we can cry to and the only one who can help. At this point we still cry to him for mercy, but we believe that he will respond in mercy according to the promises of the Gospel, and bring us safe through to the heavenly country beyond. It is the wonderful privilege of every believer, that at the point of death we are not alone, for Jesus is by our side, and he is there to bring us to the home he has prayed for us in glory.

Jonah prayed for help in faith. Faith must accompany all our praying, Without faith we cannot please God. Faith cries for mercy holding on to the promises of the Gospel, and so faith gives the victory.

Jonah expresses and testifies to the victory in Christ. His testimony is this that God answered him, and God listened to his cry in order to save him. Jonah gives us complete assurance as we pray. He testifies that God answered his prayer.

If this is an expression of his joy and thanksgiving after he had been raised to life on dry land, then Jonah is expressing the joy of proving God answered his prayer and in love restored him to life. At the time of our death we shall be able to praise God from that other shore as we stand in glory in the presence of Jesus, and declare that he saved us.

On the other hand Jonah could be expressing here something that saints have testified to at such times of distress, that they were given a deep assurance from the Lord that all was well, and God had heard and answered their prayer already, and so they could rest on this with joy in the midst of the distress they were suffering. Stephen had this experience in Acts 7:56 where he was given a vision of Jesus in glory waiting for him. I must confess that I have not had such an assurance. I have found that in the midst of distress it has been the word of promise from the Scriptures which has been my assurance, and in fear I have held on to them.