Prayer From The Depths

2, beginning in verse 1, if you want to follow along.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the stomach of the fish and he said I called out of my distress to the Lord and he answered me.

I cried for help from the depth of sheol.

You heard my voice.

For you, it cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me.

All your breakers and billows passed over me.

So I said I have been expelled from your sight.

Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple.

Water encompassed me to the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me.

Weeds were wrapped around my head.

I descended to the roots of the mountains.

The earth with its bars was around me forever, but you have brought them up, my life from the pit, o Lord, my God.

While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

In chapter 2, verse 4, we find the very center of the book, and this is where Jonah begins to understand God's grace, which really is the main theme of the book of Jonah.

In fact, as I said before, jonah's deepest fears, his racial prejudice, his failure to obey God, are all tied to his blindness of God's grace in his life.

Until we really understand God's grace In a personal level, we're going to be stuck spiritually, just like Jonah.

Nothing will seem right.

And at this point, in the middle of chapter 2, jonah suddenly gets it and today we're going to look at how Jonah finally got it To understand that we need to look at his prayer, which we'll look at in three parts the need for prayer, the God of prayer and the prayer of faith.

In Jonah, chapter 2, we find both a prayer and a song.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

It's not written as a narrative, it's written as a song.

It could even be kind of a country song Describing the wreck of his life and the subsequent resurrection of his life.

In Hebrew.

There are actually three stanzas in the song.

Each stanza has its own theme.

Verses 2 to 4, the theme is a call from the depths.

Verses 5 to 7, the grace that brought me up.

Verses 8 to 9, talk about the lessons that changed my life.

Jonah, chapter 2 also describes what Jonah did in the fish's belly for three days and three nights.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

You know what he did?

He prayed.

Please note up until this point in Jonah's story, jonah hasn't prayed one bit.

He didn't pray about going to Nineveh.

When God told him to, he didn't pray.

About going to Tarshish, he didn't pray.

When the storm hit and the ship was about to break up, he didn't even pray.

After the captain asked him to pray.

But now he's praying.

Why is that?

Because Jonah finally recognizes his need for God's grace, personally and as the writer of Hebrews tells us in the New Testament.

That's why we pray.

Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 16, "therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need".

Hebrews 4:16

The focus of the first stanza of Jonah 2, verses 2 to 4, really is a focus on Jonah's life-threatening troubles and it prompts him to pray for the first time in the book.

Jonah 2:2–4

Jonah prayed.

It says to the Lord, his God, verse 1, while he's in the belly.

What you need to understand he's praying, but he's recalling his earlier prayer is Jonah 2, verses 4 is a flashback when he remembers sinking to the depths of the sea.

Jonah 2:4

He was sinking down in the sea, he's about to drown, he's near death's door and then he decides to call out to God, actually a little stronger than that, as you'll see Verse 2 of Jonah 2, he called to the Lord out of his distress.

Then his prayer gets more intense as he continues to perhaps drop down looking at his own death.

Slight flash before his eyes says he cried for help from the depth of Sheol.

The Hebrew word for cried actually means scream.

He's in a bad way, he's screaming for help, for God's help, and sheol means he thought he was at death's door.

This is it.

Remember.

The progression of Jonah's prayers from chapter 1 reflect his spiritual journey, his relationship with God.

Remember when he started to run from God.

He's been on a downward journey ever since.

Well, now he's at the bottom of the sea.

He's as low as you can get.

Verses 2,.

Verses 5 and 6, he says water encompassed me To the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head.

I descended to the roots of the mountains.

The earth with its bars was around me forever.

But you have brought up my life from the pit, o Lord, my God.

So while Jonah's in the belly of the fish, he's recalling his cry, his scream for God's help.

He's praying to Yahweh, his God.

That's the focus of the second stanza in this prayer song.

Yahweh, his God.

He is the God who answers prayer.

Jonah called out of his distress verse 2, and he answered me.

Jonah cried for help and he heard my voice.

Jonah was just miraculously rescued by a fish because God heard his cry, his scream and answered his prayer.

But his rescue was only partial.

Now he's stuck in the fish and it's dark and he's disoriented.

So Jonah continues to pray While he's in the belly of the fish.

You see, when Jonah first prays in the deep, cries out for help at the bottom of the sea, he asks God to spare his life.

After God saved him with the fish, he continues to pray inside the fish's belly.

What's going on in this prayer now?

Oh, while he's praying, god's going to give him a different perspective of his life.

He's going to give him God's perspective of what's happening now.

Now, while he's in prayer.

This is very significant.

He gets it.

In Jonah, chapter 1, verse 15, it was the sailors who threw Jonah into the sea, but in his prayer in Jonah, chapter 2, verse 3, jonah realizes you know what.

Jonah 1:15 Jonah 2:3

It was actually God who cast me into the sea and it was God's breakers and billows that passed over him.

This is what he says for you, you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas and the current engulfed me.

All your breakers, billows, passed over me.

Jonah descended to the roots of the mountains, he said, and then a whale swallowed him.

And yet, chapter 1, verse 17,.

It was God who appointed the fish to swallow Jonah.

It was God who brought him back to life from the pit.

Jonah 2, verse 6, I descended to the roots of the mountains, the earth with its bars around me, but you have brought up my life from the pit.

Jonah 2:6

This is extremely significant because what's happening is, while in chapter 1 it looks like things are happening to Jonah by circumstances or something, but in Jonah, chapter 2, he realizes all that's been happening.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

God is the one.

God is the one who controls the circumstances and events of his life to accomplish his good purpose.

You see, with God there's no coincidences.

With God, no matter how far you've fallen, no matter how low you go, with him, there's always hope.

As we seek him in prayer the message Jonah, by the way, was reluctant to take to the Ninevites Grace.

As you look deeper into Jonah's prayer song, it's filled with truths about God, who he is, his sovereign power, his mercy and grace, his willingness to hear and answer prayers of the helpless and then those who are in trouble.

Jonah is learning, you see, about God's grace by experiencing God in the troubles of his life.

Like Jonah, if we humble our hearts when trouble comes and cry out to God, we too, we too, we'll learn some amazing things about the God who is with us, like Jonah.

These things we may not be able to learn without them, without the trouble, without the screams for help, we'll learn who he is, something different than we've seen before Another hallway in the mansion called God's Grace.

All that God is doing is designed to equip Jonah to be the man of God he was called to be and take the message of Yahweh's grace to people who need to know Him.

All of it, all of it, every single part of it, was designed to equip Him for God's mission on this planet.

I believe it's the same with us.

Not only do we learn about God in Jonah's person, we also learn about Jonah's faith in God from his prayer.

Notice that this is very interesting.

I'm going to spend a little more time next week on this.

Notice that Jonah says two times in his prayer song that he looked towards God's temple.

As he's praying Jonah 2, verse 4, I said I've been expelled from your sight.

Jonah 2:4

Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple.

Verse 2, verse 7,.

While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord.

My prayer came to you into your holy temple.

That's significant.

What does it mean?

Well, jonah's in the belly of the fish, so he's not literally looking at God's temple.

He's meditating and recalling what God's temple means in his situation, right there as he prays to his God.

I guess I'll have more to say about that next time.

I'm just going to mention a few things today.

I think that we see what Jonah's doing here and what it means to him.

The temple Jonah's thinking about has great significance for every single Jew.

Keep in mind, the temple was located in Jerusalem, but Jonah's prophetic ministry was not in Judah or Jerusalem, but in the Northern Kingdom, kingdom of Israel, under King Jeroboam, in Samaria.

When Jonah prays to God, he's not praying to the idols they worshiped in Samaria, he's praying to his God Yahweh he makes that very clear the true God, whose temple is in Jerusalem.

So how does Jonah's looking towards God temple relate to his prayer?

The temple, I believe, is reminding Jonah of the truths about who God is and how we relate to him.

He's probably trying to meditate on how on earth?

Why was I rescued when I deserved to die?

And he thinks of the temple.

First temple means we don't come to God in prayer on our own merits.

We come by grace, come to the temple based on God's compassion and mercy.

The temple reminds us that when we pray, we're going to come into God's presence mediated.

We can't go in just in our own, but by a blood sacrifice for our sins which took place in the temple.

The temple reminded the Jews that God was a forgiving God.

He would make atonement for them and allow them to come into His presence if they came through the atoning blood.

As he looked towards God's temple, it means he didn't pray by bargaining with God either, but by humbling, appealing to His mercy.

You didn't come into the temple thinking that you had any right to be there.

By the way, the godly man of God, daniel that's how he prayed In Daniel 9, verse 18,.

Daniel 9:18

Listen, he prayed to God.

Oh my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in the city which is called by your name.

We're not presenting our supplications before you in account of any merits of our own, but on account of your great compassion.

That's how you prayed.

Jonah knew he was a sinner and the almost-tasting death realized the only way he survived.

That was God must be merciful and compassionate.

Third, looking towards God's temple meant that Jonah was praying with faith in the Lord and His God, realizing all these things.

The temple is reminding him that he's compassionate.

He's made a way so we can approach him.

He's loving and committed to his people.

The temple meant that God is forgiving and redeeming, rescuing us from our sin.

He's thinking about all of this.

You can come into God's presence through this mediated sense.

When God takes away our sin, not by any merit of ours, but by His grace, he's trusting the Lord, his God.

Notice how Jonah's prayer of faith progresses through the song.

This is kind of interesting.

First, he calls out when he was in trouble.

He literally screams to God for help while he's about to drown.

He's not just calling to any God who's there, he's not calling to some God in general, if some God is there.

I once was at a community meeting where a person stood up to give the invocation and they said okay, let's pray to your concept of the Holy.

And I'm like concept.

There is a God, we know His name and we called Him.

This is what Jonah's doing.

He knows he's there, he knows Him personally.

Yahweh is His God.

Then Jonah's prayer moves from screaming for help to then working down to understanding how far he was from the Lord.

He's admitting his failure, his troubles and need for his God.

He says in verse 4, I've been expelled from your presence.

Verse 6, I descended.

Verse 5, I was at the point of death.

I was fainting away.

Verse 7.

And finally, the third part.

Here Jonah's prayer ends with a rededication to God, starts screaming for help, admitting he really blew it, and then he says I will look again to your temple Verse 4,.

I remembered.

Verse 7, I will sacrifice, first dying.

What's he doing?

He's making commitments.

He's resurrendering.

We'll talk about that in the next one.

Jonah's progression in prayer, I believe, is a kind of model for us.

First he's crying for help, then he's admitting and confessing his failure, realizing he needs God's grace, he needs his forgiveness, he needs help.

Finally I love this he's resurrendering his life to God.

At one point in his life he committed his life to the Lord as a prophet I'll go where you want me to go, do what you want me to do.

But then he reneged on that promise.

Now, in this prayer, after God's grace came and rescued him and he saw this unbelievable act of God to help him, I rededicate you are God, I am your servant, apart from confessing his sins.

I think that's kind of how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's literally crying for help, but in the end he's saying not my will, yours, I don't like this, I'd like to get out of it, but not my will, I'm your servant.

The truth is, prayer takes on, for all of us, a whole new dimension.

When we're in trouble, our faith runs before our eyes.

Is God there?

Does he care?

Will he answer?

He cares?

It takes on a whole new dimension, and we're plunged into something God wants to use to help us experience him in a deeper way than we ever have.

If we'll let him, if we listen as we pray for what God has for us, what he wants us to do, like Jonah, we'll realize we never really had control of our own life, because God behind it all leading us to this point.

Unlike Jonah, though, we need to realize that prayer is not just for the desperate, but for the devoted.

This is huge.

I think, jonah, you see the change happen in chapter 4 when we get there.

But Jonah wasn't praying in chapter 1.

I talked about that.

Jonah ran away from God, and that's why his situation became desperate.

Prayer keeps our relationship with God fresh, alive.

Well, we bring our concerns to him.

He didn't want to go to Nineveh.

Talk to God, talk to me, let's talk about it Now.

He'll do that in chapter 4.

He didn't do it in chapter 1.

And that's why it became desperate.

Where's our prayer?

As we walk through this life, are we connecting?

And then, all of a sudden, we're surprised.

How could you let this happen?

Well, maybe, if you talk to me, it's like Jonah's prayer teaches us though God is listening.

Even to the deepest point in our life, when we are the furthest we are from God, he still hears us.

He hears our heart, he hears our screams.

What is he listening for?

Well, he's waiting, I think, to hear the cry of faith from our heart.

I believe you, god.

Nothing's too hard for you.

You are my God, my Creator, my Redeemer.

You are the sovereign Lord of all.

You know, it's like a newborn baby coming out of the womb.

Our first cry of faith, from being born again by faith in Jesus, the Messiah, is a similar thing.

Our first cry is acknowledging our Savior, our Heavenly Father, as His son or daughter.

John tells us this, john, chapter 1, verses 12 and 13.

John 1:12

He says but as many as received Jesus, to them God gave the right to become children of God who believe in His name, who were born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but born of God.

Our birth comes by our faith in Him, the Messiah.

In fact, jesus, in his discussion with Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John, answered him and said truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

How are we born again?

We believe in Jesus and receive Him into our life.

He's the one that gives us the right to be called God's children, to receive the gift of eternal life.

He's the one.

I urge you, if you never have received Jesus as your Savior, believed in Him for eternal life.

I think today, right now even, is a great time to do that.

Just express yourself in prayer to God in your heart.

You don't have to be even.

He hears your heart and your words.

So, as I close in prayer today, just say to God I believe Jesus is the Savior that I long for.

I invite him and welcome him into my life.

If you do that today, please let one of us know, pastor Dennis, me, one of the elders.

We'd love to encourage you and help you.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you.

From the very first moment we believed in Jesus, our hearts have cried out to you as our God, as our Heavenly Father.

We thank you for Jesus.

Because of His death and resurrection, he made a way into your presence.

That was not possible before.

Today we come to your throne of grace in Jesus' name and ask that you would hear us when we call.

Answer us, father, when we cry out to you, because you are a compassionate and a merciful God and we believe nothing is impossible for you.

So help us to come to you with eager expectation that you want us to draw near and talk to you about whatever is going on in our lives.

We ask for the grace to do all of that.

In Jesus' name, I pray Amen.