Gospel Light Christian Church Thru-The-Bible Series (28.1)

The Book of Jonah

Jonah Chapter 2:1-3 - Read this Bible passage once through before referring to the notes below.

Memory verse Jonah 2:7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

v1.  Jonah was intent on fleeing from the presence of God all this while.  Up to this stage, there is no record of Jonah praying to God, not even when he was rebuked by the shipmaster during the storm: What meanest thou, O sleeper?  Arise, call upon thy God (Jonah 1:6).   But now, inside the whale’s belly, Jonah found himself thoroughly helpless and hopeless.  In such a situation, there is only one thing for a believer to do, and that is to pray to God.  And that is precisely what Jonah did. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly. 

The prayer of Jonah can be summarized as follows:

v2-6   A description of the great danger and distress that Jonah found himself in;
v4.     The deplorable condition that he was faced with;
v4,7   The encouragement that he had in this condition;
v6-7   The blessed assurance of divine favour;
v8      His warning to others;
v9      Giving praise and glory to God.

Notice the place where Jonah was praying – in the fish’s belly.  Prayers to God need not be confined to any physical place or time.  God is anywhere and everywhere.  Praying in your house, or in your office, or in the car, in your heart, in fact even in the whale’s belly are perfectly fine with God.  He can hear such prayers. And thus the Bible exhorts us to pray without ceasing.  This gives us a very comforting assurance, in that no matter where God cast us, the way to heaven is always open through prayers. 

Note further that Jonah directed his prayer to the LORD his God.  Yes, prayers draw us nearer to our God.  There is no point praying to idols that are created when our God is the creator God.  Why pray to idols that cannot see or hear when our God is the true and only living God?

One thing we should note is that prayer is basically asking, or begging God.  It is also communicating with our God.  Have you been praying and communicating with God regularly?

v2.  Jonah tells us that he fled to God in his trouble: I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD.  Jonah prayed to God because of his affliction.  Now consider this, that his affliction was brought about by God because of Jonah’s grievous sin against God.  To go back to God, knowing full well that God is the one afflicting him, is a sign of humility, all the more so as Jonah was actually fleeing away from the presence of God.  And humility is the first step in the way back to God in repentance.

Notice that God hears the prayers of every saint that confesses his sins and that seeks divine forgiveness.  Jonah said: He heard me; thou heardest my voice.    Yes, God hears prayers, and specifically, God hears individual prayers.  Jonah says it twice here, that God heard him, and that God heard his voice.  And so God can hear your voice as well!  And if He can hear you, then you can tell Him about things that affect you and your brethren.  Why then do Christians not pray more often to God? 

Since prayer is also about talking with God, we should be doing that more often.  While we can sure pray during times of trials and afflictions, we should also not neglect to pray at other times, even if it is just to thank God for the things He has done for us.

Jonah likened the fish’s belly to hell.  He called it the belly of hell. There is one important difference between this belly of hell and the other hell that the Bible talks about. Here in the fish’s belly, Jonah could pray, and God hears and delivers him. There in the other hell called the lake of fire or the bottomless pit, God will not hear any of the prayers of the souls there, and therefore He will not answer any of such prayers.  Think about it.  The difference between the inhabitants of hell and those of heaven boils down to this: the soul in hell is without Christ while the soul in heaven has the righteousness that only Christ can give.  

The soul in hell is there because while that person was alive, he did not accept Christ as Saviour.  These souls in hell would gladly accept the Lord as Saviour when they are in hell, but the sad thing is that God will not hear their professions in hell.  The time to make that vital decision for Christ is when that person is on Earth.  At death, time freezes and the soul without Christ is gone to hell for which there is no exit forever.  That being the case, shouldn’t you be more earnest in going about declaring the Gospel to the unbelievers?

v3.  A Christian will always look at things from God’s perspective.  Here we see that although the hands of the mariners on board his ship threw Jonah overboard literally, yet Jonah recognized that it was actually God that did it through those mariners: For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas.  Jonah acknowledged that God has cast him down real low, right in the heart of the sea.  Yes, our God has the power that only a creator God can possess.  Jonah was, as it were, confined to a prison under the deep sea.  He said: The floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Can you imagine the deplorable condition Jonah was in?  There can’t be much room to move about in a fish’s belly, and most probably he was in a bent position. 

The fish was taking in seawater, as any fish would do, but notice that Jonah here describes the seawater as the floods that compassed him about. In other words, the seawater acted as a constraint to prevent him from getting out of the fish’s belly.  It is a sort of undersea prison.  See how Jonah described the waves: thy billows and thy waves.  Surely there can be no disputing that God controls the elements, including the winds and the waves, especially after that awesome display of divine power earlier? 

Now Jonah said: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. This is taken from Ps 42:7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Here then is an important lesson in praying.  It pays to memorize scriptures, for when we are faced with severe trials or afflictions, it can be very encouraging to recall similar experiences of other godly men.  Also, as Jonah shows, it is perfectly alright to quote scriptures in prayer to God.

That’s why we should memorize scriptures.  Have you been faithful in memorizing the various memory verses in the TTB series?