Gospel Light Christian Church Thru-The-Bible Series (28.2)

The Book of Jonah

Jonah Chapter 2:4-7 - Read this Bible passage once through before referring to the notes below.

v4.  Confronted with the affliction from God, is it any wonder that Jonah felt that he was cast off from God?  Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight.  Now we know that God is everywhere and He sees all things, even the things that we hide. If God is everywhere, does it not follow that He is present in hell also? If God is not present in hell, that He is not present everywhere. But we must understand that God has several divine attributes.  In hell, God displays His divine attribute of a righteous God demanding punishment for sins. 

What does being cast out of God’s sight mean?  It simply means to be denied access to God.  So even though God is present in hell by His divine attribute of a righteous God, the souls in hell are cast out of God’s sight because they are denied access to God.  We who are believers have free and unrestricted access to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, both on Earth and in heaven.

Now Jonah thought that he was cast out of God’s sight, meaning that he was denied access to God.  The reason for this is not difficult to fathom.  Jonah was a prophet of God, a rebellious one who wilfully disobeyed God.  He was pursued by God, and now imprisoned under the sea.  Humanly speaking, God was angry with Jonah, and so how could Jonah gain access to his angry God, especially as he was actually fleeing away from God in the first place? 

But when the flesh is weak, then faith comes into the picture. Jonah said: Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.  Jonah had no precedent to guide him.  Nobody before him had gone into the fish’s belly for 3 days and 3 nights and survived that ordeal.  Joseph was in a pit, David was in a cave, but a fish’s belly?  No precedent.  Moreover, as noted above, he was as it were in an undersea prison such that the only deliverance is by way of a miracle from God. 

But why would God want to deliver him by such a miracle?  Seems impossible.  But God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  So somehow it seems that Jonah felt assured that he would survive, for he confidently said that I will look again toward thy holy temple.  It is interesting that Jonah emphasized the holiness of God’s temple, for his affliction was the very work of the holy and righteous God.

The question may well be asked as to how Jonah came to this conclusion that he was going to survive his ordeal.  One possibility is that Jonah considered that he was still alive.  If God had wanted him dead, he would have been dead by now.  It is so easy, he could have drowned, the fish could have eaten him up, or even earlier onboard the ship, he could have died in that storm.  The fact that Jonah was still alive indicates that though God afflicts Jonah, yet in his affliction God remembers Jonah and had mercy towards him. 

v5.  Just in case we think that the dangers to his life are exaggerated, Jonah here adds: The waters compassed me about, even to the soul.  By adding the phrase, even to the soul, the implication is that his life was in danger.  This reminds us of what the Psalmist said in Ps 69:1 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. As to the other dangers, he added: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.  He was in fact in danger of being suffocated.  If God had not stretched out His hand to protect him, Jonah would surely be dead.

v6.  Long before man invented the submarine, Jonah had travelled undersea already.  And consider this fact that Jonah said: I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.   All the mountains of the world have their bottoms at the bottom of the oceans. Today there are areas that are too deep for submarines to go, and yet Jonah went right down to the bottom.  How marvellous are God’s creations, that a fish can go where no man-made submarine can.  Think about it, if Jonah had gone to such great depth, he would be under tremendous pressure.  Deep-sea divers need to get into decompression chambers when surfacing, yet Jonah suffered no such bend.  Here is another evidence of God’s protective arms around Jonah even in his affliction.

Now notice again Jonah’s description of his prison condition: The earth with her bars was about me for ever. Here Jonah is describing the utter darkness inside the fish’s belly.  It is as if the Earth is the door, and the bolts to open the door are the bars.  Jonah implies that the bolts shut the door tight, so that no sunlight can enter through the door. 

If we consider all these descriptions, we can see how easy it would have been for Jonah to simply give up hope, and how much of a psychological hindrance all these would have to seeking God in prayer.  But when we are in such a desperate despairing state then we must seek God in prayer, for then only God can save us in such a situation. Hear what Jonah has to say on this: Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.  Here Jonah is saying that though he was, as it were, dead, yet God has, as it were, brought him up from the dead. 

Jonah prayed with an earnest feeling, and in faith: for he would not have called Him his God, except he was persuaded of his paternal love, so as to be able to expect from him a certain salvation. By saying that God had brought up my life from corruption Jonah was saying in effect that he had, by a certain kind of resurrection, been raised from the dead.  This is thus a picture of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

v7.  Jonah said: When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD.  What exactly is meant by the soul fainting within Jonah?  It describes a situation where all human efforts are hopeless and one is then left in a helpless state.  Jonah says that he remembered God when that situation was reached. 

Hence we learn that we too must not forget God in similar situations.  Jonah therefore retained this truth, that God was to be sought, however severely and sharply He treated him for a time; for the remembering, of which he speaks, proceeded from faith.

How do we know it was a prayer of faith on Jonah’s part?  Because he said that my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.  If we pray in faith, we must expect that God will hear our prayer, and that our petitions will rise up into the holy temple of God in heaven.  We send our prayers to God in faith, and we expect God to receive them, and to answer them in His will and in His time.  Anything less is wavering, and we should not expect God to answer if we pray not in faith.

We may well ask whether Jonah's voice from the fish’s belly could be physically heard in the heavenly temple? Obviously not, but Jonah learned that God transcends space. He is not confined to any one place because He is everywhere. And God hears us even when we pray silently within our own selves. God does not need to physically hear our voice to know our prayers.  That is why we say God is omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent.