(Study No. 3) Chapter 2
The Deliverance of God’s Prophet
(Vs.1) “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.
Jonah’s prayer to God from the stomach of the fish was a celebration of his deliverance from drowning and not his escape from the fish. For three days and nights he would be trapped inside physically and at that time his spirit and soul went to Sheol as his body lay lifeless in the fish’s belly. As we mentioned Sheol was the place where all those who died went to before the atoning work of the Messiah was finished.
We know from the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus that there were two compartments in Sheol. One was where all who died trusting in God in their former life on earth went to rest in Paradise. It was a place of comfort something like the Garden of Eden. It was not heaven as no one had ascended into heaven before the Lord Jesus did (John 3:13).
This is where the Messiah’s spirit and soul went to when He died and took with Him the criminal crucified with Him. He said to him; “today you will be with Me in Paradise.” The other compartment was a place of torment where all those went to who did not trust in God in their former life. A great chasm separated the two compartments which could not be crossed by those in that place See (Luke 16:19-31).
Now the only way God could arrest Jonah’s attention was to arrange this situation where Jonah would be confronted with eternity and the reality of that unseen spiritual realm in Sheol. The fact that Jonah’s spirit and soul went to that place means he had physically died. The belly of the fish was like a tomb. It would take three days and nights for the LORD to deal with His disobedient prophet. Now let’s continue…
(Vs.2) “He said: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave (Sheol) I called for help, and You listened to my cry.”
We know that after one physically dies and leaves their body they are not annihilated but are alive and conscious (Isaiah 14:9-11) (Luke 16: 19-31) (Hebrews 9:27). Sometimes when God has His hand on a man for a special task He must make sure that man has been thoroughly dealt with spiritually. Of course he will not be perfect and will be one who after God has dealt with him will be totally dependent on God alone knowing that apart from faith Him there is no way to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).
For Jonah it was a place of distress and hopelessness where his rebellious and disobedient attitude was exposed and set before Him. When he was living in his physical body he was able to supress this disobedience and go where he wanted to go, however, in Sheol, he had nowhere to go but to cry out to the LORD for help. God heard his cry! After this, Jonah described his experience in Sheol recognizing why God had dealt with him in this way. God called him to be His messenger. Jonah had avoided responding to the call of God but now faced with the stark reality in that unseen spiritual realm where he was absent from his body, he could no longer run away from the presence of the LORD. And so he said to the LORD…
(Vs.3) “You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all Your waves and breakers swept over me.”
Now in light of that unseen spiritual realm where every thought and motive cannot be hidden, Jonah acknowledged his guilt and God’s right to deal with Him in the way He did. God had placed him in that place where he could no longer run from Him. The very heart of the seas was the deepest lowest place. It was dark and murky and where sight was limited. In this prayer we see Jonah crying out to God but also listening for His response.
Now God had his attention well and truly and Jonah could no longer avoid facing his disobedience and its consequences. His trouble produced in him a sense of his need to turn back to God with a willingness to do what He wanted and not what Jonah wanted. Sometimes it takes “the waves” and “the breakers” sent from God to bring us to the place where God can deal with us and where we can hear from Him and do what He says.
He uses all of the circumstances in our lives to make us what He wants us to be, to say and to do what He wants us to say and to do, and that without any excuses for why we are not willing to obey Him. Confession of sin is when we say the same thing God says about sin. Once we have confessed it we are cleansed from it by the Messiah’s blood (1 John 1:9). God in His loving and wise and holy wisdom allows trouble to bring about His will and purposes in our lives. He uses everything both those situations that are favourable and unfavourable to bring about in us an obedient attitude (Psalm 119:67).
Jonah also represents Israel in the last days, when after the rebirth of nation which happened in 1948, the Jewish people will still have to pass through the Night of Jacob’s Trouble where God will deal with them as He did with Jonah. We see this exemplified when Jacob wrestled with His pre-existent Messiah through the night, refusing let go of Him and clinging to God knowing that He needed God’s power and strength to face Esau after many years of separation, and at the break of day Jacob was a changed man. Day break when the sun rises represents resurrection! Because Jacob had wrestled with God and prevailed and had come into a new relationship with God, he had his name changed by God from Jacob to Israel (Genesis 32:24-30).
After Israel as a nation has passed through this night time of great tribulation, God will have them in the place where He wants them to be, and where in His light, they can fulfil His will and purposes for the Gentile world in the Messianic Millennial age to come after this age closes. God wanted to save the people of Nineveh and had to cause this distress in Jonah in order to get His prophet to do what He had called him to do, and to say only what he had been told to say.
Not only does what happened to Jonah relate to what is happening with Israel today but also relates to what God is happening within the wider Body of Messiah. God is doing a parallel restoration with Israel and her spiritual offspring the Body of Messiah, and He is using applied pressure to have His people do His will and to obey His Word without question! In the end He knows what He is doing if we do not see what it is at present.
Once we die to our desires and will we can be resurrected spiritually to His desires and will for us. The safest place spiritually we can ever be is walking in the whole will of God for our life and that moment by moment by faith and seeking to run in the way of God’s commandments and by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:24-25). As we also read in the psalms; “I cling to Your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame. I run in the path of Your commandments, for You will enlarge my heart. Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, and I will keep them to the end” (Psalm 119:31-32).
If we seek to obey His Word then God will enlarge the capacity of our spiritually reborn spirit to understand it. God will teach us how to do this so that we may keep His commandments to the end of our life here on earth, should we become absent from the body but present with the LORD (2 Corinthians 5:8).
(Vs.4) “I said, ‘I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’”
Jonah was changing his attitude towards doing what God wanted him to do, and even though Jonah still harboured resentment towards the Assyrians, he was willing to go anyway. He had experienced what it was to be like separated from fellowship with God but now started to desire fellowship with Him again, but it had taken God’s great wind storm and Jonah’s subsequent time in Sheol to bring him back to God and to that place where God wanted him to be. Jonah’s eyes were no longer focused on his will but now focused upon God’s will, and out of this desire he wanted to renew his relationship with God. He continued to describe his sojourn in Sheol.
(Vs.5) “The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.”
He realised that his situation in that place was hopeless and one that he could not extricate himself from. He was in very deep waters, the seaweed of his own fleshly desires and stubborn will and disobedient spirit entangled him and his whole body was bound in that deep place. He now realised that to be intimate with God once again he would have to go to Nineveh to these people he hated and give them God’s message that He wanted Jonah to share with the Ninevites. Jonah had wanted to get away from them, to run away from going to them with God’s message, and God had to put His prophet into a situation where He could get him to do what He wanted Jonah to do.
Even though Jonah did not favour the Ninevites he was willing to go any way after God had dealt with him and brought about in him the obedience He required. In the end it was Jonah’s deep yearning for intimacy with God that his adverse circumstances brought to the surface. In the end he knew that doing God’s will was the very best thing he could do if he wanted to regain his personal relationship with the LORD and somehow cope with his negative attitude towards Israel’s enemies. Jonah continued to say…
(Vs.6) “To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God.”
Here he realised that once one died physically that they would be separated forever from intimacy with God. They would be barred from His presence forever. He realised this and God brought his life up from the pit of spiritual and physical destruction. In scripture when we read about an “eternal destruction’ it is not speaking about annihilation. The idea of an eternal destruction is that a certain thing is not destructed physically and even though it still exists it can no longer be used for the purpose for which it was created and is cast away. People have two choices whether to experience the intimacy of fellowship with God forever, or banishment from His presence forever. When the Bible uses the word “eternal life” it means forever and ever with no end. The same word is used for “eternal condemnation.”
As we read in the Gospel of John; “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only begotten Son of God…. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:16-18, 36).
As we also read; “And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). And yet again we read; “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). The idea that when people die they cease to exist is a lie out of the pits of hell! Now Jonah continued…
(Vs.7) “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to You, to Your holy temple.”
In Sheol he remembered the LORD as he saw his own life ebbing away and being faced with an eternity without the intimacy of fellowship with God which was enough to break his disobedient attitude towards the will of God. Doing God’s will would be far better than staying in that dark place barred from fellowship with Him forever. Jonah remembered that he had a covenant with God and was willing to meet the conditions God required of those in a covenant relationship with Him. Even in that place Jonah had spiritual insight
(Vs.8) “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”
In Sheol he had the revelation that idolatry forfeits the grace of God! Of course idols come in many forms. It can be centred on money, fame, fortune, a career, a relationship, some material possession, or a favourite sin that one does not want to let go of, or giving first place to anything or anyone that replaces God on the control centre of one’s life. Idolatry opens the door for demonic activity and it is a form of demon worship scripturally (Deuteronomy 32:16-17) (Psalm 106:36-37) (1 Corinthians 10:20). Jonah now had hope…
(Vs.9) “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.”
Jonah had been spiritually dead within himself and could not help himself acting in the way that he did in disobedience to God, however, he remembered God’s covenant with Him and with Israel and responded once again to Him. He speaks of singing a song of thanksgiving to God and offering it up as a sacrifice of praise to Him, something that was a mark of an intimate fellowship with a covenant keeping God.
As the Psalmist writes; “Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name” (Psalm 100:1-4). As the author of Hebrews also writes; “Through Him (the Messiah our Lord Jesus) then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13:15).
This is what Jonah’s revived inner spirit and soul was doing in Sheol while his cold and lifeless physical body lay in the belly of that fish. We are not told what that vow was Jonah made to God, however it must have been a vow to go to Nineveh and bring them God’s message despite how he might be feeling about them personally. He also recognised that salvation or deliverance comes from the LORD, and if ever people needed this it was the wicked and violent city of Nineveh! The people of that city could not even tell their right hand from their left spiritually. The challenge for us as New Covenant Bible believers is to be involved in God’s harvest field using the gifts He has given us for that task of bringing the message of spiritual light and life through the Lord Jesus into their world of spiritual darkness with their life heading for an eternal destruction in the Lake of fire that burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death (Revelation 21:8).
God will always be faithful to all who call upon Him in truth. As King David writes; “The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth. He fulfils the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them” (Psalm 145:17-19). So Jonah, recognizing he had no merit within himself to recommend Him to God, offered up a song of thanksgiving as a sacrifice to God, making good his vow to God and acknowledging that salvation comes from God, a message that had prepared Jonah for his mission!
(Vs.10) “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”
Jonah had gone through an inward spiritual transformation because God had to break his stubborn rebellious will. God was giving him a second chance! He had not discarded or laid aside His prophet. God is the God of second chances! As a late missionary in our assembly I knew personally used to say; “It is not how we start, but how we finish that counts.” In the light of the New Testament we are told that our Messiah, the Lord Jesus is the author and perfector or finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). What He starts in us spiritually He fully intends to finish, because we are also told the He who has started a good work in us will bring to completion at the day of Jesus Messiah when He comes back for us! (Philippians 1:6) (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
Jonah then had gone through a spiritual transformation. He had learnt his lesson that it pays to lay aside one’s will and to embrace God’s will which is the safest place we can be in this life with all of its changing circumstances and challenges that might seek to turn us aside from our trust in God. God’s will for Jonah had not changed, but Jonah’s will had. As the late Derek prince used to say; “God’s will is where our will and God’s will cross!”
God is absolutely sovereign and He never changes His will (Malachi 3:6). His Word never changes because it has been settled forever in heaven (Psalm 110:89). If our desire and prayer is that we might do His will to the end of our days, should we fall asleep in Jesus before He returns that in doing His will while we are still alive that He will bring us into His purposes and we will fulfil our divinely allotted task for us.
Jonah’s message was one of impending doom, a message of judgment because God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, a deep desire God has that is clearly revealed both the Old Testament with the New Testament. Having said this we need to always keep in mind that if there is “no repentance unto life” then there is only judgement left! Jonah being physically resurrected in the belly of the big fish foreshadows the resurrection of the Messiah our Lord Jesus, which He Himself made clear to the antagonistic unbelieving Pharisees!
As we read; “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:38-48).
