The Great Fish, the Prayer & the Result Jonah chapter 2

 The Great Fish, the Prayer and the Result

Jonah ch. 2 The Sea, The Whale and the Prayer of Jonah in the Belly

In the middle of the difficulty, a rescue by a great( big) fish ( could be a whale, but the white sharks in that area had also swallowed whole people before...and the Hebrew word can mean either). We note again that in ch. 1 Jonah had confessed his problem to them, the Mariners, and they even tried to save him; they prayed to the God of the Universe as never having so before. " 1: 14 , " We beseech thee , O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life..." They feared the LORD we are told in 1:15, and " made vows."

Disappointment-His Appointment in our lives

1:17- " a great fish had been prepared by the LORD to swallow up Jonah" Again, our difficulties, just as Jonah's ( being cast forth into the sea 1:12) are smokescreens for a bigger plan that we are unaware of in our lives. We lament and mourn when we or others suffer in this life, but our "thoughts are not (God's )...neither are (our) ways (God's )ways" Isaiah 55:8

The situation is not ours to control, although Jonah certainly put himself into this problem by not going where God told him to go and speak to the people in Nineveh. We are human, not yet in heaven where we will be perfected and sinless. WE too put ourselves through "affliction" 2:1 In same way, shape, manner or form we must not be like Jonah and run from what is happening to us, but we must stop, reflect, and pray and ask, " What do you really want me to do O LORD?"

His appointment was a great fish where Jonah survived in the belly. In Matthew 12, Our Lord compares this to His own descent into hades. " as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"

God had rescued Jonah from the bottom of the depths. I do not think the whale swallowed him on the surface. Ch 2 indicates this. " the waters compassed me about...the depth closed me round about...I went down to the bottom of the mountains...the weeds were wrapped about my head.."

2. Jonah writes ch 2 after his rescue, but he turns to God in his affliction.

" When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came in unto thee."2:7

This was the beginning and turning of Jonah back to what God was trying to tell him about how God's purposes are for all, not just the people we think or he thought. He had to learn this in the belly of the whale.

Jonah learned "thanksgiving" 2:9 and to " pay that which I have vowed" (he was a prophet and a servant of the Lord- 2 Kings 14:25) and mostly that " Salvation is of the LORD."

" For I see that the heaviest judgment may brighten into mercy. The darkest night may have a morning. The deepest grave has a resurrection portal. A voyage wrapped in whirling storm, and horrible with engulphing dangers, may yet end in safety on a sunny shore." The Story of Jonah , Raleigh

3. God redeems Jonah and the whale spits him out 2:10

In a rather coarse statement we read that the "LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."

There is a rescue, and there is a plan of salvation which Jonah experiences in a dramatic way.

Any time any one turns to the LORD , this is just the case. There is salvation. There is life in the power and love of God.

The Anglican Jeremy Taylor said it this way which so nicely summarizes what we have been thinking about today in the life of Jonah and in our lives as well: "

To rejoice in the midst of misfortune or seeming sadness, knowing, that this may work for good, and will, if we be not wanting to our souls. This is a direct act of hope, to look through the cloud, and look for a beam of the light from God; and this is called in Scripture, 'rejoicing in tribulation,' when the God of hope fills us with all joy in believing. Every degree of hope brings a degree of joy." Jeremy Taylor "