Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Jonah 2: Belly Prayer

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis starts a new short-series teaching through the book of Jonah. In this second episode in Jonny Ardavanis' series on Jonah. We look to the prayer of Jonah that takes place within the belly of the great fish.In this second chapter of Jonah, we will explore 5 signs of surrender in response to the sovereignty of God. 1. Jonah is humbled under the hand of God. 2. Jonah hungers for God’s Word 3. Jonah thirsts for God’s presence 4. Jonah recommits to faithfulness 5. Jonah has a renewed understanding of grace. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. My voice doesn't typically sound this way, but I just got done preaching at Hume Lake for the week, which is a summer camp in Central California, and my voice is shot. But I wanted to get out this second episode on the short series we're doing in the Book of Jonah because I'm excited about what we're going to look at here in this second chapter. Let's dial in. Okay, let's recap from our first episode. Jonah is a rising star. He's not just a prophet. He's a prophet who has had prophecies fulfilled within his own lifetime. Prophecies that have resulted in the people of God saying to one another, Hey, remember that Jonah guy? Remember he's the one that said that

the borders of our nation would be restored. That actually happened. This guy, Jonah, he must be intimate with the purposes of God. He must have access to the plan of God. Jonah headlines the biggest pastors conferences. He is well known. He's got rapport. He's got respect and that people hold him in high regard. And then Jonah receives a command from God and the command is not obscure or confusing in any way. God tells Jonah, go to Nineveh, go to the land of the Ninevites, those who skin their enemies alive, who worship false idols, go to them, Jonah. Why, you may ask? Well, the answer is because God has a heart of compassion for the lost. This is the great theme of the book of Jonah. Yahweh is a compassionate and merciful God,

even to those like the Ninevites, who are not merely morally insufficient or even morally impoverished, but those that are morally bankrupt. God's plan of redemption and deliverance includes not just the least of these, but the worst of these. This is who God is, but this is too much for Jonah to handle. So Jonah runs from God's presence and rejects God's word. Instead of making the trip 500 miles east to the land of Nineveh,

Jonah goes instead 2,500 miles west to flee not only from Nineveh, but from God's will for his life. The great preacher Donald Gray Barnhouse once said, commenting on Jonah, when you run away from the Lord, you never get to where you are going and you always pay your own fare. But when you go the Lord's way, you always get to where you are going and he pays the fare. This is Jonah's experience throughout the short but significant book over and over again throughout chapter one, the narrative and the Hebrew language employed are highlighting the spiritual decline that is marking the life of Israel's most popular prophet. Jonah is running from Yahweh. Jonah goes down to Joppa, down to the

port, down into the ship. And before he knows it, there's a great storm and the sailors throw him overboard. And then Jonah goes down, down, down into the roaring Mediterranean. We pick up at the beginning of chapter two in the Hebrew Bible, which is actually chapter one, verse 17 in yours. Let me read 117 through the end of chapter two for us. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. 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. And you heard my voice for you had 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 up my life from the pit. Oh Lord, my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay.

Salvation is from the Lord. And then verse 10 concludes, then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. Now, when Jonah instructed the sailors to throw him overboard, you have to understand that there was no expectation or anticipation of a great fish that would swallow him up and deliver him from the roaring seas. No, in fact, Jonah's expectation was certain death. But as we read in verse 17 of chapter one, the Lord appointed a great fish. I love this idea that God appointed, meaning that God looks into the ocean that brings him glory and surveys the fish that do his bidding and says, you great fish, swallow that little man. And the text says Jonah

was in the belly of the great fish for three days. Now, James Montgomery Boyce rightly notes that it is almost a great pity that the fish mentioned in Jonah has attracted so much attention because it detracts from the heart of what this book is actually about. This is true because in felt board stories or veggie tales, we can often become so obsessed with what is happening inside the whale that we miss the drama of what is happening inside Jonah and this epic story. And that's what this chapter is truly about. It says in verse one of chapter two, Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, his God. There's a great deal of difference between believing in God and believing in my God. There's all the difference in the world between believing that the Lord is a shepherd and that the Lord is my shepherd.

And now in chapter two, Jonah will pray to the Lord, his God, a prayer that is fueled by a proper recognition of God's sovereignty. This is what Jonah is beginning to recognize. Assuredly, the sovereignty of God functions as one of the major themes throughout this book. In this short book, think with me, God, he's the one who will hurl a great wind to cause a great storm. He will then appoint a great fish

and then he will cause a great plant to grow in chapter four and it will then be destroyed by a tiny worm. From massive fish to tiny worms, everything in all of creation does the bidding of a sovereign God. There is another profound reality concerning the sovereignty of God that we will cover at the conclusion of this episode. But in this second chapter, we will explore five signs of surrender before a sovereign God. Number one, Jonah is humbled before God. He's humbled in the dark belly of the great fish waist high in water and guts and whatever else the fish had swallowed there. Jonah begins to reflect in verse two. He says, I called out of my distress to the Lord. And he answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol and you heard my voice for you had cast me into

the deep, into the heart of the seas and the current engulfed me. All your breakers and billows passed over me. Jonah found himself here, humbled under the hand of God. Jonah obviously is in great personal physical danger, but the most compelling feeling that he is thinking is not, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. But God is God.

And I am not. God is God. And I am not. It is, if you will, that Jonah is not just merely being physically drowned, but spiritually drowned, endowed by a new sense of the supremacy of God. He says in verse three, that all your breakers and billows are passing over me, meaning that Jonah recognizes that the sovereign God is the one who is doing all this. Yes, the sailors are the instruments of divine providence. They're the ones that threw him overboard, but God is the one that has hurled

him into the sea. In verse five, Jonah says, these weeds, they're wrapping around me. They're engulfing me and they're doing the bidding of God. And he says that they're wrapping all around my head. And the one thing that Jonah cannot get out of his head is that he is just a man and that God is a sovereign king. Jonah becomes appalled at his own rebellion. It's as if there was a mirror inside the belly of the fish, not of his face, but of his soul, where Jonah sees what he has done. This is a prerequisite for not only spiritual usefulness, but for a sinner's restoration to a holy God. In chapter one, Jonah had thought he was on a level where he could put God's will and God's command

under investigation and scrutiny. But now Jonah realizes that those howling winds and those roaring waves are just the puppets of an almighty and sovereign God. Jonah has come to the end of himself. Like the prodigal who found himself in a foul pig pen, Jonah finds himself inside the foul stomach of a great fish. He had to feel the vileness, not just of his environment, but of his own soul in order for God to come and clean

him up and restore him to his purposes. Alistair Begg says, the fish is not a great place to live, but it is a wonderful place to learn. Jonah's terrible experience inside the fish's stomach had made him pliable, moldable, and ready to receive God's instruction. His mouth had been shut. This is the way that Paul puts it in Romans 3, 19, is it not?

Paul says, every mouth must be what? Stopped. Jonah's mouth was shut. He says, I've run, but I cannot hide. God didn't follow me to Joppa. No, he resides over Joppa. He would have known the words of the psalmist saying, where can I go from his spirit? Where can I flee from his presence? If I rise on the wings of the dawn or sail to Tarsus,

the pursuing hand of God is there and I cannot escape him. Martin Luther once said, God made man out of nothing. And as long as we are nothing, he can make something out of us. But if we think we are something, then God will do nothing through us. Jonah is being humbled. He doesn't defend himself with his ministerial experience or religious pedigree. He is simply humbled. No rebuttals, not a word of defense, only humility and recognition that he has sinned against a great and sovereign king. So number one, Jonah is humbled under the hand of God. And secondly here, Jonah hungers for the word of God.

Now, where do we see this in the second chapter? Well, I think it's evident. In this second chapter alone, there are seven to 10 direct references to the book of Psalms in Jonah's prayer. Ferguson states, it's as if Jonah has no original thought of his own. And in the moment of great despair, it's as if the dam of his memory burst open and all he can recite and all he can say to God are God's own words. In other words, the trials that Jonah found himself in led him back to the truths of scripture, which he would have learned sitting upon his mother's knee. The food that had been his nourishment in years past is what is nourishing him here in the belly of a great fish.

Let me give you a few examples. In verse two, when Jonah cries out, I cried out to the Lord in my distress. That's a direct quote from Psalm 120, which says, I called on the Lord in my distress and he answered me. In Psalm 18, it says the same thing. In verse three, Jonah will say, for you had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me and all your breakers and billows passed over me. That's a direct quote from Psalm 69. In verse 4, Jonah says, So I have been expelled from your sight.

This is a direct quote from Psalm 31, 22. When the psalmist cries out, I am cut off from your eyes, O God. In verse 6, Jonah says, I descended to the roots of the mountains. This is derived from Psalm 30, O God. In verse 6, Jonah says, I descended to the roots of the mountains. This is derived from Psalm 30 verse 3, when David says, Lord, you brought me up from the realm of the dead. You spared me from going down to the pit. I think you get the picture. But in the moment of great despair and great danger, what Jonah craves more than anything is the word of God. God's words are

God's gift to those in great affliction. And in the midst of great affliction, Jonah sets his affection upon something he trusts. In the volatility of the fish's stomach, Jonah needed something firm, something to ground him. And there is no greater grounding than the words of God. The word of God is what Jonah had despised in chapter one. Now it is what Jonah desires most here in chapter two. So Jonah is humbled. He's hungering now for the word of God. And third here, Jonah thirsts for the presence of God. In verse four, Jonah cries out. So I said, I have been expelled from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple. He's saying, I've been banished from your sight. I'm no longer in communion with you.

He's saying to God, we're not on speaking terms anymore. We're not talking. This is the greatest tragedy that Jonah is currently enduring. He feels disconnected from the God who made him. This sort of dread of feeling separated or isolated from the presence of God only means something to the individual who has known what it means to live near to God's presence. In verse four, it says, I've been expelled from your sight. Nevertheless, while I look again toward your holy temple. In Hebrew, that's actually a question. Jonah is asking, how shall I ever look upon thy holy temple again? It is a question of despair. Jonah's mind is fixed upon the temple of God. Why?

Well, because that is the only place in the known universe where God has promised to make his presence known. Jonah is not just missing his stomping grounds at the temple. He is thirsting for the presence of the God that he had previously been running from. Facing physical death and the reality of feeling disowned by God, Jonah yearns again for the divine presence of Yahweh. Sin is sapping, not just because it doesn't satisfy, but because it impedes the fellowship and communion we have with God.

Jonah was a prophet. He would have had sweet times of fellowship with his God. Oh, and in the belly of the great fish, the tragedy amidst the tragedy was that Jonah felt disconnected from God. Have you ever longed for the presence of God? Does your understanding of sin drive you towards God's presence or away from his presence as in the garden. Psalm 16, 11 says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. This is what Jonah desires. The pleasures extended to those who live near to the presence of God. And this is what Jonah is thirsting after.

Well, fourthly here, Jonah makes a recommitment to faithfulness. In verses eight and nine, he says, those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I haveed, I will pay. Because Jonah has sensed the sovereignty of God, he's now beginning to look in the mirror and recognize all of the idols that are in his own life. He says, those who regard vain idols, those are vanities. They're the worlds in our own fleshes, empty promises. Jonah is saying, I will eradicate from my life those vain idols that may be unapparent to others, but are so apparent and obvious to God. Jonah is essentially singing with the hymn writer, oh Lord, take my life and let it be consecrated to thee. Take my moments

and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of their love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee. One of the things that happens when we are spiritually awakened to the sovereignty and holiness of God is that we want to double down on eliminating anything in our life that dishonors God. We make this commitment and we write it down. What God forbids, I reject. And what God commands, I embrace.

And this is what Jonah is doing in the belly of the great fish. An idol doesn't need to be a statue of silver or gold. An idol or a vanity here is anything that we worship, anything that demands your affection, interest, time, and desires more than God himself. Jonah might have had a number of idols, but the most prominent one here in the story of Jonah may have been his own reputation. He cared about preserving what people thought about him more than he cared about obeying what God had commissioned him to do. How could he be the one to take the gospel to the heathen Ninevites? His people will think he's a

joke. We will discuss this in greater detail in chapter four, but the consideration is present for us in chapter two. Consider in your own life, what are the idols that I have? Have you ever confessed them to God? Have you committed to putting them to death? Perhaps like Jonah, the idol in your life is your own reputation. And you might be like Jonah, so afraid of obeying what God has clearly instructed because you think your reputation and your image might take a hit. But Jonah says, no more. I will forsake all vain idols and will faithfully follow my good and sovereign God. Well, fifth and finally here, Jonah has a renewed understanding of grace. At the end of verse nine, Jonah says, salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah is beginning to recognize that God is sovereign, not only over great fish and great winds and great waves, but he is sovereign over lost hearts. Jonah recognizes that God is sovereign over salvation. Spurgeon used to say, Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. Salvation is of the Lord. This is the great theme of the entire Bible from beginning to end. Jonah needed to be put in the fish's belly in order to cry out. Salvation is of the Lord. It's not mine to give. It's not mine to earn. It's all the Lord's from beginning to end.

It's his, it's his. I cannot earn it. I cannot buy it. I cannot give it. Salvation is of the Lord because it belongs to him. So often because of Jonah's relapse into selfishness and disobedience in chapter four, chapter two is taught in a way that rejects the idea that Jonah is truly repentant here. But I think what we see here is the genuine repentance of an imperfect

man, a testimony of the reality that God is exercising and demonstrating his patience with a fugitive prophet who runs away from God's will, who receives and needs God's mercy. I'm so thankful for God's mercy because this story is not just a testament of God's mercy to heathen sailors or to the heathen Ninevites. It's a chronicle of God's mercy to his own children. And we'll pick that up in chapter three, stay dialed in.