Jonah Chapter 2 Number 8

John Capill

Jonah • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

Jonah 2:1–10

0 ratings

· 1 view

Notes

Transcript

THE PRAYER OF JONAH

JONAH CHAPTER 2 Number 8

Read: Jonah Chapter 2: PRAY

INTRODUCTION

Last time we came to the end of Jonah Chapter 1 and what many see as the climax of the book: Jonah being cast into the sea and swallowed by a huge fish.

We looked at three things, last time:

1. Jonah’s confession.

2. The sailor’s conversion.

3. The Lord’s great compassion.

1. Jonah Renewed his Confession

The sailors ask Jonah in verse 11 what they should do to stop the great storm.

And Jonah’s response is given to us in verse 12:

He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm [g]for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.”

We noted three things from Jonah’s solution:

i) He unreservedly surrenders himself to death as the means of solving this appalling affliction they were in – the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. God was heaping on the pressure. There was no alternative left!

ii) There is a renewed confession of his own sinfulness and responsibility for what was happening. He says, “I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.” He holds himself responsible before them and indeed before God.

iii) He utters a prophesy: he predicts what will happen if they do as he suggests: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you…”. And again, we find Jonah to be a true prophet, because what he predicts actually comes to pass.

So Jonah submits to the Lord’s judgement after confessing his own responsibility. That’s his confession.

2. But what about the sailor’s conversion?

We looked at three symptoms that point to their true conversion:

1. Their procedure with Jonah shows a certain righteousness – they try to save his life, demonstrating they are created in God’s image and therefore seek to uphold the sanctity of life. AND they demonstrate a true fear of Yahweh. You will recall that their “fear” of the Lord is mentioned 3 times in chapter 1.

2. Their prayers to the Lord show a marked change. They are now not made to some pagan deity but in humility and awe they are made to Yahweh Himself. There is a sincerity and humility in their prayer of verse 14. There is a demonstration of faith – something missing earlier on.

3. They utter praise to Yahweh – they offer a sacrifice to the Lord, showing they knew they needed a substitute, and then they made vows to the Lord, even AFTER the sea had become still. I put it to you that showed the sincerity of the change that had taken place in their hearts.

1. The Jonah’s confession.

2. The Sailors Conversion.

But we finished with just one more observation, and that is:

3 The Lord’s compassion

We are told two things happen after the sailors finally throw Jonah into the sea; two things that show the Lord’s great compassion and His absolute sovereignty:

i) The sea immediately stops its raging. God is in control of the wind and the waves. He brings peace. He saves the sailors lives.

ii) And God sent a big fish to rescue Jonah.

- It appeared to the sailors that he had died: a criminal pursed by divine justice.

- Yet, even in death, Jonah triumphed over death.

- He committed himself to God in meekness, humility, and faith.

- Relying on Divine pardon and protection, he committed his body to the sea and his soul to the God he feared.

- And so the chapter ends showing the Lord’s great compassion to him, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

What do you make of this great fish?

Sadly, for some liberals, they use this to cast doubt on the authority of the Word of God.

- They think it is far-fetched.

- They think the book is mythology.

- Maybe a parable with a moral meaning.

- And they reduce the Word of God from being the infallible, inerrant Word of God and put it in the category of fables.

I’m confident that that is not true of you, brothers and sisters!

Surely it is enough for us that IF the Word of God says Jonah was rescued by a great fish, that is exactly what happened – surely, we believe that God is great; that He is sovereign; and that this is historically accurate.

But having said that, the Word of God is often supported by evidences, outside of the Word of God, that only enhance our faith in this being the literal and errant Word of God.

So let me say this: this incident is not as farfetched as some have made out.

The fact is: there are some species of whale and large fish that are quite capable of swallowing a person alive and for that person to survive.

Clearly it would be a very uncomfortable experience, to say the least. Research shows that:

- While there would be enough air to breath inside such a great creature, it would be extremely hot and uncomfortable.

- And the gastric juices are likely to affect the skin and bleach you white.

- You are not going to come out unscathed.

An article in the Princeton Theological Review in 1927 contains an instance this happening on a whaling ship called the Star of the East in February 1891, near the Falkland Islands:

- Two boats were launched to go after a whale and in a short while one of the harpooners speared the fish.

- Those in the second boat attempted to launch a second harpoon, but their boat capsized.

- One man was drowned and a second sailor, James Bartley, was assumed drowned.

- Eventually the whale was killed and drawn to the side of the ship where the blubber was removed.

- But the next day the stomach was hoisted on to the deck.

- When it was opened, they found James Bartley - unconscious but nonetheless alive.

- He survived and went back to his duties as a sailor on board the ship.

The article goes on to point out that the fish in the book of Jonah may NOT have been a whale; that the Hebrew text merely says “dag”, which is NOT the Hebrew word for whale. It may refer to ANY kind of great fish and the article names a Sea Dog shark as a possibility. It grows to a colossal size and doesn’t have the normal teeth associated with other sharks.

Well, there is much other evidence that points to the historicity of what is written in the book of Jonah.

But I come back to our first premise: this is the Word of God and is not a story made up by the invention of men. It is not mythology.

Whatever evidence there is only goes to support our premise: this is God’s truth and He prepared this great fish to save His servant in His grace and mercy and His sovereign compassion. And it is that sovereignty that Jonah himself acknowledges in chapter 2.

And so now we turn to the prayer of Jonah from inside the great fish in chapter 2.

I’ve already suggested to you that Jonah shows signs of repentance from his sin before he was tossed into the sea. The prayer we have in Chapter 2 only confirms that, because while it is uttered inside the great fish, it contains testimony as to what happened while he was still in midst of the mighty waves.

What does this prayer teach us?

Well, this morning we are going to look at the general characteristic of the prayer and then next time, Lord willing, we will look at some specific elements of this prayer.

What can we say about the general tenor of this prayer?

Surely it is this: that this is a prayer of great faith in God, is it not?

I say that because what we have in Chapter 2 is a record of where reason and his senses are telling Jonah one thing, but faith clings on in hope to Yahweh regardless.

There is a battle between what one is experiencing on the one hand, and faith in the Lord on the other hand.

That is the nature of true faith, is it not?

“It is the assurance of things hoped for”; it is NOT about the things you see or the evidence that is before you.

Faith clings to what you don’t see and what you hope for in the future.

That makes this very relevant to us, does it not? Every true believer knows what it is to have their faith tested.

- To have circumstances that appear to extinguish all hope.

- To have difficulties and trials that seem to make the future look hopeless.

- But Believers are to walk in the steps of the father of faith, Abraham. He believed and trusted God when all reason and every sense contradicted it.

- Romans 4:18 says, “Against hope he believed in hope.”

- The facts appeared to be against him…

- He, and Sarah his wife, were old but they had the promise of a son.

- Had Abraham hope rested on reason, on nature, or on senses, his faith would have failed.

- But his faith did not rest on reason. “He believed in hope!”

- His faith destroyed the hope-destroying power of reason and the senses.

That, my friends, is faith in action, is it not?

Surrounded by events, circumstances, and powers, all adverse to your deliverance and salvation, you continue to hope; your “faith looks not to what is seen but to what is unseen”. It looks to God and not outward appearances.

The conflict between reason and faith is spelt out beautifully in 2 Cor 4:8-11. It gives several contrasts between two realities:

“We are troubled on every side (that’s reason speaking); yet not distressed (that’s faith); we are perplexed (according to reason); but (through faith) not in despair; persecuted (senses telling you that); but not forsaken (faith looking up).”

Do you see what I mean?

2 Cor 1:9 puts it like this:

“Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; “

When all your hope is gone, and you have the very sentence of death within yourself, it compels you to draw near to God in faith.

Think of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord in Genesis 32. Do you remember that?

God might come to us with all the appearances of opposition and hostility, but it is done in order that we may flee to the anchor of His pure and simple Word and lean on that alone.

- The Angel wrestled with Jacob.

- He refused to give Jacob his desire to be blessed.

- If Jacob believed in nothing more, nothing higher than what he saw and felt in that wresting match, he would have left without any blessing. He would have been defeated.

- BUT like Abraham “against hope he believed in hope”. Even when feeling the pain of the Lord’s opposition, he trusted God’s Word.

- He trusted the promises.

- He had grounds to do so because he inherited the covenant promises as the ground of his faith.

- They expressed the mind of God and showed His heart towards Jacob, despite the wrestling match.

- By the Word of God Jacob held on to the promise, “I will bless you and make you a great blessing.”

- And so he fights on and says,” I will not let you go except you bless me.”

- And God blesses him right there and then!

Well, I want to put it to you that you see this battle between what your senses and reason might be telling you, on the one hand, and what faith hopes for, on the other hand, in this prayer of Jonah.

So in the time that remains let’s just compare what the senses and reason are telling Jonah compared with the faith he demonstrates as he cries to Yahweh from inside the belly of the great fish.

1. What does the side of Reason and his senses tell him?

Well, he talks about two things: he talks about his situation, and he speaks of the source of what he was experiencing. And both of these things battle against his faith.

Look at what he tells us about his situation:

He calls what he is going through ‘my affliction’.

Look at verse 2:

“I called out of my distress to the Lord,”

He was in great affliction. He was distressed. His life was on the line. This prayer doesn’t come in a vacuum.

And he continues in verse 2 to be more specific:

“I cried for help from the [b]depth of Sheol.”

The “depth of Sheol” is literally the “belly of Sheol”. And Sheol refers to either the place of death, the grave, or to the place where the wickard are assigned after death.

He saw himself as being buried alive, as it were, in the heart of the sea.

Verse 3 goes on:

“For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current [c]engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.

He is describing for us what it was like to be tossed into the heart of the sea. This is a drowning man describing his experience.

But he doesn’t stop at a general expression of facts, does he? He gives more details of the Lord’s discipline on him. There is, in his description, a real sense of utter horror that swept over him.

Look at verse 5:

“Water encompassed me to the [e]point of death. The great deep [f]engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head.”

This man was drowning and being strangled to death by the weeds that wrapped around his face and head. He goes on in verse 6:

“I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever”

When you go on a cruise in Milford Sound, you not only witness mountains protruding out of the sea, but you are told that the sea is extremely deep. It descends in depth as high as the mountains that surround the sounds.

And so here, Jonah says, he descended to the roots of the mountains. He was literally in deep water!

And not only that, but it felt like a prison from which there was no escape: the bars were around him wherever he looked!

He was closed in. His freedom was gone. Hope was gone. There was no escape. That’s what he was experiencing. That’s what his senses told him.

Can you think of anything more frightening and life threatening than his description?

What a miracle of grace that he could compose himself in these circumstances to cry out to God in prayer. For his prayer starts while he is still in the sea and continues from inside the stomach of the great fish.

But there is more. He doesn’t just talk about his experience of the situation, but…

Look at what he tells us about the source of this affliction.

This is very important.

The mere circumstances he has described here are but a small part of what might hinder the prayer of faith.

Think about the source to which he traces this affliction!

He saw the Lord’s hand of judgement in all that had come upon him!

If this was a mere accident at sea; a man overboard, it would be bad enough. It would have been alarming and terrifying. But the situation is far worse than that:

- God had clothed Himself in the garb of a Judge – not just any ordinary Judge, but One who is incensed and offended!

- He has followed his servant with all due judicial process.

- He summons Jonah to His tribunal.

- Jonah himself witnessed against himself that he was, in fact, guilty at the bar of God’s justice.

Then God sentenced him to death and oversaw the execution Himself at the hands of the sailors.

- It was as if God was pursuing him as an enemy.

- He is the source of this affliction.

A mere accident would be bad enough but when all the terrors are coming as part of God’s controversy with His servant, he cries out:

“You” have cast me into the deep.

“All Yourbillows… all Your waves have gone over me.”

Does this not aggravate his circumstances, my friends?

Terrible in themselves, they are 100-times worse, when they come as messengers of Divine judgement and anger!

Surely it reminds us of David’s cry in Psalm 39:9-10:

“I have become mute, I do not open my mouth, because it is You who have done it. Remove Your plague from me; because of the opposition of Your hand I am perishing.”

So the situation is terrifying and it is made infinitely worse knowing that the source is none other than God Himself.

So what impact does the situation and the source have on Jonah’s psychology?

Well, he is completely dispirited in his soul, is he not? The situation looks utterly hopeless.

Look at verse 4:

“So I said, ‘I have been expelled from [d]Your sight.”

That gives you insight into his psyche does it not?

It looks like the door on hope is fastened shut. You can hear his despondency and almost utter despair.

What feeling could be more dreadful? To be cast out of God’s sight; thrust away from Him – how terrible for an awakened soul!

He was banished from the light of the sun; shut up in the depths of the ocean, among the roots of the mountains. But worse than that, he felt cut off from God Himself. How utterly terrible!

The psalmist says, “In Your presence is fulness of joy”; but out of Your presence is the second death for evermore!

If you are asleep in sin, my dear friend, you might not think this is too bigger a calamity to dwell away from the presence of God. But that is just a statement on the state of your heart.

If you have the light of life in you, nothing can be worse than the thought you are expelled from God’s sight. The saved cling to the promise: “he that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.”

Jonah says, “I have been expelled from Your sight.” Nothing could be worse.

He says again in verse 7:

“While [h]I was fainting away,”

His senses were telling him life itself was ebbing away in utter despair.

Literally, “My soul enfolded itself in me.”

This is what his senses were communicating to his brain.

Outwardly he was afflicted by unspeakable terrors of drowning.

And those terrors were only heightened when he considered the source of them was none other than the God he worshipped.

And the impact was to leave him on the verge of despair.

Apply:

Have you ever been in that sort of situation?

Has everything looked so dark, that you wonder if you will ever be able to see the light again?

Have you ever experienced God’s hand turned against you because of your sin?

What do you do with that?

Do you give in to those feelings? Do you give up all hope? Or do you still trust the Lord despite it all?

My friends, Jonah’s story doesn’t end with a description of how terrible his experience was.

There is another side to the coin.

If reason and senses are telling him all these dark things….

2. What does faith say for Jonah?

The turning point is Verse 4. He says:

“So I said, ‘I have been expelled from [d]Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’

When all the outward signs and senses are saying the situation is hopeless, Jonah clings, by God’s grace, to faith: “Nevertheless, I will look again….”.

That is faith speaking, is it not?

How is his faith evidenced here?

Four things we are going to touch on briefly:

i) Prayer is uttered.

ii) Promises are clung to

iii) Precepts are proclaimed.

iv) Praise is given.

Prayer is uttered.

That is what Chapter 2 is all about, is it not?

The first step of faith is to engage in prayer.

It wasn’t just any prayer to any deity, but “he prayed to the Lord HIS God” verse 1.

Yahweh was HIS God. That is a statement of faith in itself, is it not?

He has not given up on his covenant interest in God. He still maintains that the Lord was HIS God. It is personal. He draws near to HIS God.

As God’s child, he knew that God would not abandon him.

Verse 2 surely confirms this:

“I called out of my distress (literally out of my affliction) to the LORD… I cried for helpfrom the depth of Sheol.”

His affliction constrained him to pray. So often it takes God’s discipline; His affliction towards us, to drive us back to Him - from backsliding and from disobedience.

Sin and rebellion do the exact opposite. It induces hardness of heart.

Our heart becomes insensible to the things of God. Our conscience becomes seared as with a hot iron as the Apostle Paul writes.

Sin seals our lips from crying out to God. It produces coldness of heart, artificiality, distance and we become estranged from our heavenly Father. Dead formalism takes the place of a living, heart-breathing prayer to God.

But when affliction comes to the child of God, all that is different.

When you are raw and struggling, then all formality in your prayers is gone. Faith constrains truth in your inward being and a greater earnestness to draw near to God! Prayer becomes real and vital!

That is what we see in Jonah chapter 2, is it not?

Prayer is uttered by Jonah in faith.

Apply:

When you end up in darkness, my dear friend, do you do as the psalmist does again and again – cry out to God with earnestness and sincerity?

Do you run to the fountain of all hope?

Do you go to your heavenly Father, who patiently waits for us to return to Him?

Surely, that is what faith does – it drives us to cry out to the Lord for help. Prayer is uttered by Jonah.

A second evidence of faith is….

Promises are clung to.

Jonah reminds himself of the Lord’s promised forgiveness and His willingness for there to be reconciliation.

How do we know that?

Well in Hebrew IF something is very important it is underscored by repeating it. It is like putting something in bold in your Bibles.

And so in verse 4 it says,

“Nevertheless, I will look again towards Your holy temple.”

And again it is repeated in verse 7:

“And my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple.”

What is this repeated reference to the temple all about?

It is Jonah clinging on to promises! The temple, my friends, is the place where God chose to place His name.

There He gave the symbols of His presence as a God of love; a God who dwelt between the cherubim; God on the blood-sprinkled mercy seat!

Jonah is not referring to temples made with human hands. He is not just looking back with nostalgia to the temple in Jerusalem. He has already confessed in chapter 1:9:

“I fear the God of heaven, that made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah knows His God is everywhere present and from his experience of Yahweh he knows the truth of Isa 30:18 which says He is,

“a God waiting to be gracious, exalted to have mercy; a God of judgment: giving His blessing to all that wait upon Him.”

Perhaps Jonah was recalling Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple which held out the hope of forgiveness.

2 Chronicles 6 records that wonderful prayer. It covers many different situations the people of God might face. It says this in verses 28 - 30:

28 “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their [m]cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is, 29 whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man or by all Your people Israel, [n]each knowing his own affliction and his own pain, and spreading his hands toward this house, 30 then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive…”

Although God chose to put His name in the Temple, Solomon states that no man-made Temple could possibly contain Him; that God would hear from heaven any prayer that was uttered in faith towards the Lord – that’s the promise Jonah is clinging to!

Jonah’s faith is in God’s willingness to be reconciled with sinners. He is clinging to that promise of redemption. As he finishes his prayer in verse 9: “Salvation is from the Lord”.

My friends, how much more should our faith rise within us now that we have seen Christ, by the temple of His body, secure our reconciliation by the blood of the eternal covenant!

There is nothing more certain and provable that God is reconcilable, accessible and forgiving than we find in the gracious way He has appointed for us to come to Him through Christ.

- In the midst of the throne there stands “a Lamb as if it had been slain”

- There is “an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.”

- His blood has been sprinkled on the mercy seat on the day of Atonement.

God’s holy temple, the most holy place, is the place of free and open access to the sinner, with all the weight and all the weariness, with all the guilt and the shame and the pollution:

“I said I am cast out of Your sight, nevertheless I will look again towards Your temple”

Oh let the Holy Spirt reveal and apply this to our hearts this morning!

- In the promise of the Father

- In the righteousness of the Son

- By the blood of our Saviour

- And in the power of the Holy Spirit…

That is enough to be the ground of faith that rises above the wind and the waves of affliction and sends us to God Himself!

Hebrews 4:14-16 puts it this way:

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.”

That is a promise that the Lord God has given us.

And so when you are in a dark place, my friend. When you have sinned against the Lord and He has disciplined you in His love, you need to go to Christ who has made atonement on the mercy seat:

- Look towards the true Temple.

- He has satisfied Divine justice,

- Paid the penalty for sin.

- Clothed you in His righteousness.

- Opened the door to reconciliation.

- Salvation is from the Lord!

- That is our only hope!

Prayer is uttered!

Promises are clung to!

Thirdly….

Precepts are proclaimed.

It is easy to testify of God’s grace when the trial is over - words are cheap, are they not?

But Jonah shows the strength of grace in him in his words are uttered while the trial lasts. He starts this prayer in the midst of the sea and continues in the belly of the great fish.

Look at verse 6 and see what Jonah proclaims as a true prophet of God:

“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 [g]the pit, O Lord my God.

He says he has descended to the roots of the mountains. BUT he proclaims by faith:

“But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.”

Isn’t that an amazing testimony while still under trail?

He isn’t out of trouble at this point.

He is still inside the belly of the great fish.

He doesn’t know for sure that he will live!

Yet he speaks as if he is already delivered. He speaks that way by faith, does he not?

He is declaring the precept of salvation!

It is God’s power to bring deliverance that is still future and speak of it as if it were present – that’s the point.

Great faith sees deliverance as a done deal. That is the precept Jonah declares from inside the fish – He has saved me!

“We walk by faith, not by sight.”

Paul does the same thing in Romans 7. There he is talking about our sin and how we are unable to escape its custody. The good I would do, I do not do; the evil I would not do, I do. And then he cries out:

“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

- The delivery he looks for is still future.

- Who SHALL deliver me is the question.

- And the answer is certain; it is as if it is complete and final already.

- AND Paul goes on and gives thanks through Jesus Christ his Lord.

- We are already saved in hope.

Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:24, 25:

“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Jonah’s faith is seen in declaring his salvation even before it has happened. That’s the precept he proclaims.

His hope rests on the power of God.

Dear brother and sister: do you have that sort of faith?

Faith that sees what we are asking for as a done deal?

Faith that doesn’t wait for sight, but looks forward in hope?

Great faith that doesn’t look to what is seen or to what senses tell you, BUT:

- Utters prayer.

- Clings to promises.

- Declares precepts of salvation.

Well just one more thing that we will just touch on for completeness:

Praise is given.

Look at verse 9:

“But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.”

Jonah is now:

- Delivered from his guiltiness.

- He is reconciled with God in peace.

- And now he presents himself before God in His holy temple by faith.

And what does he do?

- He offers a sacrifice of praise!

- And looks forward, in faith, to paying his vows to the Lord.

Although he is still shut up in the watery grave to which he has been cast; although he is feeling the heat and the stench of the fish’s great stomach; and dwelling in the shadow of the valley of death….

Yet hear him as he sings with praise – like Paul and Silas singing in the darkness of the prison after being beaten for Christ.

Singing the words of Psalm 118:27:

“The Lord is God and He has given us light.”

Light that shines in the darkness. Light that shines even in the valley of the shadow of death… Jonah cries with the sacrifice of thanksgiving and promises to fulfill his vows.

My friends who are downcast and troubled:

- If you praise God joyfully when He gives you what you desire, what is the basis of your praise?

BUT if you praise Him and promise to serve Him with vows when all is still darkness, does that not result in real praise that honors God and extols the greatness of His salvation?

Do you see what I mean?

I put it to you that thanks should flow from us based on His promises, and therefore can and should spring from us:

- While our trail still lasts

- While the ‘thorn in the flesh’ remains

- While hope is plunged into the depth of the sea and there is no sign of restoration.

- That is the time for praise that comes from the heart of faith.

Oh that we would learn to give thanks and to praise our Lord while the trails still last.

- Isa 50:10 puts it this way:

“Who is among you that fears the Lord, That obeys the voice of His servant, That walks in darkness and has no light?

Let him (or her) TRUST in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”

Let the light of trust; of faith; of God’s promise result in praise immediately – as if it is a done deal!

Conclusion

My experiences and senses might be telling me to give up, but faith prays, clings to promises, proclaims salvation and praises the Lord.

I finish with the well-known words of faith in Habakkuk 3:17 and 18:

Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no [o]fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

That is, my friends, the sacrifice of praise that can and must flow from the man or woman of faith.