A Psalm of Thanksgiving

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice. 3 For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. 7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple. 8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.” 10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Commonly known as a Psalm of Thanksgiving, this passage from Jonah is saturated with the psalms themselves.

The New King James Version Chapter 2

2 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:

“I acried out to the LORD because of my affliction,

bAnd He answered me.

“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

And You heard my voice.

3 cFor You cast me into the deep,

Into the heart of the seas,

And the floods surrounded me;

dAll Your billows and Your waves passed over me.

4 eThen I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;

Yet I will look again ftoward Your holy temple.’

5 The gwaters surrounded me, even to my soul;

The deep closed around me;

Weeds were wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to the 1moorings of the mountains;

The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;

Yet You have brought up my hlife from the pit,

O LORD, my God.

7 “When my soul fainted within me,

I remembered the LORD;

iAnd my prayer went up to You,

Into Your holy temple.

8 “Those who regard jworthless idols

Forsake their own 2Mercy.

9 But I will ksacrifice to You

With the voice of thanksgiving;

I will pay what I have lvowed.

mSalvation is of the nLORD.”

10 So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Psalm 120:1 NKJV

1 In my distress I cried to the Lord, And He heard me.

There is at least one equivalent verse from Psalms for each verse in this chapter of Jonah. 12 passages from psalms and almost as many from Isaiah and other prophets make up the content of this Prayer of Jonah.

There is speculation that either Jonah derived his prayer from them or they were derived from Jonah’s prayer. Scholars cannot agree.

My thinking is that Jonah derived the words of his prayer from the abundance of scripture he was familiar with, particularly the psalms.

Listen to the psalms and the one verse from Job, as they are used by Jonah:

Psalm 120:1 NKJV

1 In my distress I cried to the Lord, And He heard me.

Psalm 54:2 NKJV

2 Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth.

Psalm 65:2 NKJV

2 O You who hear prayer, To You all flesh will come.

Psalm 88:6 NKJV

6 You have laid me in the lowest pit, In darkness, in the depths.

Psalm 42:7 NKJV

7 Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.

Psalm 31:22 NKJV

22 For I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before Your eyes”; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications When I cried out to You.

Psalm 5:7 NKJV

7 But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.

Psalm 69:1 NKJV

1 Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.

Psalm 16:10 NKJV

10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

Psalm 18:6 NKJV

6 In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

Psalm 31:6 NKJV

6 I have hated those who regard useless idols; But I trust in the Lord.

Psalm 50:14 NKJV

14 Offer to God thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High.

Job 22:27 NKJV

27 You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, And you will pay your vows.

Psalm 3:8 NKJV

8 Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing is upon Your people. Selah

Jonah 2 NKJV

Job 2 NKJV

1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” 3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.” 4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” 6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. 11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. 12 And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. 13 So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2

There is a consistency with Jonah and other men of God that presents itself in this - those that frequent the word of God and keep it in their heart, are prone to use it in prayer extensively.

And seeing that both, the psalms and Jonah are the very inspired word of God, it makes sense that there would be so much consistency between the two!

Four observations I’d like to make from the text this morning:

I. There are places that promote Prayer.

Although we can and certainly should pray everywhere, There are no doubt places that are more conducive for the Christian’s communion with God, whether that place is a good one or not.

For this observation we’ll look at the good ones.

Jesus said that when you pray, go into your private room or closet, and close the door.

1 Timothy 5:17 NKJV

17 Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.

Jesus said that when you pray, go into your private room or closet, and close the door.

Matthew 6:6 NKJV

6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

The memoirs of David Brainerd cast light upon the importance of prayer as well as the place:

“In the afternoon, though very ill, was enabled to spend some considerable time in prayer; spent indeed most of the day in that exercise; “

Edwards, J. (1974). The works of Jonathan Edwards (Vol. 2, p. 349). Banner of Truth Trust.

*It should be noted that Brainerd was deep in the woods of Connecticut at this time.

We are told that many times our Lord retired to a solitary place in the mountains to pray.

Mark 6:46 NKJV

46 And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.

Luke 9:28 NKJV

28 Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

We see the Apostle Peter retreating to a solitary place:

Acts 10:9 NKJV

9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour.

Where is your place of prayer?

How mush time do you spend in it?

But these places are the places we choose to enter.

What about the places we find ourselves in because of our own foolishness?

The second observation:

II. There are situations that are designed to bring repentance.

I think many of us can testify of times that we have found ourselves in a predicament and realized that we have gone astray from the Lord!

What are we to do in such situations?

Repent!

God allows us to stay there

He Prays!!!

Turn from what brought us there and embrace the path God has for us!

This is the way of a Christian.

Perhaps like:

becoming angered or even enraged!

allowing ourselves to dwell on the negative problem , becoming overanxious, and driving ourselves into a depression.

or overreacting and allowing our blood pressure to sore!

And the common denominator between all of these things, is a loss of health, physically and spiritually.

This is the way of a Christian.

We are to be people, who draw closer to God in all circumstances, even in the belly of a fish!

And what do we say about repentance?

Is it not a change of mind?

Is it not an opportunity to leave what is insane and return to the God of sanity?

If our own actions got us into the mess, why complicate the problem by trying another ungodly way?

A. We need to be aware of these situations.

Because Christians have the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, they know when they are running from God, because the Spirit gives them enlightenment.

We may have read something in the Bible and our conscience bothers us because our actions don’t line up!

Now, don’t get this confused with God’s sovereignty

Maybe we are at odds with someone who we refuse to forgive or ask forgiveness of?

The situations are circumstances we find ourselves in when we are at odds with God’s word or His Spirit.

They are problems we’ve brought to ourselves by bad choices.

They are situations we find ourselves in and we know God is using them to get our attention.

B. We need to confess our sin and turn to God.

Jonah finally comes to the place where He can look up!

And in this posture, He blurts out his confession and turns to God.

This is what the Christian today must do, just as Jonah did, and every true believer throughout the ages has done.

This is what is lacking in our fellowships today.

This is why we are weak and spiritually anemic!

The third observation:

III. There is hope in the spiritual, but futility in the natural.

There is wisdom in verses 5&6 about the natural things.

Jonah 2:5–6 NKJV

5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.

The water that surrounded Jonah that was sucking him down to its depths, and capturing him with the tentacles of it’s weeds, was the same sea that provided for his escape in the beginning of this tragedy.

Isn’t that the way it goes for man?

How many times our own endeavors have been the very death of us!

How many situations we embarked upon have become the very thing that would enslave us!

We are so good at ignoring God and disobeying Him, that the situations that should drive us to prayer and worship, become the things that squelch the Spirit within and shrivel up our spiritual life.

Verse 8 clearly points this out!

Jonah 2:8 NKJV

8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy.

We are extremely idolatrous people!

The idols of our lives are legion!

Sports, sex, relationships, money, material possessions, work, play,etc.

You name it, and there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the believers and non-believers.

Christians are just as idolatrous as heathens, in some cases more so!

God takes a back seat to everything else in life that we deem more important than Him!

Recently, a friend on facebook wrote how you don’t have to attend church to spend time with God.

Although true, What he was really saying, was that I don’t have time to attend church, or I don’t want to go to church.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that kind of thinking.

A believer who is walking closely with the Lord, desires to be in fellowship with other believers and join in corporate worship!

They can’t wait to get to their small group and talk about the scriptures.

They love to encourage their brothers and sisters in Christ!

When I was young, I couldn’t wait for the holidays.

I loved being with my extended family and partake of the stories and feelings of community.

A Christian who doesn’t look forward to getting together with the family of God is a broken believer!

What they need, is a new mindset!

Romans 12:1 NKJV

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:1–2 NKJV

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Did you see that?

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is what happened to Jonah!

And it’s what needs to happen to us.

The fourth observation:

IV. Confession and sacrifice are the emblems of a changed heart.

Jonah expresses words that sound like someone who has just come to Christ.

Because, they are the words of true repentance!

Jonah 2:9 NKJV

9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”

Zacheus expresses the same thing in Luke 19 when He says that he will repay four fold what he has extorted from people as a tax collector.

I believe that Christians excuse themselves far too often, when they have gone astray.

Perhaps, they don’t think they have strayed?

After all, they aren’t in a fishes belly!

Ah! but they are wayward in their walk with the Lord.

I believe there are some practical situations that we can use as litmus tests to properly ascertain where we are in this spiritual walk.

A. What occupies our minds?

B. How much time do we spend in the word and prayer?

C. How tender are we to the Spirit’s direction?

D. Do we see other’s faults and measure them by our standard?

E. Are we quick to respond defensively when a brother or sister points out a flaw in us?

You see, the mere fact that you think you’re spiritual does not in itself make you spiritual.

The Pharisees and Sadducees, that were coming to the river Jordan to partake of John the baptist’s baptism thought they were clean spiritually; but John told them to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance ().

And so we as children of the King, must offer worship and praise to God constantly, and pay to God the things we have vowed as Christians!

What things have we vowed?

To trust Him through every trial.

To serve Him with our whole heart.

To love and obey Him always.

To make our life a living sacrifice.

To assemble regularly with other believers.

To encourage and lift up one another.

To tithe, giving freely and cheerfully.

To make Christ known to everyone.

To pray without ceasing.

But you say, wait a minute! I never vowed such things! I just asked Jesus into my life and took His free gift of salvation!

You’re right!

You never did vow those specific things and more, but in accepting the free gift, you accepted the Lordship of Christ, and a relationship in the family of God who has given you His life manual (The Bible) to keep your new faith alive, and to show you what you must do to walk in His grace.

And in that manual are many things you are endowed to keep.

There is no salvation without this relationship!

They say, “I promise to love and cherish you, through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death do us part...”

My brothers and sisters, we have so much to be thankful for.

And so, my brothers and sisters, we have so much to be thankful for!

Salvation is of the Lord

Why do we not offer our bodies a living sacrifice, Holy, acceptable to the Lord?

Hebrews 13:15 NKJV

15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.