Jonah 1:17 (NKJV)
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40 (NKJV)
“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jonah: The Rebel God Used
Jonah 2:1 (AMP)
Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish, 2 and said, “I called out of my trouble and distress to the LORD, And He answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, And You heard my voice. 3 “For You cast me into the deep, Into the [deep] heart of the seas, And the currents surrounded and engulfed me; All Your breakers and billowing waves passed over me. 4“Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 “The waters surrounded me, to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 “I descended to the [very] roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars closed behind me [bolting me in] forever, Yet You have brought up my life from the pit (death), O LORD my God. 7 “When my soul was fainting within me, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple. 8 “Those who regard and follow worthless idols Turn away from their [living source of] mercy and lovingkindness. 9 “But [as for me], I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I shall pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!” 10 So the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
When he repented, things began to change.
Dr. Roy Hicks
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and make you pay a price more expensive than you can pay.”
Grace is divine favor given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.
Romans 3:24 (NKJV)
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Unknown quote: Grace is God’s willingness to use His power on your behalf when you don’t deserve it.
Grace is John 3:16 (NKJV)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Jesus died a perfect death and had a perfect resurrection and he let people come in to a place we really don’t deserve to be in.
Grace is for the world.
Jesus died for the world.
Jesus died for the one.
John 6:44 (NKJV)
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…
How do you obtain the grace of God?
You have to believe it.
Ephesians 2:8 (NKJV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; [it is] the gift of God,
Romans 12:3 (NKJV)
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think, but God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
Because Jonah received this grace he was forgiven and, this is important, he was reinstated back into his assignment.
3 Steps of Jonah’s deliverance
1. Jonah Calls.
Jonah 2:2 (AMP)
and said, “I called out of my trouble and distress to the LORD, And He answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, And You heard my voice.
2. Jonah remembers.
The way you remember God is to remember His Word.
Jonah’s prayer is full of references to the Psalms.
He is in trouble, but he gets his eyes off his trouble and himself to remember the scripture he had learned.
The Ark of the covenant in the temple contained the law or the Word of God in the Holy of Holies.
Romans 3:25
Jesus is the propitiation or the appeasement to God’s displeasure of our sin.
How do we look at the temple in the New Testament?
We look at Jesus.
The way we look at Jesus is to look to the scripture.
3. Jonah commits
9 “But [as for me], I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I shall pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!”
He is committing himself.
He is still in the fish.
Nothing has changed.
But he is committing.
You have to commit in the middle of the fish that ate you.
The middle of your fears.
Jonah comes to this conclusion:
Jonah 2:8
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies.
Then God moved.
Jonah 2:10 (AMP)
So the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
“It is commonly thought that Jonah was vomited out on the shores of Nineveh — but we are not told that this was the case, especially because Nineveh is about 375 miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea. If Jonah did walk into Nineveh right from the belly of the fish, it would have been a miraculous projection of the fish’s vomit.”
David Guzik