CHASTENING BY THE LORD PROMOTES HOLINESS

We will continue our study of the remarkable contents of chapter 2. Chastening by the lord promotes holiness. This is its purpose.“For thou hadst cast me into the deep,” verse 3. The deep sufferings Jonah endured were the result of God’s process of recovering him from his backsliding. Sailors’ hands had a part but the superintending power was of God. 

1. His prayer was born of affliction. 

Verses 2, 4. How hard it is to get us to pray!! His prayer was a looking toward God’s holy temple.

2. His chief affliction was losing sight of the Lord. 

Verse 4. To lose the favour of God is a great loss indeed. “For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.” Psalm 31:22.

3. Affliction promotes holiness.

“ . . . yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God,” verse 6. “Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies,” Psalm 103:4. Here is where sin will take us.

THE PROOF OF A TRUE BELIEVER

Contrast Jonah with the men of Revelation 16:21!

1. Trouble turns them to the Lord.

“When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD,” v 7. Backsliding is the Lord slipping from our minds. Restoration entails a recalling and a re-entering of the Lord into our thoughts.

2. In such depths there will be a looking to the Lord. 

Verse 4. There is a turning of the heart and mind toward the Lord. “In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears,” Psa 18:6.

3. The look evolves into a cry. 

Verses 1, 2, 7. The praying took place in the belly of the fish, verses 1-2. The verses 3-6 describe his time in the depths before being swallowed. The place of death became the place of life. The fish that only opened its mouth to kill, opened it to save Jonah!

4. Jonah was heard. 

The elect will be heard of God. We can say with our Saviour: “ . . . thou hearest me always,” John 11:42. We come in the Saviour’s righteousness, in His name and with His accents and are therefore heard of our Father.