Jonah 2:2 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.
7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple.
9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”
Jonah now acknowledges that God put him where he is, and he accepts His discipline. “Sheol” is the “grave”, the “pit” or the “abode of the dead”. Did Jonah die, or was he only nearly dead from three days of fish stomach acid, and little or no air? The text doesn’t say; only that if he didn’t actually leave his body, he came as close as a man can get to it; three days worth. In this nebulous and miserable place Jonah cried out, probably from the deepest depths of his agonized soul…he cried out to the Lord.
First, he gave thanks; quite amazing, but very plausible for a true man of God who has come to his senses. Anyone who truly loves the Lord is grateful for His discipline, painful as it may be. And finally, Jonah repented and consented to “pay what he had vowed”. What this vow was we can only speculate. It may have something to do with a promise of devoted service in connection with his calling as a prophet of the Most High; or it may have been a promise he decided to make right there in the fish’s belly. In any case, he was coming into agreement with the will of God once again. It must have been a great relief.
Jonah then prophesied once again; “Salvation is of the Lord!” Hallelujah! Jonah knew this now in a way and depth unprecedented until this moment of “resurrection”. His near-death experience gave him a depth of revelation of God’s power to save that few of us will ever experience. It will prove to be tremendously effective for the prophet’s future ministry.
“Salvation is of the Lord.” It starts and ends with God. How well do we know this? How often do we relearn it? Jonah’s experience in the belly of a great fish cleared and focused his mind toward what matters most in all this world. In the terrifying darkness, he realized the folly of resisting God’s reality and will. What might we need to sacrifice or endure to reach that level of conviction? Can we honestly pray that the Lord would have His way with us in the midst of all the little ways we “run away” from Him? Jonah’s “quiet place” was forced upon him. But up to now, for most of us, drawing near to the Lord for deeper revelation is still a choice we can make.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Our life, the life of faith, is pervaded by paradox. Life faces us with apparently irreconcilable conditions and realities that we struggle to understand and integrate, sometimes throughout an entire lifetime. The Lord himself exemplifies this reality in his dual identity as the expressed image of God and a fully human male who suffered the worst consequences of sin...without deserving them. We live daily within the paradox of God's perfect holiness and our fundamental human imperfection, constantly needing to accept His grace as we strive toward His perfection.
Throughout the history of the modern state of Israel, there have been accounts of angelic interventions protecting Israeli soldiers in the midst of intense warfare. One instance recounted by an Israeli military historian after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, describes an Israeli soldier in the Sinai taking captive an entire Egyptian column and leading them to where the Israeli troops were. The Egyptian commander was asked why he and his men gave themselves up to the lone Israeli soldier. He responded with surprise, ”One soldier? There were thousands of them.”
During 1941 the United States and Japan were in negotiations to resolve their difference as the rest of the world was at war. The special delegation of Japanese ambassadors, ostensibly sent on this “peace” mission, arrived shortly before the massive surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in which 2,403 Americans were killed, 1143 were wounded, eighteen ships were sunk or grounded, and 300 planes destroyed or damaged. President Franklin Roosevelt called it a “date which will live in infamy.”
The world these days is full of bad news, with tensions growing in the Middle East, economies on the brink of collapse, and nature constantly adding to the chaos with one disaster after another. It's a time of trouble all right, and for us believers it may sometimes be hard to believe – but it never is as bad as it seems. Let me illustrate with a joke I like to share with my messages.
When I’m dealing with what is beyond a normal, average trial, I need to muster a more militant attitude, and I remind myself of this promise; the Lord has given me authority to TREAD upon the enemy … to walk in His victory over every trial and tribulation that life brings.
An artist went searching the streets of New York City for a model to pose for a portrait he wanted to call -- 'The Prodigal'. One day was passing Central Park and saw an impoverished beggar lying on a bench and thought: 'He's perfect! That man would represent the prodigal son beautifully in my painting.' He asked the beggar if he would be willing to sit for his painting and he would gladly pay him for his time. Naturally, the beggar agreed.
Moses was used mightily by the Lord, yet we all know he had his inadequacies and limitations too. Still he was the vessel through which God chose to work through as He carried out the plagues over Egypt, divided the Red Sea and miraculously led and fed the children of Israel for forty years. That's pretty big stuff. Can you imagine having to be Moses' successor after all that? That's exactly what Joshua had to do. I can't even begin to imagine what Joshua was thinking at the time -- How can I possibly live up to Moses? But the Lord comforts and reassures Joshua and says, "as I was with Moses, so I will be with you!"