I Remembered the Lord: Jonah 2 | Salvation in the Darkest Depths

Watch This Sermon: “I Remembered the Lord”

In Jonah 2, we witness a man at his lowest point. Jonah calls out from the belly of Sheol—and God answers. This sermon explores the deep mercy of the Lord and the hope that remains even in the darkest places. No matter how far down you’ve gone, God hears your cry and brings salvation.

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The good thing about being at the bottom, is that there is no place to look but up. It is in that desperation that we often call out to God with all that is within us. We cry out to God with a depth that we just can’t accomplish when things are going well for us. When you visit people who are in the midst of health concerns or they are facing death, you can see this. In fact, you can feel it. On any given day, these people are faithful and they would say that Jesus is all they’ve got and that he is their only hope. But there is something about confessing that truth in their lives when they are at the bottom. When you say the Lord’s Prayer with a person who is a few days from breathing their last, and then you get to those words, thy will be done. There are so many emotions that are involved. There’s something in their voice and even displayed in their body language that shows a belief and shows a conviction that we don’t just normally have on any normal day. But being brought to the bottom and praying those words, thy will be done, shows our conviction of their truth.

And we can come to God’s word, and we can read the words of the prophets, and we can read the words of the psalmist, who are crying out to God in despair. And suddenly, we’re able to understand what they are saying. We’re able to understand what they are trying to tell us in a new way because we are experiencing what they experienced. They’re at the bottom and they’re crying out to God. Now whether you’ve been there yourself or whether you’ve been there with a family member, you know this. And when you read the story of Jonah, I think we’re able to relate to his desperation. Jonah, he was really at the lowest point and his only hope, his only hope was to cry out to God.

And this passage of scripture that we read from Jonah this morning is one that I think most everyone is familiar with the context of. Whether you were here last week for our first week in Jonah or not, you know where Jonah has been relocated to. You know the story. The story is well known. It is acclaimed, but we still need to set the stage a little bit to feel where this book is taking us. Because Jonah, after running from the word of the Lord to go to the gentile city of Nineveh, he gets on a boat. And we talked about last week that the clear nature of his rebellion is found in his mode of transportation, because you can get to Nineveh from Israel by foot, camel, mule, donkey, skateboard, four wheeler, whatever you got. It just doesn’t happen. Nineveh is landlocked, but taking a boat was a really bad choice for Jonah, because God uses the sea against him. Through his sovereign control of nature, God causes Jonah to be in the belly of the fish here.

And while this seems like an act of judgment to us, we saw last week it was actually an act of great mercy. For his rebellion, God could have struck Jonah down, or he could have let him drown after the sailors chucked him into the Mediterranean Sea. Or even worse, said, fine. Fine, Jonah. You can have what you want. You can go to hell. You can reject me. You can move away. You can have what you want. But that’s not what God did. Now surely, what God is doing here is an act of judgment, but it is also an act of mercy. He has brought Jonah to a place where he can cry out to God in repentance. God has not abandoned Jonah in his sin. Instead, He radically pursues him for a purpose, to bring him to repentance. And we can’t forget this element of the story because it’s essential for us to understand what’s happening in Jonah too. Yes, Jonah is calling out repentance, but he is doing it because God has brought him to this place. God has brought him to a place where he has no hope but God himself.

And before we look at Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish, we have to remember that this is what God does. He brings us to repentance. God brings us to repentance as a gift. He doesn’t say, forget about it. Instead, he convicts us of sin. He comes to us, and he brings us to repentance because he loves us. He radically pursues us. And we see this clearly in Jonah. But in Jonah’s case, I’m guessing, as he was amongst the digestive juices of that fish, that he didn’t think it was a gift. Just guessing there. I’m guessing this, and I think the scripture tells us this because he says that he calls out in his distress. This prayer comes from a place of absolute darkness. He’s not only been thrown into the sea, but he is currently in the process of being digested. And let’s be honest here, Jonah is as good as dead. We can’t even imagine what would be going through his mind.

And it’s from this place that he called out to God. And notice what he says here from the depths of the grave. From the depths of the grave. Like I said, he is as good as dead and he knows it. Now, the 1984 NIV does a good job here of translating what Jonah is saying. The Hebrew word here for this translated depths of the grave is actually the Hebrew word Sheol. And you’ve probably seen that word in your Bible. If not, just straight in your Bible or in the footnotes. And it’s the Hebrew word for the place of the dead or the underworld. And this word essentially draws out the hopelessness of the grave without God. And Jonah uses this word to describe his state of affairs, because apart from the divine rescue, the belly of the fish would have been his grave. And so I bring up the word Sheol, because if we were to translate this with a word for word translation, what it would say here is, From the belly of Sheol, I called for help. And there’s a play on words there. He is in the belly of the fish, and he refers to this as the belly of Sheol. Jonah understands that the belly of the fish is the belly of death. It is the grave. Jonah is saying, I am dead. I am hopeless. I am done for.

But yet, Jonah understands that even at his lowest point, God hears his voice and listens to his cry. Even though God is the one who put him here, he can still call out to him. He acknowledges that God hurled him into the deep. He doesn’t blame the sailors. He understands that God has done this. And God, God didn’t throw him into the kiddie pool. He threw him into the heart of the sea. This wasn’t one of those comedic instances you see in movies where someone thinks they’re drowning and they’re flailing and going everywhere and their friends say, stand up. And they stand up and they’re about that much water. That wasn’t what happened to Jonah here. Jonah was in real trouble. And not only was he in deep water, but he says there were currents and waves going over his head. And if you’ve ever been in a situation where you were worried that you were going to drown, you can really understand what Jonah is thinking and experiencing here. And the text is painting a very clear picture for us. The idea is hopelessness. Hopelessness. It’s an image of descent and it continues talking about what he said about being in the depths of Sheol, in the depths of the grave.

The waves sweep over him. He is consumed, but yet we see that he is not without hope. Look what he says. He knows that he has been banished from the sight of God. He’s a prophet. And even though he knows God is punishing him, even though he ran from his presence, he realizes what an opportunity this has given him. Judgment and punishment from God. Yes. He feels utterly forsaken by God. Yes. But Jonah is clearly optimistic. He believes that he will once again look toward the holy temple of God. And I find this part of this chapter of Jonah to be astounding. A man who ran from the commands of God and was pursued to the point of being thrown into the sea and consumed by a fish, has a faith that he will again look upon the temple. He is in tune with the grace and mercy that God is going to show him. I know what I would have done if I was in the belly. I would have been grieving my own impending death. I would have been lamenting over the mistakes I’ve made and the people I’ve hurt, the time I’ve wasted. But not Jonah. Not Jonah. From the very deepest and darkest place of despair, he believes that God will deliver him.

But yet as we read this cry to God, we see that he’s not yet at rock bottom. We see this language of descent in Jonah’s prayer. The idea here is he is going down, he is sinking, the waters come over him, they are consuming him, and the idea keeps being repeated over the next few verses. Even in the midst of his hope, the waters close over him. The descent continues as the deep surrounds him. Nothing is going Jonah’s way. That’s the image we’re meant to see. He’s not just sinking now, but he’s wrapped in weeds. Jonah is conveying to us the utter hopelessness of his situation. And he says that this is happening at the root of the mountains, and he’s not saying that he’s at the base of the mountains. He’s saying he’s going deeper and deeper and deeper. He’s at the root. He’s beneath the mountains. He is at their root. And to repeat this idea of continued descent, he says that he went down to the land whose bars closed in on him forever. And so we get the idea here. He went down, then he went down some more, then he continued to descend, then he went down and went down went down. That’s the image that the text is trying to give us and the point is that he is as good as dead. Done for.

And even though he expressed hope a couple verses back, Jonah is telling us that there’s no good reason for him to have hope. There are ten seconds left in the fourth quarter and he is down by 45 points. He’s got two laps left and he’s out of gas. There’s nothing left for Jonah to hope for. He’s done. But yet Jonah is rescued. Why? Because God is the one who rules his fate. It’s not Jonah. God has radically pursued him, and even though he has put Jonah in this situation, God is the one who is gonna rescue him. His pursuit of Jonah has a purpose and it is to bring him to repentance. That is precisely the place that we find Jonah here in chapter two. In the face of death, we read that Jonah remembers the Lord. His life was fading from him. He’s gone down and down and down and down into the depths. He was moving further and further and further away from God, but yet, he remembers God. He prays to God.

And we’re used to the story. And so I think we quickly read over this and we miss what has happened here. He has rejected God. He’s gone the wrong direction, but God pursues him and punishes him. The storm being thrown into the sea, water swirling and going over his head, then swallowed by a great fish. He knows that all of this is from God. He doesn’t assume that this is just some elaborate punishment. He doesn’t think that he’s being cursed. He knows what God is doing. He realizes that he is being called to repentance for his sin and unbelief, and so he goes to his good and gracious heavenly father. And I think we’ve all every last one of us has seen an example of this. A child is doing something they’re not supposed to do, and they ignore the instruction of their parents, maybe even turn their nose at their parents, and then something bad happens. Right? Maybe, it’s a smaller child, they’re doing something risky at the park, and the parents are saying, Don’t do that, don’t do that. And the child slips and skins their knee, and in pain and in desperation, they run to their parent and grab them and hold on to them because they know compassion comes from their parents. Or maybe it’s something a little bit more serious. Maybe it’s an older child who’s in a romantic relationship that the parents question, and advice from the parents is completely ignored, and then things go south in the relationship, and the child will turn to their parents for help. They know that their parents are forgiving, they know that they’re loving, and that they will give them comfort in the midst of heartache. This is what Jonah is doing. He’s turning to his heavenly father.

He prays to him. He cries out to him, and he knows that his prayer is heard. He says that his prayers rose to God. Don’t miss what Jonah is saying here when he says that his prayers rose. We’ve been seeing that he went down and down. The text has been taking us down all the way, keeping going down. Repeated theme. And then Jonah says a prayer. And no matter how far he is from God, his prayer reaches God. That’s what it’s telling us here. Jonah knows his God. He knows he answers prayer. And he knows that he is the only sure and certain hope in the face of death. No matter how far down he goes, his God can hear his prayer.

And he contrasts that sure hope with those who worship false gods. He says they forfeit grace. They are crying out to worthless pieces of rock and wood. They can hear prayers like the one true God. And just as we saw in the first chapter of Jonah, false gods can’t do anything. Remember, those pagan sailors calling out to their gods hoping they could save them and nothing happened. The sailors were calling out to false gods. They were screaming into the dark. No one to hear them, but the Lord. The Lord is true. The Lord hears prayers, even in the belly of the fish. The Lord is gracious and merciful, even in the belly of the fish. The Lord not only hears the cries of his people, but he radically pursues his people. He seeks them out. He’s not like the dead idols that don’t hear. God is actually pursuing his people. He loves them. He is true. He is the Lord. And those who cling to worthless idols have no hope.

And so he gives thanks to the Lord, his God, the true God. And in doing this, Jonah shows that he has repented. He gives thanks to God and makes a promise to sacrifice. He makes a vow and promises to keep it. Now let’s be honest here, this whole sequence of events in Jonah one and Jonah two, it’s been quite an elaborate display for a prophet whose disobedience was to not go to a city of Gentiles to tell them to repent and turn from their evil ways. I think you and I could think up a whole bunch of simpler ways that God could have accomplished his purposes here. Or maybe we think that God should have just given up on Jonah and sent another prophet. But there is a point to all of this, and it comes right there in that last sentence of verse nine. Salvation comes from the Lord. That’s the point of the book of Jonah. Salvation is of God. This whole elaborate story to tell us this one thing. Salvation comes from the Lord. That’s the big point we’re meant to see here. There’s no salvation in worthless idols. All hopes of saving ourselves is pointless. In the middle of the sea, Jonah had no hope. In the belly of the great fish, he was dark. He was in a dark place. It was destitute. He was as good as dead, and he went down and down away from God, yet God was there. Why? Because salvation comes from the Lord. He rescues his people, and nothing will keep him from accomplishing his purposes of bringing his people to himself.

God does what he wills. And it’s proven, even in this final verse of this chapter, a silly verse, And the fish vomited him out. But yet it shows that God is in control. Because God speaks and even a fish obeys. The Lord commands and creation listens. Even in Jonah being vomited out, the power of God is displayed. Salvation comes from the Lord. God is in control and his will is accomplished.

And as we stop for a moment to think about what this means for us, it’s important that we understand this deep truth that Jonah chapter two speaks into our lives. A story of a man who nearly drowns and is swallowed by a fish is in fact relevant to us in 02/2019. And why is that? Because the word of God is living and active. It is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness that the people of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. And so we see here the story of Jonah is not only about Jonah and his disobedience, but it’s also calling us to repentance. Each and every one of us was born dead in trespasses and sins. We had no hope of being saved apart from a radical rescue by a good and merciful God. In the midst of the darkness, the word of the Lord came to us and the Holy Spirit took that proclamation of the truth of Christ and we were resurrected to new life. He is our hope. Salvation comes from the Lord nowhere else.

And we can invent schemes. We can build ladders in an attempt to get to God. But the truth is, in our sin, the bars have closed in over us. We need a rescuer because we can’t do it on our own. And our rescuer is that same God who heard the cry of Jonah in the belly of the fish. He is the God who rescues. He alone saves. Any other hope we might have is worthless. God radically pursues his people and he saves them. And for us, one of the most powerful messages in this passage today, is that God brought Jonah to repentance. He was at the absolute worst place of his life. He had rejected the word of God and was brought to absolute despair, but God was right there with him. He couldn’t get away from him. No matter how far he went, God heard him. And that was the place, at his worst place, that is where he realized he only had one hope. This is the place where Jonah remembered the Lord. Now I don’t know where your worst place is. Maybe it’s a family issue that just seems hopeless. Maybe it’s a health issue. Maybe it’s feelings of depression and hopelessness. Maybe it’s difficult times of anxiety. Perhaps the place that has you in despair is a sin that has you entangled and you feel trapped. Don’t believe that God can forgive you. You don’t believe that at your deepest, darkest point, God can even hear you. But what we see here in the book of Jonah, whatever your dark place is, we are called to remember the Lord.

He’s always pursuing you. He’s always calling you to himself. He brings his people through. Anything else that we might pursue is futile. So let’s trust in the one who’s pursuing us. Trust in the Lord. Call out to him. Salvation is of the Lord. And no matter what you are experiencing, no matter how far down you have gone, God is there. Your loving, merciful, heavenly father is right there, and he hears your prayer. So our call today is to call out to him and trust that he saves his people. He is your loving heavenly father. He is your rescuer. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Amen.

More of Jonah

If this sermon spoke to you, explore our companion devotional series, Dwell in the Word: Jonah—short videos designed to help you reflect deeply on God's mercy each day.
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