I CRIED UNTO THE LORD

Prayer can be directed to the Lord from anywhere. If Jonah can be heard from the belly of the great fish, then there is nowhere his saints can cry unto Him unheard.

From the deepest experiences and trials of life, from the lowest depression and the darkest pain: from the most impossible predicament, the prayer of desperation ascends surely and inevitably into His holy temple, v. 7.

There is a divinely appointed law that invests prayer with its own heavenly homing capacity. It is never lost in the vast universe, nor permitted to vanish into the spacious void of infinity. Every prayer directed to God flies, swifter than light, to the sympathetic ear of the universal King.

When Jonah, inside the fish, a score of fathoms below the waves, even from ‘the belly of hell’, v. 2, cried out to God, he knew immediately, ‘Thou heardest my voice’. If it was so with the backsliding prophet, much more shall it be true of you, beloved suffering saint, walking in the fear of God and invoking the fragrant name of God’s Son, our Saviour, John 16. 23, 24. Your prayer is heard, and your deliverance is certain, v. 9.

Jonah’s disobedience and backsliding have brought him under the chastening of his divine Master. Prayerless in the bottom of the ship, 1. 6, he cannot remain prayerless in the belly of the fish, 2. 1. His rebellion gone, and his soul submissive, he mightily prayed unto the Lord. His experience, v. 2, is that of the psalmist, ‘before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word’, Ps. 119. 67.

Jonah recognized God’s hand in his discipline, and the billows and waves that swamped him were God’s billows, v. 3, and so were sent righteously as well as lovingly. The spiritual deserter has now returned to his post and to his first allegiance. His vows are renewed, and his thanksgiving sincere, v. 9. He has learned that he too needs salvation as much as the despised Gentiles, and needs as much mercy as ever wicked Nineveh did, v. 9. Thus a long-suffering God brings His backslidden servant to repentance, and on the third day the Lord commanded the fish, and Jonah was vomited to safety, v. 10.