I grew up in Mississippi tubing creeks and rivers, so I’m a pretty strong swimmer. Our family loves to float the Comal River in New Braunfels, and if you’ve been, you know about “the chute” — a water slide down the side of a waterfall in the middle of a lazy river. A few years ago, on our second trip down, my tube flipped at the bottom, and I went under right where the waterfall hits.
I hadn’t taken a good breath. The current was pushing me straight down no matter how hard I swam, and I could feel myself running out of air. Then I had a moment of crazy clarity: if I keep fighting to go up, I’m going to drown. So I swam sideways, out of the current, and came up gasping.
I was only a few feet from calm water. I had a way out. Jonah didn’t. No shoreline. No swimming sideways. Just a man sinking to the bottom of the sea with seaweed wrapped around his head. All Jonah had left was a cry — and it turns out that was enough, because of who heard it.
A Fish Of Mercy
Last week, Jonah went over the side of the boat without ever saying a prayer. If you were coaching that kid, you’d bench him. Maybe cut him. But that’s not what God does. “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”
People love to argue about whether this really happened. But Jesus Himself pointed to Jonah’s three days in the fish as a picture of His own burial and resurrection. And the God who created everything out of nothing can surely keep a man alive inside a fish. Notice the word appointed, too. Throughout this book, God appoints a wind, a fish, a plant, a worm — and every one obeys. The only one who refuses is God’s own prophet.
In the Old Testament, “swallow” is usually a word for judgment. But this fish wasn’t God’s judgment on Jonah. It was His rescue. Tim Keller called it “a severe mercy.” It was dark and it was smelly — but it was mercy, because God wasn’t done with Jonah.
A Prayer From The Bottom
Chapter 2 opens with three words we haven’t seen yet: “Then Jonah prayed.” Not when God called him, not when the storm hit — only when he hit rock bottom. Running from God and talking to God don’t tend to go hand in hand — and often the first sign we’re running is that we quit praying.
I doubt Jonah’s prayer from the deep was very polished. It probably sounded a lot like “Lord, help me, I’m drowning!” But he says, “my prayer came to you.” He didn’t clean himself up first. A prayerless, disobedient man remembered the Lord as his life was fading — and God heard him. Calling out to God doesn’t have to look polished. It just has to be desperate.
And notice what poured out of Jonah’s mouth at the bottom of the sea: Scripture. Line after line from the Psalms. There’s no Bible app on the ocean floor. All he had was what he’d already hidden in his heart. What comes out of your mouth on your worst day will probably be whatever you’re filling your heart with right now. So pick a Psalm this week. Read it, sing it, memorize it — before you hit the bottom.
Salvation Belongs To The Lord
Jonah warns that those who cling to vain idols — literally “vapors of emptiness,” like trying to grab your breath on a cold morning — forsake their hope of steadfast love. He thinks he’s talking about the pagans, but the sailors had already dropped their idols. Jonah’s idol was his nation. The idols that do the most damage are usually the ones we can’t see in the mirror. What are you holding tighter than Jesus?
Then Jonah says the words that sum up the whole book: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” Not to the sailors’ gods, not to how hard you can row. It’s the very message he refused to take to Nineveh, and now he’s preaching it to himself. God speaks one word, the fish obeys, and Jonah lands on dry land — covered in seaweed, but alive.
Jesus said something greater than Jonah is here. Jonah went into the deep for his own sin; Jesus went into the deep for ours. And on the third day, He rose. Romans 10:13 says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved — not everyone who climbs, not everyone who cleans up first. Everyone who calls.
God’s not waiting for you to climb out. He’s waiting for you to cry out.
It’s not too late. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
This post is part of an ongoing sermon series through the book of Jonah at Harvey Baptist Church in Stephenville, TX.
