From Fear to Faith

Jonah 2:1-10

Jonah’s Prayer and God’s Answer

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.

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.

4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;
Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’

5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me;
Weeds were wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord, my God.

7 “When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord;
And my prayer went up to You,
Into Your holy temple.

8 “Those who regard worthless idols
Forsake their own Mercy.

9 But I will sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay what I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord.”

10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Context

1. How did Jonah get this low?
2. What’s it like to be inside a big fish? (Jonah 1:3, 10, Numbers 32:33, Lamentations 3:7, Galatians 6:7, 8)
3. What was so important about his prayer? (Psalm 18:5, 6, 30:3, 69:1, 2, 1 Peter 5:6, 7, 1 John 1:9)
4. What kind of prayer does God hear & answer? (Psalm 34:4-6, 102:17, Proverbs 15:9, Luke 18:13, James 5:16)
5. How important is the phrase ‘salvation is of the Lord?’
6. Why is Thanksgiving key to his prayer? (Psalm 27:1, 92:1, 2, 100:4, Acts 4:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Philippians 4:6, 7)

Testimony Time

1. How has God heard you from your deepest pit? (Psalm 34:18, 40:1, 2, 46:1-5, 10)
2. What ‘whale’ of God brought you back to the ‘will’ of God and to the ‘well’ of Grace? (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:1-5, James 4:6-10)