#7: Restrain God’s Praise on Account of Your Pain

“Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

Jonah 2:9

If you want to emphasise something important, you could put it at the beginning, like in a headline; in the middle, like in a climax; or at the end, like in a conclusion.

If you want to sum up the book of Jonah in one sentence, it would be when Jonah says, “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jon. 2:9). God brought Jonah to the place where he wanted people to know what God had done in his life. And when he did, he put a song of praise right at the centre. For that reason, we’re coming to this great chapter at the end of our study of Jonah.

We’re going to look at Jonah’s remarkable testimony to God’s grace. Jonah disobeyed God, but God sent a storm, and Jonah told the ship’s crew to throw him in the sea (1:12, 15).

Then we have this remarkable statement: “The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (1:17).

Some suggest that this is just a parable to teach us lessons about God, but Jesus said, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mat. 12:40). The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were historical events, and Jesus speaks about what happened to Jonah in the same way. What happened to Jonah belongs among the miracles.

What does this have to do with us? Jonah writes this song of praise to tell us how God saves sinners. The message of Jonah 2 is simply this: God saves guilty, believing, desperate, repentant sinners.

Are you inclined to view the story of Jonah as a parable or as a miracle of grace? Why?