{"id":24845,"date":"2025-05-04T23:14:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T23:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/?p=24845"},"modified":"2025-05-04T23:14:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T23:14:18","slug":"in-the-belly-of-the-fish-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/2025\/05\/in-the-belly-of-the-fish-2\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Belly Of The Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonah was loved of God. He was one of the Lord\u2019s elect who looked forward in faith to the coming of Christ. He was loved before he disobeyed. He was loved while being disobedient. He was loved following his disobedience. When the Lord loves someone He loves with everlasting, unchangeable, unconditional affection. God\u2019s love manifests itself in kindness, care and constant protection. Jonah was cared for by the Lord in his sin and when he was being disciplined for his sin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Divinely prepared<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

God\u2019s loving care of His servant included preparing a great fish to swallow up Jonah when the disobedient prophet was thrown into the sea. What all was involved in God\u2019s preparing this fish is not revealed but this single statement dispenses with every argument against the historicity, authenticity and plausibility of this account. Whether the fish was naturally prepared or miraculously prepared is immaterial. It fulfilled the purpose for which it was divinely prepared.<\/p>\n

Divinely preserved<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

The Lord\u2019s care for this beloved son also included keeping Jonah alive, breathing, conscious and rational during his ordeal. The Lord did not leave him during his three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. John Gill explains this duration thus, \u2018one whole natural day, consisting of twenty four hours, and part of two others; the Jews having no other way of expressing a natural day but by day and night\u2019. This corresponds to the length of time Christ lay in the tomb \u2013 from the eve of the Sabbath to very early on the first day of the week \u2013 and confirms Jonah as a type of the Lord in His death, burial, and resurrection.<\/p>\n

Divinely predicted<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

It is of the utmost importance that we note and highlight this typology in Jonah\u2019s experience. The Lord Jesus calls it \u2018the sign of the prophet Jonas\u2019. It occurred and was recorded to point to Christ. Old Testament believers were granted many meaningful signs by the preaching and testimony of God\u2019s prophets who ministered among them. Their deeds and their practical experiences, as well as their prophecies, testified of the coming Messiah and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s classroom<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

However, as well as giving a sign the Lord was also teaching Jonah a lesson, a lesson that allowed the prophet to work through his own prejudices and wrong assumptions to come to a clearer understanding of the ways and purposes of the Lord. When the Saviour calls His people to salvation He describes the process as taking His yoke and learning of Him. All believers, be it Moses, David, Jonah, Paul, you or me, must learn Christ, who He is and what He has done, and thereby increase in grace and a knowledge of the truth. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fruit-bearing trials<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

All the Lord\u2019s elect \u2013 that particular and distinct people \u2013 are equally cared for and protected as was Jonah. In eternity we shall marvel that the Lord supplied so much while we perceived so little. Having been committed into the care of the Son by the Father, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit by the Son, nothing can touch or harm God\u2019s people that is not for our good. Some who build their bodies say \u2018no pain, no gain\u2019. There is a spiritual equivalent as Jonah now discovers. Without trial and discipline there will be no spiritual growth and no fruit.<\/p>\n

Providence<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Jonah had much to learn. We all have. We are wrong to consider our conversion as a single event in time. It is rather the commencement of our experience of grace, the start point of our conscious awareness of the Lord\u2019s work in our lives. From our first awareness of God\u2019s love and mercy, until the day of our death, we shall continue to enlarge our stock of divine truth as the Lord leads, guides and directs our life and spiritual journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From glory to glory<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

The Lord\u2019s people are being continuously changed from glory to glory. Jonah\u2019s usefulness to the body of Christ required him to both disobey the Lord and learn from his mistake. That is true for us all. Though we hate \u2018the garment spotted by the flesh\u2019, even our sins are conducive to our learning Christ. The evil of the old man in the flesh, and the warring of the flesh against the spirit are means by which God weans us from trusting in ourselves and deepens our reliance upon Christ the Saviour.<\/p>\n

Light in darkness<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

As with Jonah, the process of discipline and development will not be easy; there is no joy in the whale\u2019s belly. In the coming verses Jonah describes the depths he plumbed. Yet trials secure our growth in grace. They encourage knowledge of the truth and spiritual communion with the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Truth. Often the hardest experiences of life tend most to this end. It is when we are stripped of our earthly comforts that we lean most heavily upon the One who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Amen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonah was loved of God. He was one of the Lord\u2019s elect who looked forward in faith to the coming of Christ. He was loved before he disobeyed. He was loved while being disobedient. He was loved following his disobedience. When the Lord loves someone He loves with everlasting, unchangeable, unconditional affection. God\u2019s love manifests itself in kindness, care and constant protection. Jonah was cared for by the Lord in his sin and when he was being disciplined for his sin.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":12757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1042],"tags":[1239],"class_list":["post-24845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peter-meneys-scripture-meditations","tag-sovereign-grace"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24851,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24845\/revisions\/24851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}