Looking to His Holy Temple
by Seth Mauldin
via Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 2, February 2015
For me, the book of Jonah has always been something of a depressing book. Of course, there are positives to be found; we’ll always have the good example of the Ninevites who threw themselves into the task of repentance. But when I look to who should be the “hero” of the story, I don’t see an awful lot of “now that’s what I want to be like!” When I think of Jonah, I think about his disobedience. I think about his selfishness and lack of mercy. I see a failure to appreciate God’s grace. Last but not least, I’ll always have the memory of a prophet sitting under a dried-up little plant begging to die because it’s hot outside.
Okay. Enough of the bad; it's time for a little good. As much as it may seem that Jonah was trying to set a poor example, there is a quote of his that has always set my wheels turning. It is something mentioned in the prayer he offered while sitting in the belly of the great fish. Nobody but the Lord was around to hear him say it, but it has been preserved for our learning. But before we get there, grab your Bible and read Jonah chapter 2. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Chapter two gives us a brief glimpse of the terror Jonah felt before the Lord saved him by sending the great fish. Jonah experienced sheer terror as he sank further into the deep, the weeds wrapping around his head, and as his breath began to leave, he slowly fainted away. At that point, things were looking pretty bleak for Jonah. He had, as he puts it in Jonah 2:4, been expelled from God’s sight. But in the midst of all of that hopelessness, Jonah remembered that there was one place that he could still look. “Nevertheless, I will look again to Your holy temple” (Jonah 2:4, 7).
On the surface, we can say that this is simply Jonah’s way of saying that He was calling on the Lord. After all, the temple was synonymous with Jehovah Himself: “The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the Earth be silent before Him” (Habakkuk 2:20). Considering Jonah’s recent actions, one might think that the presence of God would be the last place he’d want to be; he’d stand condemned in judgment! But what else was associated with the temple, and by extension, the Lord’s presence? Exodus 25:21-22 tells us that the presence of God dwelt above the ark, in between two cherubim, above the mercy seat. Every year, the High Priest would enter the Holiest of Holies and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, providing atonement for the nation's sins. Yes, the presence of God is a place of judgment. But what Jonah remembered, at least temporarily, is that it is also a place of great mercy!
Despite the laundry list of ways that Jonah had violated God’s will, Jonah knew that he served a God who is willing to forgive those who humbly ask Him to extend His grace. Jonah is hardly the only example of someone who dug themselves into deep spiritual disaster and finally remembered to look to the temple. I think about King David and his tragic affair with Bathsheba. Like Jonah, it involved the complex stacking of one sin on top of another, all while foolishly thinking that it would somehow escape God’s sight. Like Jonah, David felt the burden of his sin. Still, it was not until Nathan confronted him in II Samuel 12 that he finally did something about his body wasting away through groaning all day long (Psalms 32:3). And when David was finally ready to restore his relationship with God, he too appealed to that aspect of God’s nature that is consistently described as everlasting: “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness” (Psalms 51:1).
Others come to mind as well. King Manasseh. Even King Ahab for a time. Whatever the example, the lessons for us are the same: First and foremost, we should remember that the only thing that can place us outside of God’s grace and mercy is our own stubborn refusal to take advantage of it. Regardless of the mistakes we’ve made, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (I Timothy 1:15). There is also a lesson in timing from these and other men. Waiting to repent is a recipe for misery. The longer you wait, the longer you are alienated from the Lord. Don’t let it take everything crashing down around you to shock you into looking to the Lord. It would do us all some good to take spiritual stock and see if we need to do some “looking to the temple.”
