A Study of Book of Jonah
Sermon # 4
“The God of the Second Chance”
Jonah 3:1-4
The last time we were
with Jonah he was deep in prayer deep in the fish’s belly. In that prayer he finally
got things right with God. It is almost as if we can hear the prayer of repentant Jonah, “Alright who am I fooling? You and You alone are God. My fight
with you is fruitless. My stubbornness has become an idol I’ve clung to, separating
me from your grace. You alone have the power to save even me, O Lord. Here I sit with no
power to redeem myself. Only You can do it. I was foolish to withhold my obedience from
You; instead I should be offering You a song of thanksgiving for the privilege of being
able to serve You.” [Michelle
McKinney Hammond. His Love Always Finds Me. (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1999) pp.
79-80]
The last thing that happened was the Jonah
was vomited up on dry land (2:10).
Now what is Jonah
to do? Does God ever stoop to use those who have rejected his calling, turned a deaf ear
to His word or pursued a course of their own choosing?
Have you ever longed
for an opportunity to undo some of the mistakes you have made in your life? We have all
made mistakes in our finances, our careers, our parenting, our marriages… which lead
us to wish we could have one more chance, an opportunity to begin again. Louisa Tarkington
wrote it for us in a poem entitled “The Land of Begin Again”
“I
wish that I there were some wonderful place called the land of Begin Again, where all our
mistakes and all our heartaches and all our poor selfish grief…. Could be dropped
like a shabby old coat at the door and never be put on again. I wish that there were some
wonderful place called The Land Of Begin Again.”
Well Jonah’s experiences remind us
that there is such a place, and we serve God who will use those who repent and turn to
Him.
Tonight I want you to
see with me Three Things Jonah found out about God…
First, Jonah Found out God Gives Second Chances (v. 1)
“Now
the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time….”
Jonah found out that God gives second
chances.
“On New Year’s Day,
1929, Georgia Tech played University of California in the Rose Bowl. In that game a man
named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble for California. Somehow, he became confused and
started running 65 yards in the wrong direction. One of his teammates, Benny Lom,
outdistanced him and downed him just before he scored for the opposing team. When
California attempted to punt, Tech blocked the kick and scored a safety which was the
ultimate margin of victory.
That strange play came in the
first half, and everyone who was watching the game was asking the same question: “What
will Coach Nibbs Price do with Roy Riegels in the second half?” The men filed off the
field and went into the dressing room. They sat down on the benches and on the floor, all
but Riegels. He put his blanket around his shoulders, sat down in a corner, put his face
in his hands, and cried like a baby. If you have played football, you know that a coach
usually has a great deal to say to his team during half time. That day Coach Price was
quiet. No doubt he was trying to decide what to do with Riegels. Then the timekeeper came
in and announced that there were three minutes before playing time. Coach Price looked at
the team and said simply, “Men the same team that played the first half will start
the second.” The players got up and started out, all but Riegels. He did not budge.
the coach looked back and called to him again; still he didn’t move. Coach Price went
over to where Riegels sat and said, “Roy, didn’t you hear me? The same team that
played the first half will start the second.” Then Roy Riegels looked up and his
cheeks were wet with a strong man’s tears. “Coach,” he said, “I can’t
do it to save my life. I’ve ruined you, I’ve ruined the University of
California, I’ve ruined myself. I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium to
save my life.” Then Coach Price reached out and put his hand on Riegel’s
shoulder and said to him: “Roy, get up and go on back; the game is only half over.”
And Roy Riegels went back, and those Tech men will tell you that they have never seen a
man play football as Roy Riegels played that second half.” [Haddon W. Robinson, Christian Medical
Society Journal -www.bible.org/illus/Jonah/4]
Our failures can leave
us feeling that God could never use us again, that God could never bless us again, and
that we are useless in God ‘s work and to God’s plan. But Jonah found
out that God gives second chances and…
Secondly, Jonah Found
Out God Still Had A Plan For His Life. (v. 2)
“saying,
(2) "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell
you."
We serve an awesome God! He has plans for
each of us and we can’t fail enough to ever change those plans. Jeremiah 29:11
says, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the
Lord, plans for your welfare and not harm, to give you a
future with hope.”
Jonah had failed when he was first
Abraham: God promised him that his
wife, Sarah, would give him a son. But what does Abraham do? He decides to help God out
and has a child by his wife’s servant. He “failed” to believe God but God
didn’t give up on him. God made Abraham the “father of many nations”.
Jacob: Jacob lied to his father, stole his
David: God made David king. As king, David
commits adultery with Bathsheba, then has her husband murdered to hide his failing”.
Yet, David becomes known as “a man after God’s own heart”.
Peter: Poor old Peter. Peter, the one who swore
that he would never deny Jesus, then denies Him not once, not twice, but three times,
publicly! Peter “failed” Jesus. Yet Peter goes on to become one of the greatest
leaders of the early church.
Paul: Paul, or Saul as he was known
These people I’ve
just mentioned, along with many others have “failed” God at some point in their
lives. But God DID NOT give up on them. God didn’t give up on them and He won’t
give up on you or me. What a comfort to realize that the best of God’s servants have
made foolish mistakes, but were used again.
When the word of the Lord came to Jonah
“the second time” it came with the same commission he had received the first
time. It was God plan for Jonah to go to Nineveh (1:2) it is still God’s plan for
Jonah to go to Ninevah. God’s plan for Jonah had not changed, but Jonah did.
The first time the word of the Lord came to
Jonah telling him to go to Nineveh, Jonah ran away. This time, having learned his lesson
the hard way on the consequences of disobedience; this time he obeyed.
The truth is that the Lord has some things
He wants you to do. But do you know that many of the things God intended for you and me to
do never get accomplished? Do you know why? Because oftentimes the people God has set
apart to accomplish His will have refused to surrender to Him.
Perhaps you are thinking, "Well I
don't know what God wants me to do." That reminds me of a story that Donald
Grey Barnhouse told. He said that “on one occasion his
daughter had come to him with a request that he had denied. ‘Well then what do you
what me to do?’ she had asked. He told her what he wanted her and then went on with
his work. She remained standing in front of him.
At length Mrs
Barnhouse called to the daughter from another room, ‘Where are you? What are you
doing?’ she asked.
The daughter replied,
‘I am waiting for daddy to tell me what he wants me to do.’
At this point
Barnhouse raised his head and said to her, ‘Whatever you are doing it is not waiting
to find out what I want you to do. I have told you what I want you to do, but you do not
like it. You are actually waiting to see if you can get me to change my mind.”
[as quoted by
James Montgomery Boice. The Minor Prophets. Chap 32. “Prayer From the Depths.”
Jonah 1:17-2:10 Vol I. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983) p. 230 ]
But if you'll be honest with yourself you
will realize that you know a lot more than what you are doing. You and I know that God
wants us to be witnessing for His Kingdom.
We know that God wants us to love our
neighbors as ourselves. We know that that God wants us to be good stewards of our time,
money, and talents. And we know when were not doing what God wants us to do. We need to
drop the excuse that we don't know what God's will is for our lives. I believe our problem is that we often do know
what God's will is, but we're simply not willing to do it.
Jonah
Found Out God Still Had A Plan For His Life and….
Third, Jonah Found Out
How Much God Can Do With One Person. (vv. 3-5)
“So
Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an
exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. (4) And Jonah began to enter the
city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said, "Yet forty days, and
Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
Jonah entered the
city and began to proclaim the message. “Yet forty days, and
Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (v. 4)
In
the English Bible it is only eight words, and in the Hebrew it is even shorter only five.
This seems hardly impressive. And yet as we will see it has tremendous results.
How can that be possible? First, it seems to me a little more than
coincidental that Jonah is sent as a messenger to a city that worships the fish-god Dagon.
That the reluctant prophet was swallowed by a great fish and then thrown up on the coast
of Phoenicia, perhaps within sight of witnesses who would have conveyed this tale to those
in Nineveh. In any other city perhaps those experiences would have had little, if any
affect on the reception to his preaching, but can hardly believe this to have been the
case in Nineveh!
In fact Jesus said in Matt 12:34 that Jonah
was a SIGN to the people of Nineveh. Other men who have survived similar
experiences in history had such mottled skin from the digestive juices that they would
stand out in any crowd. I think he was rather spectacular to see. A man who has spent
three days and three nights in a fish simply cannot come out looking like he did when he
went in!
Dr Harry Rimmer told of a man in 1926 who
was swallowed by a fish and spend two days inside the fish and lived to tell the story. He
was displayed in London as “the Jonah of the twentieth century.” When Dr. Rimmer
interviewed him two years after it had happened, this man didn’t have a hair on his
body, and his skin was a yellowish-brown color. You see, the gastric juices of the fish
had reacted upon the individual as the fish had tried to digest him.
Those chemicals were bound to have an
effect upon him, and this is apparently what happened to Jonah also. You can imagine the
color of Jonah’s skin, and you can imagine how he must have looked. When he stopped
at a corner and the crowd gathered, they would say, “Brother, where have you been?”
[J. Vernon McGee. Thru the Bible Commentary. Based
on the Thru the Bible radio program. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson - electronic ed. 1997,
c1981.)]
Because Jonah surrendered to go and
I don’t know about you but I listen to
people who have been through great difficulties when they say that God will help us to
endure tough times. Because of Jonah’s
obedience God’s power moved a whole city to repentance.
Conclusion
Three Things
Jonah found out about God…
1. Jonah Found out God Gives Second
2. Jonah Found Out God Still Had A Plan For
His Life
3. Jonah Found Out How Much God Can Do With One Person.