The God of Second Chances

Our God is a God of second chances.  That is certainly one of the lessons learned from the book of Jonah.   Despite Jonah’s disobedience, pride and obstinacy, we see God in Jonah 3:1 speaking to Jonah a “second time,” calling him again to obey and go to Nineveh.  And of course what makes the account of Jonah exciting, is when God calls him a second time, he obeys. 

We had already discovered in Jonah 1:2-3, that after God called Jonah the first time, he fled “from the presence of the Lord.”   Going down to Joppa, which was on Israel’s shore of the Mediterranean Sea, he had ample opportunity to reconsider.   But what we discover in Jonah 1:4 is he presses on anyway in his disobedience.   He “pays a fare” and begins a journey to Tarshish, which was as far away as you can go in the known world at that time, a city probably on the southern coast of Spain.  And so we read in vs. 4 again that Jonah fled “away from the presence of the Lord.” 

From a human point of view, Jonah had some very good reasons run.  The Assyrians, whose center of power was in Nineveh, were a brutal and ruthless enemy of Israel.   We know from the account of both Scripture and from secular history they would terrorize every nation they subdued.  We read in Nahum, who was another prophet of Israel this description of Nineveh, “a city filled with blood and lies, full of plunder… a host of the slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end.”  (Nahum 3:1-3)  

One inscription they Assyrian army left behind on the cities they invaded, was “we destroyed, devastated and burned with fire.”   it is reasonable to suggest that Jonah had witnessed some of their terror, when Assyria raped, pillaged and enslaved various cities of Northern Israel in the 8th century.  So Jonah’s reluctance to go, was probably rooted in a deep bitterness against them.  Jonah did not want to forgive and preach repentance, but wanted God to judge. 

And so Jonah ran.  And of course we saw that God pursued.  “The Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.”  (Jonah 1:3)   To calm that storm Jonah told the sailors of that ship to throw him overboard, and when they did the sea immediately became calm, the pagan sailors turned to the Lord and God then in His mercy has Jonah swallowed up by a large fish.  (Jonah 1:17)   

One of the great applications here is that when we are disobedient, going our own way, God is faithful to draw us and will often discipline us that our hearts may again put Him first.  And we discover after Jonah is in the belly of this fish, he cries out, "I called out to the Lord, out of my distress and He answer me… heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:2)   We see Jonah’s heart turn in chapter 2 and of course we see God then extend to Jonah a second chance in chapter 3.

God is a God of second chances.  You could argue that God is a God of second and third and fourth and many chances.  Because God loves us, because He is merciful, He is constantly extending to us another opportunity to follow Him and turn our lives around.   Though all of us are worthy of condemnation, God extends to us opportunity for forgiveness and to turn back to Him. 

The basis of this opportunity is God’s mercy, which simply defined means God does not give us what we deserve.  Taht is why Jesus came, who went to a cross to die for our sins, that we may be forgiven and be reconciled to God.  Jesus also spent 3 nights and 3 days in a tomb, opening the way for our salvation.

The goodnews of the gospel is that God extends His mercy and forgiveness to each of us in Christ.  "He who knew no sin became sin so that we might have a right relationship with God."  (II Cor 5:21)    "He bore our sins in His body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, by His wounds we are healed."  (I Peter 2:24)  That is indeed goodnews!