Our sermon for this morning is entitled “A God of Second Chances.” In “Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie,” there is a scene where Jonah is sitting in the belly of a whale, and some angels appear out of nowhere and begin explaining to Jonah how God wanted to give him a second chance to be obedient; and thus, they broke out into song about the God of second chances. What’s really neat is how the artists animated some sailing ships that were swallowed by the whale. While the angels were singing about the God of second chances, the masts of the ships formed the backdrop, and they were in the shape of crosses; thus, communicating how each of us has a second chance through Jesus Christ.
This morning we are going to go all the way through the book of Jonah, but don’t be alarmed for it is only four chapters long. We are not going to read each and every verse either, but we are going to touch upon some key verses and points in order to gain an overview of the central message that God wants to reveal. We will come to see that the story of Jonah provides us with a picture of the love, forgiveness, and compassion that God desires to bestow on each of us. The book of Jonah is a glimpse into the second chance that God is longing to extend to all people through His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.
Jonah Was Disobedient to the Lord (1:1-3)
1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Right here we see that God told Jonah to preach in the city of Ninevah, but Jonah was disobedient and ran away. We read here that he fled to the city of Tarshish from the seaport of Joppa. The distance from Joppa to Ninevah was nearly 700 miles; however, the distance from Joppa to Tarshish was about 2200 miles!(1) Tarshish was on the Spanish peninsula and Ninevah was in Assyria; therefore, these two cities were on the complete opposite sides of the known world at that time.(2)
Jonah did a complete U-turn and went in a totally opposite direction of God’s will. Because the Lord asked him to do something that he didn’t want to do and that he didn’t understand, he deliberately disobeyed. When Jonah fled to Tarshish he went three times the distance that God had asked him to journey when he was commanded to preach in the city of Ninevah.
You see, when we are in deliberate defiance to God, our guilt can sometimes result in running as far away from the Lord as we can possibly get. We will try to run from God, because we are hoping we can hide from His face. For example, in the story of the Prodigal Son, we read that the prodigal fled to “a far country” (Luke 15:13). We can certainly run from the Lord, but we absolutely cannot hide from His presence; no way, no how.
Psalm 139:7-10 says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in [the grave], behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.” We might choose to run from the Lord; but even if we do, we will still have to come face to face with God at some point or another and reckon with Him.
I want to briefly point out what happens when we run from the Lord. In verse 3, we read that “He went down to Joppa . . . and [he] went down into the [ship].” We are going to notice later in the story that he also went “down into the sea,” and “down into the belly of a great fish.” Whenever we run from the Lord we wind up going down, and still farther down, until we hit rock bottom.(3)
When we do our own thing this will only lead to death and destruction, for we read in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Acting apart from the will of God is what the Bible calls sin, and Romans 6:23 tells us, “The wages of sin is death,” meaning spiritual death. As we will see, because Jonah ran from the Lord and entered a downward spiral, he was going to have a brush with death.
Jonah Was Given a Second Chance (1:4; 1:17; 2:1-2; 2:10)
1:4 – 4 But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.
1:17 – 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1-2 – 1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.”
2:10 – 10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Here we see Jonah’s brush with death that resulted from his disobedience to God. As Jonah sailed for Tarshish, a terrible storm arose that threatened the lives of everyone on board the ship. If we take a look at verse 7, we read that the men cast lots (or gambled), in order to find out who brought the disaster upon them, and the lot fell on Jonah; and then in verse 15, we see that they threw Jonah overboard in order to save their own lives, and they abandoned him to die at sea.
You would think that things couldn’t get any worse for Jonah, with the storm and being tossed overboard, but next we see that Moby Dick came along and gobbled him up. We read here that a great fish swallowed Jonah. We don’t know exactly what this fish was; however, most children’s stories call the fish a whale. This great fish swallowing Jonah was not God’s punishment; it was actually His provision to save Jonah from drowning.(4) After Jonah’s deliberate running and outright disobedience, God had compassion on him and spared his miserable life. The Lord revealed here that He is indeed “a God of second chances.”
We read in verse 17, that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights. He had just run away from the Lord three times the distance that God had told him to go, and now he was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights. This similarity with numbers is not a coincidence, for a point is being emphasized here.
We read in Matthew 12:40, “For 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.” This is a reference to Jesus lying in the tomb for three days and nights after His crucifixion and burial. God’s mercy toward us is so great that He gave His one and only Son to die for us and enter the place of death on our behalf, so that we might have eternal life. We can flee from the Lord three times the distance He has called us, but His mercy is three times greater than our disobedience.
In chapter 2, verses 1-2, we read that Jonah was in the belly of sheol. Sheol is the Hebrew word for the “grave.” Jonah realized that his path of disobedience was leading him toward death and destruction; he was on his way to a spiritual grave. However, God had heard him in his state of spiritual distress, and answered him by having the fish spit Jonah out onto dry land. Whenever we are in a state of spiritual death and the grave, God hears us too when we choose to call out to Him.
In Acts 2:21, we read, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Saved from what? Spiritual death, or – to be more exact – “hell.” The King James Version translates sheol as “hell.” Spiritual death leads to spending eternity in hell, which is a place of never ending torment. However, just as Jonah was spit out of the whale, Jesus broke free from the tomb and rose again; and in Romans 10:9, we are told that if we will just believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, that we too will be raised from spiritual death into eternal life.
Ninevah Was Obedient to the Lord (3:1-6; 3:10)
3:1-6 – 1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 3 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!” 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
3:10 – 10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
We read here that the people of Ninevah and their king repented and obeyed the word of the Lord. What could have made the people of Ninevah listen to a foreign god and then repent? Archaeologists have found that the Ninevites worshipped the great fish god Dagon; therefore, the people were likely impressed with Jonah having been inside the great fish. They felt that Jonah’s god must have battled their fish god and made him cough up Jonah and spit him out; therefore, they had to listen to the more powerful “God of the Israelites.”(5) Whatever happened, it’s interesting to note the immediacy with which they repented.
Notice how verse 3 says that Ninevah was such a large city that it took three whole days just to walk across it. Jonah preached to the city of Nineveh for three days straight. His disobedience had taken him three times the distance away from God; however, the Lord revealed that His mercy was three times greater than Jonah’s disobedience. Once again, we are being reminded that God’s mercy is three times greater than our sin. The Lord wanted to make sure that the Ninevites heard His message and had the opportunity to repent.
I want you to notice how there is a stark contrast presented here between Jonah and the Ninevites. God spoke a word to Jonah, who was an Israelite and one of His own chosen people, and yet he became immediately disobedient. However, after the Ninevites, who were foreigners, had heard God’s message they were immediately obedient. They had forty days to think it over, but it appears that their repentance was immediate; and because of their immediacy in repenting of their sinful ways, God spared them His wrath. The Ninevites called out for mercy and they were saved from death and destruction. Remember, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
Jonah Protested Their Second Chance (4:1, 4:5-6)
4:1 – 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.
4:5-6 – 5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.
We see here one of the saddest accounts in the Bible. Jonah was hoping the Lord would destroy the Ninevites, and we read here that he was displeased that God had spared them. Therefore, he left Nineveh pouting, and he journeyed to a safe vantage point so he wouldn’t get singed when God rained down His fiery judgement on the city; and there he sat, watching and hoping for their destruction. God had shown Jonah mercy for his disobedience, but Jonah didn’t feel like anyone else deserved it. The Lord had extended compassion and rescued him from drowning at sea; however, Jonah didn’t learn that he needed to show compassion on others in return.
Jonah’s heart wasn’t right with the Lord and at this moment he was in sin; but God still showed him compassion by causing a plant to grow up and shade him from the burning sun. You see, God loves us even while we are still in sin, for we read in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God’s mercy is unlimited. We saw that His mercy is three times greater than our sin; however, that number is only figurative. In Matthew 18:21-22, we read, “Then Peter came to [Jesus] and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven’.” God’s love and forgiveness towards those who have sinned against Him is unlimited; therefore, our love and mercy should be unlimited as well.
Time of Reflection
This morning we have learned about God’s unlimited forgiveness for those who are living in sin. The Lord has shown us the ultimate act of mercy by giving up His one and only Son for us. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
I want to encourage you to turn from your ways of running from the Lord and accept His unconditional love for you. If you have not already done so, you need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and receive God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness; come now and receive eternal life.
NOTES
(1) Don Gettys, “A Whale of a Tale,” a sermon taken from the Internet August 2003 at http://personalwebs.myriad.net/chag/sermons/jonah2.htm.
(2) Phil Vischer, “Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie,” Big Idea, 2002.
(3) Gettys.
(4) Vischer, “Jonah.”
(5) Ibid.
