Repentance x Two     Second Chances

“Faith and obedience are bound up in the same bundle. He who obeys God, trusts God;
and he who trusts God, obeys God.” Charles Spurgeon

The willful prophet ran away from God and, in a terrible crisis, ran back to God. Now for a time at least, Jonah ran with God, doing what he was told. There is only one way to do anything: God’s way. Obedience is the secret of spiritual power.

God wanted to show Israel that the despised and yet dreaded heathen—the Ninevites, were more susceptible and open to the voice of God than they were.

In Jonah, we see the possibility and effects of repentance. We see how the person who repents, heathen or Jew, finds in God changed dealings, corresponding to his or her changed heart.

God Rewinds For Jonah

Jonah 3:1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying…

God gives second chances, if we will turn to Him in obedience. God is a personal God who does not just write you off because you have stumbled in your life. God is so gracious and so merciful, and if you’ve been running, and you’ve been hearing God’s call, turn around, and He’ll reinstate you, and give you a second opportunity.

Jonah 3:2 “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”

Jonah Starts Over

Jonah 3:3 So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

This time, Jonah gets up and goes, but this time he goes in the right direction.

What will have to happen in our lives in order for us to rewind and get back to the place where God wanted us to be?

Jonah Goes and Preaches

Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Jonah 3:2 “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”

Jonah gives the message that God gives him; it is not Jonah’s opinion.

Ezekiel 13:3 Thus saith the Lord GOD: Woe unto the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!

The message was “judgment is coming, because of your sin.” God wanted to use Jonah to bring righteousness out of sinfulness. When God comes in judgment, if a man repents, judgment is set aside. That’s what Jonah proved, that God accepts repentance, withholds judgment, and grants forgiveness.

That is still the message today. If people continue to live in sin, they’re going to die without God and suffer an eternal judgment, but if they repent, God will forgive them.

Nineveh Repents

Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

They believed Jonah’s word from God. It was conditional and they knew it. “If we obey, then maybe God will turn back His judgment on us.”

Jonah preached judgment, but he preached mercy, so the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, which was a symbol of their humility, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

God Relented

Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their actions, that they had turned from their evil ways, so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them, and He did not do it.

God’s actions are conditional: if we do what He says, then there are good consequences. If we do not do what He says, then there are bad consequences. God’s desire is to show mercy to the repentant heart.

The truth about Jonah and the Ninevites could also be said of every believer who has taken hold of the promises of God through Jesus Christ. Because of sin, which pervades the world, all stand condemned. Only through God’s miraculous intervention in the person of Jesus Christ is there any hope. If we will repent, God will forgive.