I think a fitting title for Jonah 3 would be, second chances. Jonah gets a second chance to obey God, and Nineveh is going to get a second chance to turn from their sin and turn to God. By God’s grace, both get it right this time. There is a backstory that helps us understand why the people of Nineveh turned from their sin, and believed Jonah’s story so easily. The people of Nineveh believed in a fish god. Therefore, I’m sure Jonah didn’t smell real good after his adventure in the belly of a great fish, and I’m sure he mentioned where he had come from. Therefore, the people hearing that this prophet was spit out of the mouth of a fish would have had a major affect on the people. Regardless of why they turned from their sin, the point is God gave them a second chance, and they turned from their sin and were spared.
What about you and I? Have we been given a second chance in life? One thing I have learned in my own life is that decisions made after a crisis rarely last long-term. It is common when we have a major health scare to start making all sorts of rash decisions. For a while, we are able to stick with them, but after some time, life typically goes back to the way it was before the crisis. This would certainly be the case for the people of Nineveh, as there is another Old Testament prophet sent to Nineveh 150 years after Jonah went. The result is recorded in the book of Nahum. I will give you a hint as to how it turns out, heard of anyone going to visit Nineveh on vacation? Probably not! It is in this area that I see the biggest lesson that we as Americans need to learn through this crisis of COVID-19. God has given us yet again, another chance, and we need to not blow it! Life has dramatically been altered over the last two months, but the tendency is for us to return to life as “normal” as soon as possible. If that happens, I truly fear what may happen to our nation, because for years we have been running further and further from God. You can see in the Bible and throughout world history, that God may allow a people to run from Him and deny Him for a while, but sooner or later His grace ends and judgment comes. How can we take full advantage of this second chance God is giving us?
- Confess your sins. God brings discipline and conviction to get us to understand that we have done something wrong. This is just like our parents, when they would spank us or send us to our room or the favorite of some, give a time out. It was meant to alert us to the fact that we had crossed a forbidden boundary. But confession wasn’t the ultimate goal of discipline with our parents, and it isn’t God’s ultimate goal.
- Repent of your sins. The ultimate goal of discipline is repentance, that is to turn away from something and to turn to God. Knowing that you have done something wrong is only half of the equation. There must be a chance of mind which leads to a change in action. America needs to confess her faults to the Lord and turn from our evil. God is bringing us through the COVID-19 pandemic, and we need to learn our lessons from it. We cannot return to life as usual, or we will have missed what God was graciously trying to teach us.
- Praise God for the second chance, but don’t take it for granted. Two of the most important and powerful words in the English language are “thank you.” Those two words go a long way when dealing with people. Sometimes, we lull ourselves into believing that we are basically a good person, and so we deserve a second chance. The Bible has something very different to say. We are sinners by birth and by choice, and unless the Lord saves us and begins to change us, we will go right back to doing what we were doing. You can put a dress and lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. We need to allow the conviction of our sin to work its way to our heart, and then cry out to God for His grace and mercy. We need to thank God that He gives us second (and more) chances. But we can’t take them for granted, because God is not obligated to give us another chance. Let’s make the most of what God has given us, let’s learn our lessons, thank God, and then see if God will again bless us, our families, and our nation.
By His grace and for His glory,
Pastor Justin