After we make a stupid mistake, sometimes it feels like there's no coming back from it. Our reputation is ruined. Our future is over.
Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl recounts a story in the Old Testament that may revolutionize how you view divine grace. Through Jonah's prayer, offered from the belly of a great fish, Chuck reminds us that God's mercy is limitless. And if you're living in the shadows of past mistakes, feeling disqualified from God's love, This message will remind you that his compassions are new every morning. and second chances are his specialty. Dear Father, we turn to you with the realization that when you speak, The rest of us are wise to be silent.
When you warn, the rest of us are wise to heed. What you were warning. When you call out, we are wise. to pay attention. Speak today in such a way that nothing interrupts.
Your message. Though we are together only a brief period of time given this full week. that will unfold before us. May the words we hear become the most important words. of this week.
We give you our word, Father. that we will hear what you say. And as the week unfolds, it will prove. whether or not we take them seriously. Thank you especially for those who have been courageous.
to come. Though they may feel uneasy in a context such as this. Though some may come out of Shame. disappointment in themselves. May they be reminded that You have a wonderful way.
of overcoming shame. and replacing it with forgiveness. covered over by maximum Grace. For where sin abounds, grace Super abounds. We are the recipients of that.
Which is why we are able to stand today and hear these words. And I'm able to stand and deliver them. All because of your grace. Not one of us is deserving. Touch all our lives since we are in that category of sinful.
With a reminder that you have provided us. with the second chance. And a third, And a fourth. in an infinite number. How grateful we are for that.
Because of your Mercies, we have not been consumed. your compassions. Fail not.
So speak to us, sinful though we are. Needy as we are, May we hear And may we heed what we have heard. Our gifts are yours, Father. We could not hold our occupation without the strength you give us. We could not live without the breath you give us in our lungs.
And the heartbeat. in our chest. Remind us. that our need for you is total. Not partial.
And use these gifts, we pray. for your great glory. as we give them Grateful Ian. Generous. In the name of Jesus, we ask this.
Everyone said. Amen. Uh You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the story of Jonah on your own, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbook by going to insight.org slash offer. Chuck titled today's message, God of the Second Chance.
Our God is faithful and truthful, immutable. And Powerful. And so much more than all that. Causing us to stand in awe. As we respect and worship Him, as we respect and worship no other, we reserve the word awesome for our God.
He alone qualifies. As the awesome One. But of all these magnificent Attributes All these great characteristics of our God that make us love Him so. There is one that always brings me to my knees. And overwhelms me with gratitude.
And it is that Our God is so merciful.
So merciful. He is full of grace. and mercy. You may have blown it. And you may feel like a failure right now.
But mercy says now is not for ever. I've come. To help you back on your feet and say, with my arm around you, let's go on. You know what it says of our God? As far as the East is from the west.
So far has he removed our transgressions from us. This is why I call Our God of grace, the God of the second chance. And third, And fourth. And would you believe Hundred and fift. and four million.
and 10 trillion. For as often as you fail, He is there. to hold you fast. And to take you on.
Now, the second chance, grace of God. needs to be understood.
So, allow me for a few moments before we look at how it. became for Jonah a reason to go on. What it means is this. His understanding is limitless. He realizes that each one of us is far from perfect.
Oh, we may amass of A mighty fine resume, and we may have impressive credentials.
Some more than others. But God who looks beyond the surface Seeing the heart, reading the motives. Knowing the truth All of it. Has an infinite capacity. to forgive us.
At any moment of failure, Our God is the best, remembering that we are but dust. Remembering that we often refuse to obey him. offers us a second chance. A third chance. A lifetime of opportunities.
to move on past. where we are at this time. He has an infinite capacity to forgive us an infinite number of times. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. To say that God is a God of the second chance doesn't mean that He doesn't care.
Any more than a father doesn't care that a son or daughter disobeys again and again. It doesn't mean that our resistance doesn't matter. He always longs for us to obey him. But there are occasions When we continue to do so, when he steps in, And according to Hebrews 12, verses 5 through 11, as a father disciplines his children, so the Lord disciplines those he loves. And no suffering for the present time is joyous but grievous.
So, while he forgives, there may be consequences. to our wrongdoing. Matter of fact, I find As I work my way through the scriptures. one person after another whom we would all say, stand out as a significant character in the Bible? often being given a second chance.
Turn back to Exodus chapter 3. Let's make that Exodus chapter 2. The second chance is in chapter 3. But the failure is in chapter 2. The hero of of this uh Exodus story.
is named Moses, and in verse twelve of the second chapter of Exodus. We read of Moses. Wrongdoing. 212 reads: After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching. Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.
You may not have known that Moses was first a murderer. before he was a deliverer. in the Exodus. And then we read in chapter 3, Moses was tending the flock. of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.
He led the flock to the wilderness And came to Sinai, the mountain of God, and there the angel of the Lord. appeared to him. Listen to this second chance. Spoke in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement.
The bush didn't burn up. Verse 4: When the Lord saw Moses come to take a closer look. God called from the middle of the bush, Moses, Moses, here I am, says Moses. And he says, don't come any closer. Take off your shoes.
You're standing on holy ground. Then the Lord told him, I've seen, verse 7, I've seen the Lord. The oppression of my people. And then a little further he says, now, verse 10. Go, I am sending you to Pharaoh.
You must lead my people out of Egypt. second chance. Right there. And for forty more years, he leads the Exodus. Right up to the edge of the promised land.
That's a second chance. I kept working my way through the scriptures and I found the book of Judges. When you get to chapter 14, you meet a man. Named Samson. And Samson's biography takes you to chapter 14, 15, and the climax is chapter 16.
For most of 14, 15, and 10 And 16 Samson is a womanizer. He messes around with women. Even after he has judged Israel for 20 years, he winds up. Laying in the lap of Delilah, and there he finally yields. And she is uh crying those crocodile tears that he won't tell her the secret of his life.
And he finally tells her and falls asleep and wakes up and finds That his hair has been taken from his head, and she has told her colleague the Philistines that that's where his strength lies. And and they took him and they put him in a dungeon. And the first thing they did, not surprisingly, they gouged out his eyes. Enough lust for one man. You won't lust any further.
And there he lives as a prisoner in the dungeon. of the Philistines until the end of chapter sixteen. Where He says, this one last time may my life be avenged. And what he should have been doing all of his life, and that's delivering the people from the Philistines, he kills more at his death than he did in all his life. Second chance.
finally comes with his final breath. Samson at the end of his life. Another man who began with such possibilities. but ended his life in such a Such an intriguing and Disappointing manner, but a second chance given him. I turn next to Second Samuel chapter 11.
When I do that, you who know your Bibles know where we've come. We've come to the life of David. Israel's favorite king to this day. When you travel there, it's the city of David. that you hear about.
It's the star of David you see waving on their flag. It's David this and David that. While he was king, he expanded the boundaries from 6,000 to 60,000 square miles, never once experienced defeat on the battle. From the time he kept his father's sheep all the way through Goliath. All the way through running from Saul in his paranoia.
all the way through his being anointed king at age thirty and all the way to about age fifty, his life is like the r a rooftop. It's going up and up and up and up and up. It looks like it will never end. Until Bathsheba. 2 Samuel chapter 11.
In a moment of Adulterous lust. The man forgets himself And is God in What a tragedy he is. F. B. Meyer writes, this is the most heinous of all.
That one would become the cause of his own. suffering. That the vulture which feeds on the vital is a nestling of one's own rearing. Amy, this is pain. And then the rooftop changes.
and from there on everything seems downhill.
However, at the confession of his sin. which is chapter 12. Nathan faces him. And David finally hears enough to know the misery is over. I had been found out and he says to Nathan Verse 13 of chapter 12, David confessed to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
Listen to the second chance. Nathan replied, yes, but the Lord has forgiven you. You know what should have happened and could have happened? And would have happened? He would have been stoned.
But he doesn't die by the grace of God. And in the mercy of God, he lives on. And begins to write other psalms. By the way, no psalms are written. during the full year of his deception.
when he hides his sin. from his people. Finally, he's found out. and ultimately the sword never leaves his home. as the consequences.
Unroll. I could go on through others. I get to the New Testament. We come to Peter. We've looked at him before.
No reason to turn. This. Spokesman for the disciples. Who has just made his greatest statement in life? You are the Christ.
the Son of the Living God. And the Lord says to him, Flesh and blood does not reveal that to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And then the Lord tells of his plans for The cross and Peter rebukes him and says, you're not going to die. Many things will happen, but death will not be one of them. And the Lord says to him, get behind me, Satan.
Shortly thereafter, Jesus. Says to him before the Cock froze. twice, you will have denied me three times. And he did. That's exactly what happens.
Yeah. And Peter goes out and weeps bitterly. at the second crowing of the cock. And Ultimately, the Lord comes back and says to him at the shores of Galilee. I want you to feed my sheep.
And feed my lambs. He gives them a second chance. And then I'll name another that. is a little less famous, but we've talked of him before. That would be John Mark.
Or John as he travels with Paul and Barnabas, as they began their first journey, And when things get tough and The mosquitoes bite, and the diseases come, and the mountains are high, and the climb is arduous. and the future is bleak. And the enemy is real. He gets scared. And he deserts.
He deserts The two when he He slips away. He doesn't even leave a note. And they find out in the morning that He's taken his backpack and And he's run. He's failed him. The failure is so real that when the Apostle Paul and Barnabas are talking of a second journey, And Bard of us wants so much to give John a second chance.
Paul will have nothing of it. A man who will prove himself unfaithful once, will prove himself unfaithful again. and you won't hear of it. Barnabas takes John and sails to Cyprus. Paul chooses Silas and begins the second journey.
And John lives in the the backwash of that embarrassing A failure. Until finally, at the end of Paul's life, 2 Timothy writing That final letter Paul says to Timothy, Bring John Mark with you. He would be profitable to me for the ministry, second chance. How great that must have sounded in the ears of John Mark. Oh, should I mention yes.
The same John Mark who gave us the second gospel. Aren't we grateful for the second chance? Matthew Mark Luke and John. That's the one who wrote. The first of the four gospels.
Most likely Mark getting must of his information from Peter. Mark writes that first gospel account. He has been given a second chance.
Now all of that has prepared us for for this third chapter of of Jonah. We've groaned our way through Jonah's life and we've. found ourselves uh longing for Jonah to get the message and Finally in the belly of the fish, He prays and offers up his songs of praises and his Sacrifices to the Lord and says, I will fulfill my vows. Jonah 2 and verse 9. My deliverance comes from the Lord alone.
And when the Lord heard that, The fish spewed him out on the shoreline and And there stands Jonah. ready to hear These words of mercy. From the Lord. Before I go into this third chapter. I know of without uh walking Among you, that there are some of you who need to hear these words today.
Because you have failed. And you're living in the misery. of your memory. And you're Embarrassed to think that that would be found out by others. and realize that you Certainly you are found out by the Lord.
He's never been absent.
So you especially hear these words. These brief words that come From Jonah chapter 3. I love the beginning of verse one. Then. The Lord.
Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time. There's the God of the second chance. He doesn't have his hands on his hips shaming Jonah. He doesn't have his finger pointing at him. Saying your own probation.
For the next two years, to prove the sincerity of your repentance. No, that's not a second chance. That's probation. That's not forgiveness. The Lord comes to Jonah the second time.
How great that must have been. Clarence Edward McCartney, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for years. toward the end of his life, wrote Of the heroes of the Old Testament, and when it gets to Jonah. writes of this moment, how Jonah must have rejoiced over that second chance. What if God had spoken To us.
But once. And never again. But how many second chances he gives us in his patience? and his mercy. Is that the truth?
How often God has come to us saying, I hear your words. I realize that you are repenting before me. I will honor that repentance with full forgiveness.
Now let's go on. It wasn't Jonah's message. To be proclaimed, it was God's, and every preacher, every evangelist. Every missionary Every musician who delivers the message of God Must remember it is God's message. We're midway through an encouraging message from Chuck Swindahl.
He titled his presentation, which is based on the story of Jonah, God. God of the second chance. You know, when it comes to powerful lessons in the Bible, there is always more to discover.
So here at Insight for Living, we offer a variety of companion resources so you can dig deeper into these topics on your own. The first one I'll mention is the spiral bound Bible study for Jonah, which comes in the Searching the Scriptures format. To purchase this Bible study, call us at 800-772-8888. Also, did you know that Chuck Swindoll offers a daily devotional that's sent directly to your email inbox? There's no cost, and starting or ending your day with a brief devotional thought from Chuck is a great idea.
You can subscribe to the email by going to insight.org/slash devotional. Today, I also have the privilege of offering a brand new booklet to you. It features the written sermon that Chuck presented on the weekend of his 90th birthday at Stonebriar Community Church. a church he founded and nurtured with deep love. His booklet is titled, Look Beyond, Will You Focus on Eternity?
In his final message to the church that he founded, Chuck implores each of us to hold fast to the timeless truths of the Bible. He reminds us that to lead well, we must first focus on eternity and the unwavering message of Christ. You'll find his booklet both encouraging and challenging as we strive to walk boldly with Jesus. We'd be pleased to send you this booklet when you give a gift to support the Ministry of Insight for Living. Just ask for the resource Chuck wrote called Look Beyond.
To send a check and request the booklet in the mail, address your envelope to InsightForLiving. Post Office Box 5000. Frisco, Texas 75034. You can also call us at 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash donate. I'm Bill Meyer.
Join us when Chuck Swindahl continues his encouraging message called God of the Second Chance. Friday on Insight for Living. The preceding message God of the Second Chance was copyrighted in 2018, 2019, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindahl Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide.
Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
