Everyone makes mistakes or bad decisions, sometimes serious ones. At the time, you might feel that there's no way back, but God can always make a way. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah illustrates this truth in the life of Jonah, who tried his best to leave God, only to find that God had never left him. From his series on Jonah, here's David to introduce his encouraging message, the second chance.
To me, this is one of the most encouraging sections of the book of Joan and perhaps even of the Old Testament, especially for those of you who have gotten caught along the way getting out of fellowship with God. Maybe you made a big mistake and you wonder: is God finished with me?
Well Jonah deliberately defied God's command, ran away to another country. And God brought him back. And the Bible says here in Jonah chapter 3, and the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time. What happens from this moment on is one of the most remarkable recovery stories you will ever read anywhere. He went from being in the whale's belly in defiance of God to ultimately conducting one of the greatest revivals in the history of the world.
Can you believe that? Because the Lord God gave him a second chance. And we're going to talk about that today from the third chapter of the book of Jonah. Don't miss any of this study. This is really exciting.
Hey, the book of Jonah has been organized by us, and I put this together in a study guide. And you can get the study guide. Jonah the Runaway Prophet Study Guide is now available. It will take you through every single lesson that we talk about here in the air. You'll get all the notes, all the outlines, all the scripture references.
You'll be able to use this to go back through the book. I recommend you study it with your small group. Put it on your schedule. Make sure you don't forget it. Get every one of your students a copy of the study guide and then meet together each week when you study and enjoy a very robust discussion about the runaway prophet.
I hope you will do that.
Well, here is part one of the second chance from Jonah chapter 3. Over a lifetime of writing and teaching, Lewis Smeeds, who's one of my favorite writers, never got tired of pointing people. to the grace of God. On one occasion, he said, Grace is amazing because. It works against the grain of common sense.
Realistic common sense tells you that you're too weak, too harassed, too human to change for the better. But grace gives you power to send you on the way to being a better person. Plain common sense will tell you that you are caught in a rut of fate or futility, but grace. comes along and promises that you can trust God to have a better tomorrow. For you That is grace, and that is God's grace.
There's no better news in all the world for those of us. who know God, than that we have a God who forgives. and a God who is gracious. How many of you can say you're glad that God is a God who gives us a second chance? Can I get an amen to that?
That is good news. And it's a good word for every one of us. And it's exactly the word from the Scripture for today. I want to speak to you on the subject of the second chance. When I came to the first two verses of chapter 3, I just couldn't go on.
I had to stop there. And set up my tent for a couple of days and say, listen, we're going to talk about that for a whole Sunday. I felt like we needed to stop. And talk about this wonderful truth, the God of the second chance.
So Jonah 3, 1 to 2 says this.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you. And those are some of the most helpful words in the whole Bible. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. And everything Jonah had done, after all his running and resisting. God didn't give up on him.
God spoke to him again the second time. What did he tell him? The same thing he told him the first time. that he didn't do. If you're a student of baseball, you may remember the name of Ralph Branca.
He was a fine pitcher for the old Brooklyn Dodgers and he had many winning seasons. But you know, most people only remember him for one afternoon when he pitched. To Bobby Thompson of the New York Giants in the final inning of the National League Championship. The Dodgers were ahead, and Branka's job was to protect the lead. But Thompson hit the pitch into the stands, and the Giants won the championship.
In that moment, it felt like Branca's whole world collapsed with one swing of the bat. He had had a good career, but from that day on, people didn't ask him about his victories. All they wanted to know was: how did you feel when you threw that pitch? You might say, well, that's just baseball, but for him, it was more than a game. It was his whole life, it was his work.
his reputation, his future, and it all seemed to unravel in one single moment. It made me think of something that happened when the goalie from Canada gave up a goal in overtime, and the United States won the gold medal. and all I can think about is that goalie's going to remember that his whole life. He let them score the goal. in overtime.
Now most of us are never going to make a mistake in public like that. But we understand the feeling. Our failure, even if it's just one, one bad decision, one season of our lives, can start to define us. And we begin to wonder if there's any way back, if there's hope for us. With God?
Can I start again? Can the Lord ever use me after what I've done? That is why these words in Jonah are so precious to us. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. The main message of this passage is simple and beautiful.
We serve a God. who gives a second chance. He's not finished with us when we fail. He's not done with us when we fall. And what he did for Jonah.
He will do for you and for me.
Now let's Take a slice of this. First of all, looking at God's perspective on second chance. I'm here to tell you that if I understand anything about the Word of God, I understand this truth. The God I represent. The God who loves me and loves you.
Is a gracious God who gives his people. the opportunity to start over. He is the God of the second chance. That is certainly true in the life of Jonah. For all practical purposes, Jonah could have believed he had ruined everything.
What he did was not accidental. Jonah just didn't one day get up and do something Haven't thought about. He had a clear command from God and He did the exact opposite. He willfully, deliberately went in the wrong direction. He boarded a ship.
He endangered the lives of pagan sailors. And sitting in the belly of that great fish, Jonah must have thought it was over. Even if he survived, he probably assumed God would never want anything to do with him again. And then we read these amazing words: and the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Those words are filled with hope.
Let me be clear about it. These verses don't teach that people who reject Christ in this life will get another chance in the next. The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. Jonah 3 is about what happens to believers when we fail God in this life. It is about restoration.
Not another opportunity after death. And the Bible is filled with illustrations of the second chance. Think about Moses. Did you know that in anger, Moses took the life? of a man and spent forty years on the back side of the desert.
But God restored him. and used him to deliver Israel. Moses became the greatest lawgiver in history. The words that he wrote in the law that he got from God have become the jurisprudence of nations from that day until now. A man used mightily after a terrible failure.
And then think about David. This one really kind of astounds us all. He committed adultery and he arranged the death of an innocent man. By human standards, we would say he was finished. Yet through repentance and God's forgiveness he was restored.
And after his sin, he still ruled the kingdom. He planned the temple. He wrote many of the Psalms that comfort God's people to this day. God judged him, but God did not abandon him. Think of the prodigal son.
We know that story well. He wasted his inheritance and ended up in a pigpen. When he came to his senses, he returned home. He expected rejection, but his father instead ran to meet him. covered him with kisses and restored him as the celebrated son.
And here's one we all know about, Peter. He denied the Lord three times. Yet after the resurrection, Jesus recommissioned him three times. and the man who failed so publicly became the preacher of Pentecost. And then there's John Mark, not so well known as the others, but he abandoned Paul on a mission field.
Later became useful for ministry. Failure did not have the final word in his life. Here is the great lesson. Failure does not have to be final. unless we allow it to be.
God is more willing to give people a second chance than most people are willing to give people a second chance. But second chances do not mean that sin has no consequence. Every one of these people paid a price. Still, God brought them to a place where he could use them again. I want you to notice the way he dealt with them all.
First of all, Moses Had to go through a period of separation. He put Moses out in the desert, away from his people, away from everything that he knew. Moses ended up raising his family out there and he became a shepherd. Here was this man who would become the greatest leader of Israel, and yet he was on the back side of the desert tending sheep. Cut off from everything that seemed important.
Moses wasn't really called to be a shepherd, he was called to be a leader, but God separated him from everything. and gave him a long season to think about his life. And there's David. With David, God worked in a different way. The process he used was confrontation.
You know, David had done all those terrible things we talked about. And he kept on living as if everything was fine. He never came clean. And then one day God decided to deal with him. and spoke to David's preacher.
You want to be careful when you're in trouble, and God speaks to your preacher about you. because you're about to find out what he wants.
So God sent Nathan to David. And Nathan was a wise prophet. He knew how to reach this man's heart. He told David a story about a little lamb that was stolen. It was so powerful.
And when David heard it, he was filled with anger, and he said, Whoever did that deserves to die. Nathan stuck his bony finger. in David's face and said, Thou art the man. Oops. Caught.
Sometimes the second chance comes only after confrontation because until you face what you've done, there can't be any new direction. If you keep going the way you're going, you're going to get where you don't want to be. God used confrontation on David.
So Moses' plan was separation, David was confrontation. The prodigal son was desperation. The prodigal took his money to the far country, spent it all on wild living, and when we finally see him, everything is gone: his money, his food, his friends. He's slopping around with the hogs, and suddenly he comes to himself and realizes what his choices have done to him, and he is desperate. And he says, These servants have more than I have, and he.
Decided to go home. And he went back and confessed.
Sometimes God allows you to Go down to zero, end up with nothing. No assets maybe, no place to live. He used desperation on the prodigal. Isn't it interesting how he uses these different methods on different people? Peter, I love this one.
Peter, he got a demonstration. God put together an entire drama to deal with Peter. He set up the whole scenario ahead of time and even gave Peter an audio signal. Jesus said, Before the night's over, you're going to hear the rooster crow after you've denied me. And Peter said, That ain't going to happen.
And the Lord said, The rooster will tell you when it's done. Peter denied him, the rooster crowed, and Peter knew the jewel was up. The Bible says he went out and wept bitterly. God used a demonstration to show Peter what he had done. And then there's John Mark.
Remember, I told you he's not as famous as the others, but he was the friend of Paul's. And he turned his back on him. If God had used the same method on John Mark that he used on David, or these others, he would have blown him out of the saddle. He would have never recovered. But you know what God did?
Mm-hmm. He brought along a guy by the name of Bartamus. And Barnum has said to John Mark, come on, man. You're going with me. We're going to get you back on the right path.
And sometimes people are so overwhelmed by failure that they need someone to believe in them again. And Barnabas did that.
Some need a hard confrontation like David. Others need a gentle encouragement like John Mark. Then, of course. Here's the star of our story, Jonah. Let me go back over this.
Moses was separation, David was confrontation. The prodigal son was desperation. Peter was demonstration. John, Mark was affirmation and Jonah was isolation. God used isolation on him.
He put him in the belly of a fish with no one to talk to, nothing to distract him, just time to think about what he had done. Every one of those people received a second chance, but not before God dealt with them in a personal way. Do you know that God might be dealing with some of you? Maybe He brought you here to hear this message, and He's dealing with you. about your life.
Maybe you've messed up. And you think that no one's going to help you, or there's no chance, but I'm here to tell you: God is the God of psychic chances. And he brought you here to deal with you, and you don't want to resist him because he wants you to come back. That's good. The door to that second chance involves something like this.
something that brings you to a place recognition and repentance.
So we've looked at God's perspective on the second chance. Let's now look at our response. What do we do when we know That we've taken the wrong turn, and we've gone down the detour instead of the main road. Recognition is the first thing. You have to accept what you've done.
You say, well, Pastor, that's obvious.
Well, it's not that obvious to most people. One thing I've realized more and more, especially when talking to people who get into trouble, is that many of them will not fully face what they've done. The human mind is very skilled at protecting us from painful truths about ourselves. We build explanations and mental defenses that shield us from guilt or shame. It is remarkable how people can live in a kind of false reality.
seeing things not as they really are, but as they wish they were. Until you recognize the truth about your situation, it will not get better. In the Bible, when the prodigal son came to himself, it means he finally saw his life clearly. King David had a similar moment. After being confronted about his wrongdoing, he simply said this.
He said, I have sinned against the Lord. 2 Samuel 12, 13. Yeah. That was his moment of truth. No excuses, no deflection.
The Bible says, he who covers his sins will not prosper. But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. 1 John 1, 8 and 9 says, If we say that we have no sin, We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is usually a moment like that for all of us, a moment of recognition.
After everything that has happened, we finally admit that what we have really done is wrong. And we accept that truth. Then after recognition, usually there's some remorse. Luke 22, 62 says that Peter went out and he wept bitterly when he realized what he had done. That moment came after he denied even knowing Jesus.
When it finally hit him, he broke down. I'm not saying that you have to shed a certain amount of tears. To experience God's grace, but I am telling you that just about everybody I know who goes through this process. reaches a point of deep sorrow. There comes a moment when the full weight of what has happened in their life settles on them.
The excuses fade. The reality becomes clear. and they are filled with remorse. The Apostle Paul wrote, Godly sorrow produces repentance. leading to salvation.
Not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. Recognition opens the door. Remorse. Usually walks through it. And then there's repentance.
Let me talk about this because it's so misunderstood. Repentance is something deeper. It is facing what you have done, measuring it by God's standards, and saying, I will not continue in this. I'm turning around. It is not just feeling bad, it is choosing a different direction.
And in the Bible The word translated repent literally means. to turn or change direction. In the ancient world, if you were traveling on a road and you asked someone, Am I going the right way? They might say to you, No, you need to repent. You need to turn around.
That is the picture behind repentance. It means to stop going one way and begin going another way. Spiritually, repentance means coming to God and saying, I have sinned, I ask for your forgiveness, and I am turning away from this sin and turning towards you. Acts 3.19 says, Repent, therefore, and be converted. that your sins may be blotted out.
It is a change of mind that results in a change of direction. Repentance is almost a lost word in our culture. We don't hear it very often. But there cannot be restoration without repentance. There is no real change until you admit that what you are doing is not acceptable to God and you commit yourself to go a different way.
People sometimes ask me to pray for them while continuing in something they know is wrong. For example, someone might say, Would you pray for me? I'm in a relationship that is not right.
Sometimes it involves another person who is already married. I tell him I'm not going to pray for you. I'm not going to pray for you unless you repent. What do you mean? Are you willing to end the relationship?
If the answer is no, then prayer isn't the issue. Prayer is not a substitute for repentance. Psalm 66:18 says, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. You cannot ask God to bless what you are unwilling to surrender. You can't keep doing what you know is wrong and say, God, would you help me?
No, He's not going to help you do that. Repentance means you come to the place where you see clearly that what you have done is wrong and you turn from it toward God. That is what repentance means. Nothing more, nothing less.
So there is recognition, and there's often remorse and repentance.
Sometimes that's followed by a time of reflection. If you study all of these illustrations from the Bible, you'll discover an interesting thing: that there usually is a parentheses. Between the time of repentance. and the time of restoration. It takes a while for the soul to heal.
and the souls of those who have been hurt to heal. and for trust to be re-established. And then finally, after recognition, remorse, repentance, and reflection comes reassignment. Do you remember what God said to Jonah after Jonah ran from God and experienced discipline? And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, and he said, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.
And preach. The message that I will tell you. Does that sound familiar? It should, because that's what he told him before. That he didn't do.
God did not discard Jonah. He sent him again. And what did Jesus say to Peter? Listen to this, this is so encouraging. And when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?
And he said, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said, Feed my lambs. And he said to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And he said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, Tend my sheep.
And he said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.
Would you notice? Peter denied the Lord three times. And Jesus recommissioned him three times. just to make sure that he didn't lose the truth, that he wasn't done with him. There was restoration, there was responsibility, Peter was recommissioned.
and he had another opportunity to serve God. Don't you really resonate with these stories? I mean, there's none of us who can look back over our record and say, we could have been better there. We should have done this then. And does God get upset with us when we don't do it the way he wants us to do it?
No, he gives us another chance. God is a great teacher, and he wants us to be a part of his plan, and he will help us do that any way he can.
Sometimes he'll use a whale, and as we'll learn a little bit later on, sometimes a worm. He doesn't have anything outside of the boundary of his tools when he's dealing with his people. Tomorrow we'll take the second part of this second chance, and I hope you'll be with us then. This just gets, as my friends sometimes say, gooder and gooder. It gets better and better.
And I know that you're going to want to be part of the finale of this. Third chapter of the book of Jonah. Be sure and join us tomorrow, right here on this good station. Don't forget to order your calendar during this month. This is the only time it's available.
Ask for your copy when you send your gift to Turning Point and you've been listening, you know what it is. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected.
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You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, available in several attractive and resilient cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Jonah the Runaway Prophet on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
