A Second Chance

When Thomas Edison was working on his invention of the light bulb, I read that the finished product required a team of men to work twenty-four consecutive hours to assemble the first bulb. When they were finished Edison handed the bulb off to a young man who was told to carry it upstairs. That poor man nervously cradled the bulb like it was a premature infant, so worried that he would drop it. And that is exactly what he did. The bulb shattered in a million pieces. 

The crew went right back to work, and twenty-four hours later they completed the second light bulb. Who do you think Edison entrusted to carry the bulb upstairs? He handed it off to that same young man who had already destroyed their first bulb, but this time that assistant successfully carried the bulb up the stairs. Sometimes we all could use a second chance. 

That truth is one of my favorite aspects of the ministry of the prophet Jonah. It is widely known that he was called by God to go to the great city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The city’s magnificence was rivaled only by its wickedness. We can’t blame Jonah for not wanting to go; archaeological evidence shows us that the Ninevites, led by their cruel king Ashurbanipal, impaled prisoners of war and left them to die in the sun; they beheaded victims and stacked their skulls outside the city gates as a warning to would-be invaders; they skinned people alive; and Nahum tells us they even practiced infanticide by throwing unwanted babies into the streets. Jonah didn’t want to go because he didn’t think people like that deserved God’s mercy and forgiveness. 

So Jonah decided not to go to Nineveh. He chose Tarshish as his destination, but he never arrived there. You know the story: God sends a storm, the pagan sailors decide the gods must be punishing them, they throw Jonah overboard, and he is swallowed by a special fish, only to repent and be regurgitated on dry land. 

Armed with a second chance, the prophet commits to keep his vow (2:9), and this time he gets it right (minus the bad attitude, but that is another topic). Because of Jonah’s preaching, more than 120,000 people repent of their unspeakable wickedness and God spared the city for another century. 

Do you always get it right the first time? Me neither. I’m thankful for a God who gives second chances (and third chances!). If you are in the middle of doing something wrong right now, repent of it and ask the Lord for a second chance and a fresh start. But don’t miss the real theme of Jonah: “Salvation belongs to the Lord (2:9).” 

Jonah didn’t want to take the gospel to people he thought were undeserving of mercy, yet when he was in the fish’s belly, mercy is what he prayed for. We don’t deserve mercy, but we receive it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking God shouldn’t extend that same undeserved mercy to those we might deem as being too wicked, but share the good news with those who need to hear it most.

Rhetorical Questions

Are you familiar with rhetorical questions? They are questions in which the answer is so obvious that the question doesn’t actually need to be answered; the answer is implied by the question. An example of a rhetorical question would be, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?” There is also this classic one from the Bible: “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh grave, where is your sting (I Corinthians 15:55)?” 

Parents are notorious for asking rhetorical questions: “Do you want me to pull this car over?” “Do you want a spanking?” “Do you think I’m joking?” “Do you think money grows on trees?” “What do I look like—a bank?” Children know that the only answer is to either say no or else just be quiet. I’ve never heard of a child saying yes when asked if he needed a spanking. 

We understand that rhetorical questions are not intended to be answered, but if you ever do venture an answer to one, you better get the answer right. One of the few times I have seen a rhetorical question answered is in the book of Jonah. Near the end of the story God’s wayward prophet is having a private pity party because the gourd that was giving him shade spoiled overnight because of a worm that the Lord prepared for the occasion. Jonah is miserable. He should have been on cloud nine because he had just preached the gospel in Nineveh and more than 120,000 people believed his message and repented of their sins. God spared the city from destruction because their faith was sincere. 

Jonah was furious that God forgave them, and he was sad because a plant died. God hit him with a rhetorical question that was meant to make him think. He asked, “Do you do well to be angry over a gourd(4:9)?” Classic rhetorical question. This is supposed to be the part where Jonah’s head drops in shame. He ponders for a moment, and then says, “You’re right God. Of course not. Man, my priorities are out of whack.” But that isn’t what he says at all. Jonah answers God’s rhetorical question, and he gets the answer wrong by saying, “I do well to be angry, even unto death.” In other words, “Yes God, I’m angry enough to die!” 

Rhetorical questions aren’t supposed to be answered, and they certainly aren’t supposed to be answered wrong. I believe Jonah gave us this humorous story to help make a memorable point. As Jonah prayed from inside the belly of the great fish, “Salvation belongs to the Lord (2:9).” It is God’s job to save sinners, and it is our job to help sinners make the choice to seek salvation. We can lose sight of that when life gets in the way. We may let little things get under our skin and then get us down. When we get down we can throw ourselves a pity party, and then we stop doing the important things God has called us to do. 

God just may use His Holy Spirit to challenge our priorities. If He does, I hope you do a better job than Jonah. Do you really want to make that same mistake? 

God is in Control

Last week we looked at the consequences of Jonah’s sin—how he “went down” in a spiral because he was running from God. But I also believe it is important to concentrate on how God acted during Jonah’s tailspin. The prodigal prophet may have thought he was in control of things while he was running in the opposite direction of Nineveh, but even in his disobedience he could not thwart the plans on the Almighty.

In 1:17 the narrative reads, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” The Lord prepared a fish. This was not a freak accident or a random event, but was providentially orchestrated by God Himself. Did He prepare the fish from scratch just for this occasion, or had God been preparing the fish for years? Was it a special kind of fish that did not exist? We do not know, but we know where it came from. God was in control, and He prepared the instrument that was going to get Jonah’s attention.

God had already prepared Jonah to be a prophet, and then prepared him to preach to the Ninevites; his disobedience was not going to keep the Lord’s message out of Nineveh, so God prepared a great fish. Earlier He had prepared a storm that was used to toss Jonah overboard so that the fish He prepared could swallow him. Since surviving inside the stomach of a fish is not possible, there would need to be some miraculous preparations taking place for that as well. Later in this letter God prepared a plant to grow to give Jonah shade, and then He prepared a worm to eat the plant. Through the entire story God is in control.

 That is an important lesson for us to keep in mind as we live life. Jonah is not just a story about a prophet taking God’s message to a pagan nation, or about a crazy fish that happened to eat a man and spit him out on dry land. It isn’t a coincidence. God is sovereign and nothing happens that He does not either author or allow. We cannot stop Him, and He does not need our permission. Your life may feel like things are coming unraveled sometimes, but it may just be that God is preparing something that we cannot see.

Jonah's Downward Spiral

The story of Jonah most likely makes us think of the big fish that swallowed the prophet. And why not? It is a great story because people are not commonly eaten by fish, and even if they are, they don’t live to tell about it. It really is the ultimate fish story, but instead of Jonah telling his buddies about the big fish he caught, he could tell them about the fish that caught him. When we think of Jonah we think of the big fish, and when we share the story of Jonah it is usually to teach that God gives second chances: Jonah ran from God when he was called to preach in Nineveh, but he got another chance when the fish vomited him out in—of all places—Nineveh.

But Jonah is about more than just the grace of God. This short book also gives us a picture of what sin does in the life of a believer. Notice this repetition of the word down in Jonah: instead of going to Nineveh he went down to Joppa; after getting a boat to take him the opposite direction of God’s will, he went down into the inner part of the ship; from there he laid down and took a nap; he was thrown overboard and went down into the water and down into the belly of the fish. Had Jonah not been tossed out of the ship, it too would have gone down during the storm. As Dr. Eric Bargerhuff said of this passage, “Sin doesn’t lift you up, it only brings you down, and Jonah is circling the drain.” He found himself in a whale of trouble.

Because of Jonah’s disobedience he went on a downward spiral that took him into the bowels of a fish. When Jonah was summoned by God to testify in Nineveh, he could have obeyed and avoided all the headaches, and the stomachache for the fish. If he would have known that his rebellion would take him into the heart of a storm, into the fury of his shipmates, and into the belly of a fish, he would surely have obeyed to begin with. You have probably heard the old adage that “sin will take you farther than you want to go, cost you more than you want to pay, and keep you longer than you want to stay,” and that is certainly seen in Jonah’s life. I’m not saying that if you disobey God you will end up as fish food, but I do believe disobedience to God is always the wrong choice. Whatever God may be leading you to do, learn the lesson of Jonah and obey Him the first time.