God is a God of Second Chances
It is not our successes in life
that make us who we are; but rather, our failures!
By David J. Stewart | March 2014
| Updated April 2017
Jonah 2:10-3:3, “And the
LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the
preaching that I bid thee. 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.”
I love that statement, “AND THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME UNTO JONAH THE SECOND
TIME.” Jonah had run from God the first time. The Lord has told Jonah to go
to Nineveh to preach the gospel, but Jonah fled instead to Tarshish. To
understand why Jonah didn't obey God, it is helpful to learn that the
Assyrians were infamous for their torturing methods. The Assyrian military
would fasten their victims securely and then peel their skin off while they
were alive.
Joshua
24:13-14, “And I have given you a
land for which ye did not labour,
and cities which ye built not,
and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards
and oliveyards which ye planted not
do ye eat. Now therefore fear
the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth:
and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the
flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.”
While running from his past in a barren desert,
Moses ran into his purpose. While leading his father-in-law Jethro's flock
of sheep, God was teaching Moses to lead the flock of Hebrews in Egypt and
the Wilderness. All of our tears, disappointments, sins, failures,
heartaches, embarrassments, burdens, losses and tribulations in life can be
used for God's glory to accomplish God's will in ways that we never could
have imagined.
Romans
8:28-29 teaches that God takes all the bad things in every believer's life
and causes them to work together for good, to conform us into the image of
our dear Savior. Only God knows the
things that would have happened if the things that happened hadn't happened.
God is a good God and everything that He does is right!
Again, our text verse reads, “AND THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME UNTO JONAH THE
SECOND TIME.” Has God given you a second lease on life? Have you seemingly
cheated death? Have you been given a second chance to restart your marriage?
Has God dealt with your heart a second time about your lost condition
without Christ? My friend, if God has given you a second chance, jump at it,
because you may not receive a third chance!
What has the Devil ever done for you? Nothing! Yet God has created
everything! We are all living a borrowed life, we breath borrowed air, in a
borrowed body, in a borrowed world, eating borrowed food, wearing borrowed
clothes, enjoying things borrowed from God. Revelation 4:11
says, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure
they are and were created.” We and everything good that
we own were created to PLEASE GOD. God is not only the Creator of all
things, but He is also the Owner of all things! It all belongs to Him
(Psalms 24:1; 1st Corinthians 10:26). God has lent all things to us that we
posses. We start life with nothing, and we leave this life with nothing,
because we cannot take it with us.
HELPING OTHERS (chapter 42 from Dr. Hyles' favorite book he
wrote, 'BLUE
DENIM AND LACE')
Thus, when we give to God we are
simply letting go of what is already His. How much are you giving God?
And by the way, God wants your
time as much as your money. If you only tithe 10% of your income, then
you've only given God a little over 2% of your time. There's 168 hours in a
week. If you work 40 hours and tithe 10%, then you've only given God 4 hours
out of 168 hours total in a week. Giving back to God is our privilege,
responsibility and obligation. Any business man will tell you that time is
money and money is time. God rewards us for our labours (1st Corinthians
3:8), which includes our time, for time is the essence of labour. We all
reach the future at a speed of 60-minutes per hour.
My point in this little
discussion is that you will be rewarded far greater for giving God 30-40
hours a week of your time, then those who merely tithe 10% on their income.
Has God given you a second chance? If so, GIVE HIM YOUR MONEY AND YOUR TIME.
If you're like most people, you have much more time than money.
There are thousands of things that
we can all do for God with our time, including: prayer, fasting, publishing
a blog or website to proclaim the truth and get folks saved, writing
encouraging letters to missionaries, or sending a gift package to
missionaries, writing gospel literature, writing a Christian book, volunteer
at the church, print the Four Gospels from the Bible, drive a Sunday School
bus, teach a Sunday School class, ask your pastor if you can help him, help
your neighbors and invite them to church, preach in a Rescue Mission or
local prison, teach a Bible-class in a local nursing home, use your music as
an opportunity to share the gospel and pass out Christian literature, et
cetera. Surely, there are many open doors that we can all go through to do
more for God. God will do the great things, if we'll do the small things
that God gives us to do.
The World At Our Doorstep!
Every New Testament Church should support missionaries. Since
churches are composed of individual born-again believers, then every
individual Christian ought to support missionaries as well. We ought
to have a GLOBAL, REGIONAL (Acts 13:4; 2nd Corinthians 8:5) and
LOCAL vision. Acts 1:8, “But ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto
me both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth.”
If God has ever given you a second chance, then you know fully what Charles
Dickens' fictitious character Ebenezer Scrooge felt like after being visited by
the three ghosts of Christmas: past, present and future. When Scrooge woke up on
Christmas day, realizing that he had been given a second chance to amend his
ways and do what is right, Scrooge jumped at the chance. It is a beautiful story
that parallels a Christian man who's just got saved. Whereas, he was living as
greedy and wicked man, now he has repented and received Christ as His Savior,
and now we see the newness of life in Christ in him. END
Repent And Believe To Be
Saved
Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any
people.”
Mark 1:15: “...repent
ye, and
believe the gospel.”
"Search
the scriptures;
for in them ye think ye have eternal life:
and they are they which testify
of me." —John 5:39
HELL FIRE (you'd better get saved before it's too late!
by Pastor Danny Castle)
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