He blew his first opportunity to do God’s Will. He was supposed to go to Nineveh and preach. He ran to Tarshish and fled the Lord.
Like we can run from God?
After his belly of the fish experience, He repented.
Look at details with me.
He did not go down the big fish’s blow hole if it were, indeed, a whale species. He did not get chewed up by the great fish. Jonah was swallowed.
Now, there are only two ways out. Since he did not end up in the fish’s lungs from the blow hole, he was going out either through the digestion of the fish or be vomited up.
Jonah 3: 1-2: *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.
Good news.
God was still speaking to Jonah even after he was spit up on the beach from the great fish.
(Wonder if he showered first before talking to a Holy God)?
Jonah arose and did what God said do. Preach.
Some scholars and theologians say the entire town was saved. Some 120,000 people. All.
Sounds like a second chance for Jonah and for the thousands of people who needed to repent.
Perhaps this was the only second chance Jonah would get. And maybe the people too.
Only God knows how many chances we will get to do His will and do it right.
Maybe one. Two, who knows?
I would not risk, in this Russian roulette game of testing God, while under conviction to do something the first time.
May not get a second chance and find yourself an old man or woman.
Old and out of the presence of the Most High.
I had my second chance.
It was 1977 when I gave my heart to Jesus while in prison in Texas. I was saved. Baptized in the Holy Ghost too.
I left prison in the Will of God but found that I had fallen short soon after leaving prison.
(Should have stayed in prison and grew up in the Lord by doing another felony in prison, which would have ensured my release date would be extended). Not a chance. I hated picking cotton.
At least I would not have fallen away so quickly.
I still had on spiritual diapers, and they needed changing. I stunk in the presence of God. I needed a bottle to stay nourished as a baby in Christ, but what I was feeding myself was only making my diaper soiled.
I was becoming dependent on a mother figure to feed and change me who did not exist, except in my mind. No nurturing, because I failed to read my Bible and pray as much as I needed to.
I didn’t mature at all.
Jonah. Good ole’ Jonah.
The name Jonah means “dove” in Hebrew, but Jonah’s character and attitude was anything but dove-like the first time the Lord told him to go to Nineveh.
Like me, Jonah was more like a turkey-vulture. Eating dead things and looking like an overstuffed gobbler, with an ugly demeanor. No one would have me for Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how long they deep fried my carcass.
I would have tasted and smelled of a thing called “pig-pen mentality, and hog-trough attitude.” Ask the prodigal son what that was like. He can give you a first-hand account. At least he had enough courage to go home to his father and repent. I did not.
So, in 1991 I had a close encounter of the blue kind. The PO-lice.
In Oregon City, Oregon I was pulled over two blocks from my home.
Understand that I was not living for the Lord and was on my 12th year of miserable living.
Backslidden.
I had things in my car that were illegal. I will leave that to the archives of my criminal record. It is all under the Blood of Jesus, but not off the police data bases.
The cop had every right to arrest me.
How do I know this? “Thanks for asking, I will tell you.”
He took 14 minutes in his car deciding on my future incarceration, based upon my history of attempted murder on a police officer.
And the fact I had things in my car that were illegal. Not illegal in Oregon now. You can buy this stuff at any local store today.
Knowing when the traffic stop, and my history and current issues, take this long, I am in trouble. I feel like I am going to jail for the first time since my release from prison. It had been 14 years since my release, and I did not want to see razor wire or eat jail food again.
Never.
So, I had me a “Jonah in the belly moment” with Jesus. I was smelling the stench of my sin, like Jonah was smelling the acids in the belly of the great fish.
The moorings of the mountains have let me down. The earth with its bars (memory of prison and jail bars) closed behind me forever. Jonah 2:6
These were my thoughts as I sat in my car with the red and blue lights of the police were parked behind me. I am still awaiting my fate.
I prayed a prayer.
“Lord, I know I have not talked to you in over 14 years. My address has changed several times, but you never change. Please, if you get me out of this mess, I will never go back to the vomit of my sin. In Jesus name, Amen.”
All I heard from the Holy Ghost to my heart was, “OKAY?” The “okay” was conditional. I knew what He meant. I was not playing “let's make a deal with God.”
I meant what I prayed. The feeling of God’s condition, if I could describe it, would be:
“OKAY Joe, I will rescue you again, but, if you do not do what I say, from now on, I will find another fish for you to spend time with. Understood?”
Suddenly, no more than a half of a second when I said Amen to my prayer, the police officer opened his door, ran up to me with my license, insurance paper, and registration, and threw them in my lap while my driver’s window was down.
He said, “I have an emergency call, a more important call to get to. Get home Mr. Wilkins. He drove off with his lights and sirens blazing.
I knew what he meant when he said to get home.
In other words, get rid of the stuff in your car and I do not ever want to see you again “meaning.”
I went home, disposed of all my junk and moved on.
That promise I made the Lord stuck. I grew up. I got rid of the dirty diapers and pull-ups I had been wearing. I started to eat proper food. Bread of Life, and His Word was my diet.
I cast off all my insecurities I could at this time and began evangelizing everywhere.
I was in my own Nineveh world.
Preaching everywhere I went. At work. At the park. At the pizza parlor and beyond.
I never went ever again to Tarshish. I did what Jonah did. I repented.
I had my “second chance” with the Lord Jesus. I stopped playing Russian Roulette with the God of the Universe.
No guns. No bullets.
No putting one bullet in and spinning the chamber.
No putting the barrel to my temple and pulling the trigger.
In hopes I would get a third, fourth, fifth or “BANG” chance.
No more for me. I was done.
You could have put a fork in me and called me tender. I am ready now for Thanksgiving. I was a good turkey for Jesus. I didn’t smell like sin anymore.
So, throw away the things that so easily destroy you.
Get up, untie your ropes around your neck. The noose around your life should never be swinging with you in it, ever, never again.
SO, help me Jesus. So, help me, Jonah.
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
