Jonah 3: It's Not Too Late, Arise and Go

Introduction

"Go again. It's not too late." That is the title Agu Irukwu, pastor of Jesus House in London, gives to this message preached on Thanksgiving Sunday, October 4. He asks the congregation to say it to their neighbor, and to say it with force.

At the start of the year, the church had been given a theme: "Go." But three months from the end, the pastor makes an honest observation: not everyone went. The business hasn't started, the application hasn't been sent, the relationship hasn't been restored, the weight hasn't come off, and the Bible reading plan stalled "somewhere in Leviticus."

From Jonah 3, he brings a word of encouragement to those who carry this silent disappointment: God speaks a second time, and the last ninety days of the year are not leftovers.

Outline of the Message

1. The Silent Disappointment and the Lie of "Too Late"

Jonah is ordered to go and preach in Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, a great city full of wickedness and a fierce enemy of Israel. He refuses, because he knows that if Nineveh repents, God will forgive. He boards a ship for Tarshish, in the opposite direction.
God sends a storm, Jonah is thrown into the sea, and God prepares a great fish. The pastor admits: "We were told in Sunday school that it was a whale." The Bible doesn't say so. After three days and three nights, Jonah prays, God hears him, and the fish spits him out onto dry land.
This disappointment in yourself is a heavy burden, quieter than other kinds of pain. We sing, we smile, we quickly answer "I'm fine, I'm a victor." Those are good words, but they sometimes hide a voice that says: "You heard the word and, once again, you did nothing with it."
The enemy whispers a plausible lie: "It's too late. Wait for January. New year, new you." In reality, he is asking you to give up three whole months, a quarter of the year.
The pastor's picture: someone had a thousand pounds and wasted seven hundred and fifty of them. He has two hundred and fifty left. Throwing those away while waiting to be handed a thousand pounds again would be absurd. "The last ninety days of this year are not leftovers. They are a gift."

2. God Speaks a Second Time

If Pentecostals had patron saints, Jonah would be the patron of people who were told to go and didn't.
His failure is no accident: it is a deliberate choice. He pays the fare to travel to the wrong place and endangers the lives of the sailors.
Disobedience goes in one direction only: down. Jonah goes down to Joppa, then down into the ship, then down into the sea, then down into the belly of the fish. "Every step away from the word of God is a step down."
Sometimes it isn't rebellion, it's procrastination. Sometimes it's distractions, what the pastor calls "the plain of Ono": Nehemiah's opponents invited him to come down and meet them in the plain of Ono. His motto became: "This is the plain of Ono, and I am not coming down." For others, it is fear.
Jonah 3:1: "Yahweh's word came to Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I give you.'" God doesn't cancel the mission. The second word is the same as the first: "Arise, go to Nineveh." He doesn't demote Jonah, set him aside, or choose someone else.
Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus doesn't lecture him: he prepares him breakfast, asks him three times "Do you love me?" and gives him back his mission. Failure was not the end of Peter's story, but the door to his greatest season.

3. Nevertheless, at Your Word

Some didn't run away like Jonah. They obeyed, rolled up their sleeves, prayed, fasted, worked, believed, and there is still nothing to show for it. This failure is harder, because it is also bewildering: "Did I really hear God? Is something wrong with me?"
To the one who has been faithful without seeing fruit, the pastor says: God has seen your labor. "Your empty net is not proof that God has forgotten you."
Simon Peter is a professional fisherman, on a lake he knows. In Luke 5:5 he says: "Master, we worked all night, and caught nothing." Jesus asks him to go out into deep water and let down the nets, in broad daylight, against all his fisherman's wisdom.
Before performing a miracle, Jesus borrows Peter's boat. "Let God borrow your life. Serve him, because you don't know when, while you are serving him, he will do for you what no human can."
How many have closed the door on God because they told him how things had to happen? The pastor invites us to let God be God and to stop playing "god with a small g."
Peter's answer is the key to the last quarter: "But at your word I will let down the net." This "nevertheless," as the preacher puts it, honestly acknowledges the failure, places God's word above experience, knowledge and the past, and leads to action. "Praying without acting is a useless exercise."
The nets that had caught nothing all night are the same ones that broke under the catch. No new equipment, no new lake: all that was needed was a new word.

4. God Can Restore Lost Time

The fear of "too late" is a fear of time: "I've wasted too much time, there isn't enough left. Where did those nine months go?"
Joel 2:25: "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the grasshopper, the destroying locust, and the caterpillar, my great army which I sent among you." God doesn't just forgive lost time, he restores it. He is not a prisoner of time, he is its steward.
In Joel's context, the locusts had stripped everything: the vines and fig trees were dying, season after season of work destroyed. God doesn't say: "Try harder next year." He says: "Return to me," and then he promises to restore.
Biblical restoration comes with a surplus. Job receives double what he had (Job 42:10). Under the law, a thief who was caught had to repay more than he had stolen.
The pastor asks us to stop praying the "pitiful" prayer: "Lord, help me salvage what's left of the year." Instead, ask God to restore the wasted months, the lost momentum, the obedience put off until later.
Nineveh required a three-day walk. Jonah starts with one day, and the whole city believes God, from the king to the least. "Don't tell me God can't accomplish in three months what should have been done in nine or ten." The prophet who set out late ends with the greatest revival recorded in the Bible.
In the parable of Matthew 20, the workers of the eleventh hour receive the same wage as those who worked all day. The pastor speaks over the congregation "the blessing of the eleventh hour."

5. Arise and Go: Six Steps for the Next Ninety Days

Inspiration is not enough. "We were inspired in January. By March, the inspiration was gone." Jonah 3:3: "So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to Yahweh's word." No debate, no discussion, no delay.
First, get up from where failure left you. Stop the pity party and telling everyone about your failure. Everyone carries scars: in thirty-five years of ministry, the pastor has learned not to judge a Christian by appearances. Confess what needs to be confessed, receive grace and get back up. "Condemnation will always pull you down. Grace will always lift you up."
Second, go back to the word. What did God tell you in January, in February? "The word of God never expires."
Third, don't try to do everything at once. Choose just one thing. Don't go from zero to forty-two chapters every morning, or from ten minutes of prayer to three hours because a pastor in the church does it. Be wary of "before and after" photos on social media and of public displays of affection if you've never started by saying kind words to your spouse. Move forward step by step.
Fourth, start this week. This afternoon, tomorrow. Putting things off is what cost you the past months, and action is what will restore them.
Fifth, go out into deep water, that is, into the depth of prayer. Start by praying.
Sixth, don't go alone. Peter called his companions to help bring in the catch. Often, nothing has changed for lack of accountability. Tell your home group or your friends what you plan to do, and when they follow up, accept the encouragement instead of fleeing to another church.

6. Three Weapons of the Enemy to Watch For

Shame: "Who are you to try again? Everyone saw you fail." Answer with Micah 7:8: "Don't rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me."
Fear: "What if I fail again? What if people laugh at me?" The pastor answers: "The only certain failure is the one where you never set out." And with 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control."
Procrastination, which looks so reasonable: "Why not start planning for January?" The aim is to make you waste these ninety days. Answer with 2 Corinthians 6:2: "Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation."

7. What You Want to Be Able to Say on December 31

The pastor invites everyone to picture themselves at the New Year's service, looking back over the year.
You don't want to say: "I tried in January and gave up." You want to be able to say: "I stalled, I failed, I struggled. But in October, God spoke to me a second time, I got up, I went, and look at what the Lord has done."
He prays for those who stand up admitting they missed the opportunity: that God would free them from all condemnation, silence the voice of "too late," let them hear his voice a second time and give them the courage to take a step this week.

Key Takeaways

With God, failure is not the end: his word comes a second time, and the mission remains the same.
An empty net is not proof that God has forgotten you. "At your word" acknowledges the failure and sets out again in obedience.
God doesn't just forgive lost time: he can restore it, and accomplish in a short time what seemed to require much more.
Inspiration is not enough: get up, return to the word, choose just one thing and start this week.
Shame, fear and procrastination are weapons of the enemy. We answer them with the word of God.

Personal Application

What word did you receive at the beginning of the year, and where are you today, honestly?
Does your failure look like Jonah's (running away, putting off, distraction) or like Peter's (having worked without seeing anything)?
What is the one thing you can choose to take up again, starting this week?
Which of these three voices do you hear the most: shame, fear or "wait for January"? Which verse will you set against it?
Who can you tell what you plan to do by the end of the year, so they can help you stay on track?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Jonah 3 teach us about failure?

The word of Yahweh comes to Jonah "the second time," and it is the same mission: "Arise, go to Nineveh." For Agu Irukwu, God doesn't cancel the calling, demote Jonah or choose someone else. With God, failure is not the end of the story.

What should you do when you obeyed and nothing happened?

The preacher takes the example of Peter in Luke 5: he had worked all night and caught nothing. His empty net was not proof that God had forgotten him. His response, "at your word I will let down the net," acknowledges the failure, places Jesus' word above his own experience and moves into action.

Can God restore lost time?

Yes. In Joel 2:25, God promises to restore the years eaten by the locust. Agu Irukwu points out that God is not a prisoner of time but its master, and that his restoration comes with a surplus. What was meant to take three days in Nineveh was accomplished in one.