What hope does a country have that has no fear of God?
The first option is to repent of her sins before the Lord of heaven and earth.
There is no Plan B.
Unrepentant sin leads to arrogance and self-importance. Ancient Nineveh was considered an important city. It was large and proud. And like today, obeying God was an outdated joke. The city was evil.
Jonah’s message was simple, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown.”
When the King of Nineveh was confronted by God’s prophet, he did something extraordinary – he repented! He rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation:
By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. (Jonah 3:6-9)
The King of Nineveh needed no polling data or focus groups. As Romans 1 teaches he knew his city was evil. He offered no compromises to Jonah. He didn’t say “We will give up 5 of our worst sins, but we will keep the rest. And just to sweeten the deal we will also build a temple to your God. After all, we need to be inclusive of other gods.” The King realized it was all or nothing. There was no plan B for Nineveh.
I have no idea when God will chose to overthrow an unrepentant America, whether it will be 40 minutes, 40 days, 40 months or 40 years. What I do know is that apart from turning to Christ in faith and repentance, our country will not survive.
Christian, God has commanded you, like Jonah, to call those around you to repentance. Let us not be reluctant to rescue our dark country. God’s reason for tomorrow is that people will come to know him. Let’s make God’s reason for tomorrow be our mission for today.
Your children watch and learn from everything you do and say. Don’t teach them there are ways for America to change other than by repentance. Cynicism and anger are not the answer. Political change is not the answer. Don’t teach them that God ignores sin. As in Jonah’s day, repentance is the only answer. Pray for repentance. Speak the truth of the gospel.