When a Nation Fails to Listen

Kenya, God has warned you on several occasions to change your ways. Everyone alike, from the old to the young, from the pub to the church, from the president to the peasant. Hear God, change your ways and turn to Jesus. The weight of what you may face might be too great to handle. How long can you push God away as a person, in such a time as this. Let's learn from NINEVEH, ISRAEL IN BABYLON AND NOAH'S GENERATION.

In the Bible, Nineveh is most famous for its role as the capital city of Assyria, Israel's archrival nation at the time. Scripture makes reference to Nineveh, a city that was located in what is now known as Iraq, as being a town that responded favourably to a warning from God to abstain from sin but was ultimately obliterated.

It is common knowledge that the biblical prophet Jonah was dispatched by God to preach in the city of Nineveh (Jonah 1:2). Jonah was reluctant to travel, most likely as a result of the enormous wickedness of the Assyrians, and he attempted to run away from the order of the Lord. Jonah was swallowed by a large fish so that God could take him away from the Ninevites and send him to preach to them instead (Jonah 1:3, 17). Jonah warned the people of Nineveh about the impending doom that would befall them (Jonah 2:10; 3:1–4). The people of Nineveh, beginning with their king and working their way down to the commoners, did not choose to disbelieve the Lord's words but rather submitted to humility and sought forgiveness for their sins. 

The people of the city as a whole went without food, wore sackcloth, and sat in ashes; some of them even clad their livestock in sackcloth (Jonah 3:5–9). "God relented over the judgement he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them," the prophet Jonah wrote, after observing that the city of Nineveh had turned from their wicked ways (Jonah 3:10, NET). Now that nation listened and God relented his anger.

When a nation fails to listen, God pours his anger on all alike but for his true church. How can someone know what love is if they don't know what hate is? If they don't know about His law, how can they understand anything about His grace? How can they know what forgiveness is if they don't know what sin costs? Men cannot understand. They can't look for grace and salvation if they don't feel afraid of the wrath of God, which is already on them. Men are not forced to change unless they feel like they are in grave danger.