About twenty-seven hundred years ago, God told a man, by the name of Jonah, to go to the city of Nineveh which was in the land of Assyria, situated on the River Tigris, and proclaim His message to the people, which was, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
The reason that God sent this warning to the inhabitants of that city, was on account of their wickedness.
But the people believed what God had told them, through Jonah, and every one of them repented and turned from his evil ways, and cried mightily unto God, and said, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?” And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil ways....and He did it not.” Jonah 2:9-109But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. 10And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (Jonah 2:9‑10).
God saved the city at that time, because the people believed His word, and knew that they had sinned greatly, so they ceased their wicked ways and turned to the Lord, and He had mercy upon them.
But not long after, the people of that same city forgot all about the warning that God had given to them., and the grace that He had shown, in not destroying their city, so they went back to their sinful ways.
More than one hundred years after God had spoken to them through Jonah, He spoke again through His prophet Nahum, telling them that judgment was coming upon them and that their beautiful city was to be destroyed; but they did not turn to the Lord, confessing and forsaking their sins, as before.
And although God allowed a long time to pass before He brought the judgment on Nineveh, spoken of by Nahum, yet when God speaks, it will be fulfilled, and the judgment did come.
If you will read the book of Nahum, you will see what terrible judgments were to come upon the city and its inhabitants.
In the first chapter and fourteenth verse, the Lord said, “I will make thy grave, for thou art vile,” and for many hundreds of years God allowed that city to be buried, and no one knew where it was, so, many persons began to doubt whether such a place ever did exist, and skeptics began sneeringly to inquire of the Christian, “Where is your great Nineveh?”
But in the last century the city has been discovered and many things found in it and around it which show the fulfillment of prophecy.
Such was the sad end of this once beautiful city, with its proud and wicked inhabitants who were seeking to make themselves happy apart from God, for in Zeph. 2:1515This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand. (Zephaniah 2:15) we read, “This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly; that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me, how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!”
And dear children, as God warned Nineveh a long time before he sent the dreadful judgment upon it, so He has warned us, for over eighteen hundred years, that judgment is coming upon—not only a city—but the whole world, and He has given plenty of time for all who will, to escape it.
We read in Acts, 17:30-31 “God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man (Jesus) whom He hath ordained.”
He is a righteous God, and cannot allow sin to go unpunished, but He is love as well, so He has provided a way of escape, through Christ having died in the sinner’s place, and all who put their trust in Him will not be judged, because He has borne their sins on the cross, and He can now say, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” But those who will not acknowledge their sins and turn to the Lord, must share in the judgment that is coming. Dear children, which will it be with you?
J. T. A.
ML 07/29/1900