Judgment Spared (by Cathe Laurie)

“For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2 ESV).

America Has Turned From God

America is past due for judgment.

Disagreement. Hatred. Selfishness. Self-worship.

In all of our search for happiness and self-fulfillment, we have turned from the Lord.

In the book of Jonah, Nineveh was past due for judgment as well.

As a city, they had turned far from God. According to Bible scholars, it was a violent, bloody city, guilty of almost every sin you can imagine.

It would be easy to look at Nineveh and think, “Yes. . . the world would be better off without it.” But in many ways, we could say the same about the US.

So, how do we stop that pattern? How do we help to turn our country back to the Lord?

We look back to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Revival in America

In Genesis 18, the Lord reveals to Abraham that He intends to destroy Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham, in boldness and compassion, intercedes.

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:22-25 ESV).

Rather than scolding Abraham, the Lord agrees to his request, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake” (Genesis 18:26 ESV).

Abraham goes on to negotiate further with the Lord, until He agrees to spare the city if at least ten righteous men remained.

When I read these verses, my mind returns to our Harvest Crusade in July. I remember the faces of each of the 3,500 people who walked onto the field to give their lives to Christ and the many more who did the same online. Families, friends, grandparents, parents, children, all of different races, ages, and stories. . . each one of them who made the choice to say, “I choose to follow Christ.”

It is with them in mind that I turn to the Lord and ask Him, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Far be that from you!”

Will you join me in praying for our country? Over the next month, as election season ramps up, will you pray for peace, reconciliation, and revival across our nation?

Now is the time to fight, but not with fists and words. Now is the time to fight with prayer, to bring it to the Lord, to spare our nation from our own self-destruction.

Nineveh was past due for judgment, but God spared it.  “Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left. . .?” (Jonah 4:11 ESV).

Let us pray for His mercy over our nation. Let us intercede for our communities, our government, our states, and our people, and remember this promise: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV).

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Cathe Laurie is the founder and director of the Virtue women’s ministry. She is also a featured speaker on The Virtue Podcast, at Harvest events, and the author of As I See It. You can find her weekly articles here on harvest.org.