Why Judgment Tarries

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? (Jonah 4:11)

I have for some time been burdened about a community I am connected with.

The level of sin and wickedness is saddening.

It seems as if sin is a foreign concept for most, even church people, yet it has been the bedrock of some serious Christian sects for a long time.

You listen to conversations and wonder whether anybody has ever encountered even a fragment of scripture because their arguments bear no connection with anything Christian.

Interestingly, many are in ‘Christian’ garb from top to bottom.

My observation over the years is that there is an almost zero awareness of sin, the rampant ones being theft and greed, harlotry and witchcraft.

As we continued praying with a pastor friend, it became abundantly clear that there is a huge problem because the community is teetering towards Sodom.

What should we be praying about?

At one time we were thinking that what the community needs is an awakening; an Elijah or John the Baptist type awakening because nothing in the community has anything close to the kind of change (forget about transformation) that would do any good.

Though there are so many ‘evangelistic crusades’, there is simply no hint of their efficacy, something I have noticed in a few other places over the years.

But as we went on praying, we saw that even that may not offer any solution since sin appears so entrenched.

Of course, the next thing is calling for judgment.

But even that does not seem to offer much of a solution. And that because the majority of the community does not even seem aware that what they are pursuing is sin.

That took us to Jonah’s scenario.

If God should judge the community (and He is justified to do so), many people would die for sins they were not even aware were sins.

That crushed me and put me in a dilemma, a bad one.

I can’t pray that they be forgiven since sin must be judged. And I can’t pray that they be judged since a majority of them are not awakened about their sin.

So I prayed that God shows me how to pray for the community.

God answered that in a very interesting way.

I went to a new stage and boarded a matatu home. And the signs clearly indicated where it was headed.

Along the way, it started behaving suspiciously.

But I didn’t mind because I was confident it was going to the destination indicated at the stage.

Then it left the highway. But even then, I didn’t panic. And it was raining very heavily as well.

Until the rough road became too much. By then we had left the highway far behind.

That is when I thought to ask why we were out of the highway and the conductors gazed at me in amazement since they were not going where I was going.

I had to alight in the rain, look for another matatu to take me back to the highway and then look for transport to take me where I was going.

I left Nairobi during the day and arrived home late at night and spent double the fare.

Then God told me why that happened.

Guides! Signposts! Signals!

I remembered another sad incident involving matatus some years ago.

Many matatus will on retiring take passengers on the route where the owner or driver lives

There was this PSV that ferries people to an upscale estate a few minutes drive from the city centre whose many vehicles closed their days by taking our route. And the stages are near each other.

One time, an old lady boarded such a vehicle. And she couldn’t be faulted because it was the one that ferried them all the time.

I do not know whether she slept as most people do at night, but as we were almost getting to the end of the journey, over an hour later, she blurted.

Why is it taking so long to get to Kileleshwa?

And to imagine it was close to ten o’clock at night!               

Our hearts sank.

Here is an old lady in Kiambu county, so far from the city which is so close to her estate.

All because of a wrong signal, or wrong signage.

That is the problem with the community we have been praying for.

God then started opening our eyes to that, showing us the spiritual leadership and the reason they could not be relied on to guide their people to God.

We have been able to see sin and wickedness in that spiritual leadership that is shameful and completely abhorrent.

And that spiritual leadership does not seem to care. They are as content in their wickedness as the ignorant sheep they are leading.

Of course, the prayer got a very clear direction.

Praying that God deals with the leaders in such a way that everybody will understand that God hates sin, worse still, sin involving the guides representing Him. And that is whether He has called them or they called themselves.

Or what would you do if you found a signpost showing the wrong direction?

And from observation I am not talking about this community alone.

As a minister I get to hear about a lot that happens in churches far and wide.

I can therefore accurately affirm that this problem is in most churches, especially ‘successful’ ones.

The clearest indicator of this is a question I have always posed, when was the last time you heard sin being preached against in church?

This is the clearest indicator that there are blurred lines as far as sin is concerned, meaning that congregations have no clear understanding of what sin is. And that because their guides do not care.

For many ‘successful’ churches, sin is opposing the revelations or conduct of their superstar, something I have observed more times that I care to remember.

So as I pray for this community, I also want to challenge you to pray for your community and church concerning these faulty and misguiding guides.

And I would want us to pray as God has shown me; that He will deal with those faulty (probably false) guides in such a way that it will be clear to all that it is God who has done it.

The Bible talks about judgment beginning in God’s house (you may call it household).

Where better then but with us leaders?

My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. (James 3:1)

Because leadership is a trust answerable to God.

Revival and judgment are two sides of the same coin.

And Jonah’s story is the clearest indicator of the same.

This means that before God can revive our generation, He must deal with the prevailing sin that is blocking His move in it.

Will we be part of it?