What bring about the repentance of an entire nation?

Paul Carrington shares an example in this video of how an entire nation repented. Jonah preached to the city of Nineveh. He preached that they must repent. The repentance in the city of Nineveh started from the top down. The king repented. Then, the people repented. God relented from judging the people and did not destroy them.

Today, we see different examples of nations repenting. We see another example of this by studying the ministry of John G. Paton to an unsaved tribe. The tribe came to faith and the people, who used to worship idols, now burned them. A nation must obey the commands of God. 

Psalm 51:10 (NKJV) - "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." 

Repentance in a nation, I think is, I've never seen it, I've only read about it, but the idea of repentance, the first thing that comes to mind would be in the days of Jonah where you see here is a man who preached to these people the city of Nineveh, a massive city and the enemies of the nation of Israel, and he preaches that they must repent or God will judge them. And that repentance started from the top down, that the king began to, he dressed himself in sackcloth and he repented per chance God would repent from the evil that he was going to bring upon them. And as a result of that, God relented and God didn't destroy them. But I think you know you saw that as from a top down you see the king in that case repenting and as a result the entire city even down to the children and everyone else in sackcloth and ashes because of God's promise punishment upon them. But in our day, I think you see different examples of it leading up after, for example, after the Reformation, there are various examples of nations repenting, small and big.

You see that one of my favorite stories is that of John G. Paton as a missionary to the New Hebrides and as you see a tribe coming to faith it looks it's amazing. You see people who at one point were worshipping idols and they're bringing their idols and they're burning their idols. It looks like Acts chapter 19 when when great fear fell upon the people. They brought all of their books of various, you know, arts, dark arts and witchcraft.

And they burned those books. They had a massive bonfire. And I think it says that the price of those books was 50, 000 pieces of silver. I mean, just one piece of silver has immense value. They didn't care.

They didn't have a yard sale. They didn't try to get rid of these things so that they could profit, but they wanted to destroy the works of darkness. And I think that's what repentance looks like in a nation. It's a nation coming to terms with who God is, who He said He is, who we are, and as a result, how we ought to live before God. It looks like us obeying the commands of God, burning those idols.

It looks like people no longer taking the name of the Lord in vain. You know, this past year, part of the election cycle, the refrain that I've heard multiple times from one of the candidates is, America is great because America is good. But what standard is that person using to judge America being good? It's certainly not the standard that God uses. And so when God's standard now becomes the standard by which we judge, all of a sudden now a nation is not taking his name in vain and saying, I'm a Christian while living like the devil.

It looks like people in the family, the hearts of the fathers turning to their children and the children to their fathers. It looks like abortion being recognized for what it really is, a grisly, horrific crime against God and the image of God. And so a nation would be shutting down those abortion mills irrespective of the of the cries of those who don't want it to happen or because of the amount of money that it brings in or whatnot. It looks like pornography being an industry that no longer can find customers because right now it's arguably bigger than the NFL, the NBA, the NFL, Major League Baseball, all put together. It brings in more revenues, but when a nation now sees the evil that it's been perpetrating and inculcating and drinking down like water, it repents of that.

Men no longer will spend their time and their money on those things because they see of what an offence it is against God. Men are no longer stealing and robbing. Covetousness and all these other things have been brought into the light of who God is and how we ought to live to please Him as a result of that. You