In the year 2014, ISIS terrorists drove out the last remnant of worshippers of this same God of the Bible, from the city of Mosul, which lies in Northern Iraq, and is more or less in the same spot as the ruins of that same great ancient city of Nineveh.
The Ninevehites responded to the preaching of Jonah, as Matthew’s gospel points out, and then after him, comes one greater than Jonah (Matt 12:41). It is on His preaching and His life and death on the cross, that Mosul’s ancient Assyrian Christian community, which dates back almost to the time of Christ, is founded.
It’s incredible to think that the heritage of almost three millenia of faith and culture could be so summarily dismissed, and all in the name of “purifying” the land for the establishment of an Islamic state or some such thing. Snuffed out, as it were, in similar way that the tomb of the Prophet Jonah was dealt with recently, also at the hands of ISIS. One moment it's there. The next a puff of smoke.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/25/335192229/video-shows-islamic-state-blowing-up-iraqs-tomb-of-jonah
But does this God of the Bible leave the stage so simply. I hardly think so. Nineveh in its heydey, was the largest city in the world. In Jonah’s day, it was described as “a city so large that it took three days to go through it” (Jonah 3:3) and had 120,000 inhabitants. Now, where is it? And yet the community of faith that was born there has continued to this day. In the same way, long after ISIS has disappeared off the scene, like every other tyrannical and intolerant regime, the God of the Bible will continue to be transforming lives, and extending his kingdom.
As David says in Psalm 2 “The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed ........ And the One enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.”
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