John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
For the next week or so we’ll be looking closely at the life of Jonah the prophet. Jonah was told to “preach against the city of Nineveh”, that was in the ancient kingdom of Assyria. Nineveh was a major city on the banks of the Tigris River about 500 miles north and east of where Jonah was; located on a contemporary map in modern Iraq, about 300 miles north of Baghdad. Archaeologists have found the ruins of ancient Nineveh right outside the Iraqi city of Mosul.
When God said Nineveh was wicked, he wasn’t kidding. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the most powerful empire in the world in that day. The Assyrians had a reputation for cruelty that is hard for us to fathom. Their specialty was brutality of a gross and disgusting kind. When their armies captured a city or country, unspeakable atrocities would occur. Things like skinning people alive, decapitation, mutilation, ripping out the tongues, making a pyramid of human heads, piercing the chin with a rope and forcing prisoners to live in kennels like dogs. Ancient records from Assyria boast of this kind of cruelty as a badge of courage and power. Sad to say, the saying – “History repeats itself”, truly fits in this case!
So we ought to remember this context when we consider God’s command to Jonah, and the prophet’s response. Suppose God spoke to you today, “Go and preach the gospel to the Islamic State! Or go and preach to the Taliban!” Think you might respond, “Ahem God – they’re terrorists! Let’s nuke ’em; send ’em right where they belong!” But the heart of God is merciful. He wants to bring people to repentance so He can forgive, rather than bring judgment. He desires to save…even the most wicked and hardened individuals!
So here’s what I think: There’s a little Jonah in all of us and a whole lot of Jonah in most of us. We’re praying for the Christians fleeing Syria, Iraq, and Turkey – but what about the wicked terrorists who are killing, torturing, and persecuting them? Do you have an “Assyrian” in your life? Is someone truly worthy of your hatred? Rather than pray for him, you’d be glad for him to meet God face to face today? Our Heavenly Father rebuked Jonah the prophet for his own hardness of heart and lack of compassion. So the story of Jonah is about the heart of God, who desires all men to be saved. He wants us to have the same heart.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]The Moravian revival, our current subject, began in the little community of Herrnhut on August 13, 1727, with a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit likened to that of Acts 2. It was a work of God that would transform this group of splintered Christian settlers into a unified missionary endeavor committed to reaching the unsaved around the world.
As we discussed last week, the word for “sign” in ancient Hebrew is “oht”. It was used in Genesis to designate God’s covenant sign with Noah, (the rainbow). And we see now the same word again, in Exodus, identified with the deliverance of the Jewish people from the tenth plague, when the angel of death passed through all Egypt to strike the firstborn. Anyone under the “sign” of the blood was spared.
This is one of my favorite promises in the Bible — that God turns mourning into dancing! He takes away the anguish of being clothed in sadness and replaces it with gladness. However, notice what God doesn’t do — simply stop your mourning and make it disappear. No, He transforms it…into joy!
With war drums beating even more intensely in Iran and Syria, we’ve received numerous phone calls and emails expressing their concerns — and understandably so! Nevertheless, even in this climate of anxiety, we are preparing to enter into Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath) this afternoon. And as we do, we are remembering again, the deep lesson of God’s entering into His rest following the six creation days.
A sailor who was shipwrecked on a desert island was captured by some of the natives of that island. They carried him off on their shoulders to their village, where he was sure he would end up being the main course. But instead, they put a crown on his head and made him king. He was enjoying all the attention he was receiving but was growing a little suspicious. He started making inquiries and discovered that their custom was to crown a stranger king for a year and at the end of that year the crowned king would be sent to a deserted island where he was allowed to starve to death.
Some of the wealthiest individuals in the United States are real estate developers. They make their money by buying a piece of property that is terribly run down, seemingly useless, without any value to the naked eye and reforming it completely, making it look brand new! These businessmen are not as much interested in what is on the property as they are interested in the land it’s on!
For those of you who didn’t get that title, it’s a well known children’s Suzuki violin rhythm.
Not long ago, I came across an old issue of Homemade, where Dr. Ernest Mellor writes on fostering good relationships. This is so good I had to share.