So I’m pretty excited to once again be able to make this a
double letter post. 2 N’s, no waiting.
Now, when you think Nineveh, I’m going to go out on a limb
and assume that your first thought is about Nineveh as we see it in the book of
Jonah. Nineveh fares pretty well in
this account. They forgot God in the beginning, but with
Jonah’s reluctant help they turn from their wicked ways and repent of their
evil ways. God forgave the Ninevites and life went on.
But what about the rest of the story?
What happened 100 years after this miraculous occurrence with
Jonah and the massive repentance and sack cloth? Did the Ninevites become
master evangelists? Was this major city turned into a religious hub? Did the
Ninevites continue to recount the near miss they had when the Lord nearly
destroyed the entire city?
None of that happened! In
a relatively minor amount of time the Ninevites forgot the warning from
God and returned to their former lifestyle. They did not continue in the
repentant lifestyle but instead turned once again to murder, looting and
warfare. Nineveh was just as bad, if not worse, than what we saw in the
beginning of Jonah.
This is where Nahum begins.
Nahum begins by reminding us that God is faithful to his
people, those who believe in Him, and against all others he is to be feared. He doesn't conveniently forget his promises, nor does he forget the ways that
those who oppose him have sinned in their transgressions.
Nineveh has done so much to deserve God’s wrath. Sneak
forward a bit to Nahum
3:1-7. What a description! It disturbs me as much as it intrigues me!
When I read through I like to read really quickly over these
descriptions because it’s terrifying to think of someplace that would cause so
much damage. It’s the same way as I read Jesus’ being beaten.
It’s a very short passage, and in my mind it gets translated to something quite
brief as well. I
would very much like to downplay the hurt he suffered and the grief he was
caused because I know the reason behind it.
With the crucifixion, with the people of Nineveh I would like
to turn my eyes from the pain being inflicted.
In my life, I would like to turn my eyes from the pain being
inflicted.
We can very easily look at Nineveh as an evil place. We can
look at them as murderers and terrible people but we quickly dismiss is as it
is so different from the life we’re living now. We aren't that bad.
They did the same thing.
When they were directly confronted with the fact that they
were terrible people they came up with a solution; a bandaid solution that hid
the wound, but didn’t heal the brokenness beneath. They repented, put on the
sackcloth and asked God to forgive him, and He did.
Unfortunately this wasn’t something that they actually believed
beyond the scope of this one time occurrence. As soon as they were forgiven,
they went back to their evil ways and felt no remorse. The sins that they
repented of were the same ones to which they returned.
This is the danger that we face too. The sins that we
confess are the same ones that we are faced with continually. We want to ignore
the ugly parts of our lives in the same way we ignore the ugly parts of the
bible. We want to pretend it didn’t happen because it makes us feel bad.
It's the warning
that we see in the book of Nahum. While we know that “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of
trouble” (Nahum 1:7a) and that He has made this promise for us, we do so
knowing the inherent danger of being complacent in our salvation. When we try
to edit out the sinful parts of our life and concentrate only on the good we've done we put ourselves in the same boat as the people of Nineveh.
It’s only when we’re honest with ourselves, when we
continually acknowledge our sins both to God AND ourselves that we realize how
badly we need forgiving. We’re going beyond just covering up our brokenness but
we’re asking God to heal us from the inside out.
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