Is Our World Becoming More Like Ninevah?

Remember when Jonah refused to go to Ninevah and ran from God. When he took God out of the picture, Jonah had good reasons for fearing the Assyrians. They were a fierce, cruel people bent on conquest for much of their history, and their history is long. Assyria remained an independent country from about 2500 BC until 605 BC. The land-holding upper crust of their society consisted almost entirely of military commanders, because that’s what they valued. They were obsessed with invasions and war, and they were overly cruel, because they saw the benefits in making their enemies dread and fear them. Torture became second nature to them. They were known to cut out tongues and skin men alive, and I’d rather not mention what they did to the women they captured. They executed people at will and stacked their skulls to make mammoth pyramids outside the city walls, hoping to intimidate any opposition. They split open torsos, beheaded people, and forced close relatives to carry severed heads in parades. In addition, they were known for burning children alive as a part of their pagan worship. The list of atrocities goes on and on, but the details become overwhelming. The Assyrians were vicious early terrorist, and they were technologically advanced for their time, because this gave them access to better weapons. All this worked, because the Assyrians were usually unstoppable.

When God told Jonah to go and witness to Nineveh, I don’t think he had to think about it very long. Impulsively he must have thought, Oh no, I’m not! He can’t really be asking me to go to Ninevah. It would be like God asking us to go to Iraq before the war or into the stronghold of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or ISIS and tell them God's message. What would you say? I doubt if many people would be eager to go. Do we let fear of the unknown overrule our obedience to God? We need to cling to God’s Word, and let Him have the greatest control over us. We need to be influenced by Christ more than anything else.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria at this time, and some believe its suburbs spread out in a sixty-mile circle. At some time, its thick brick walls stood nearly a hundred feet high to fortify the city. Evidence has been unearthed of walls so wide that three chariots could be driven side by side on top of them. This city was so spread out that it took about three days to walk across it. The wall had 1,500 towers that stood 200 feet high. There is some controversy over exactly when Nineveh was at its height, but it was surely a large, foreboding city even in Jonah’s day. In the Book of Jonah, it’s repeatedly called “a great city.” We know that it likely had around 120,000 inhabitants (Jonah 4:11), but some give the number as many more. For the most part, its residents seemed to live without many moral boundaries; and paganism, carnal behavior, and lawlessness abounded. Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, just about anything seemed to go.

God wanted Jonah to enter Nineveh’s darkness and shine His light for the people. This lets us know that God cares about all people, not just the believers and faithful. It shows us the extent to which God will go to change lost lives. God hates sin and wants to give people a chance to turn from it. He wants to show them the better way. His way brings peace, contentment, and joy as nothing else can come close to doing. Living outside of God’s will brings heartache, dissatisfaction, and misery. Even when things seem to be going fine, there’s always a feeling of something missing. In a world that's looking more and more like Ninevah, Christians should be more committed to God than ever. Where do you stand?

__________________________________