Mountain of Peace
“Look,
there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims
peace! (Nahum 1:15)
The Book of Nahum the Prophet,
meaning “comfort,” nevertheless, is placed in the setting of God’s judgment
against Nineveh. Assyrians prided themselves on gruesome punishment inflicted
upon conquered peoples. God is slow to anger, but will not leave the guilty
unpunished. God’s way is a whirlwind and a storm and the clouds are the dust of
His feet. The mountains tremble and the rocks are shattered before Him. “The
Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in
Him, but with an overwhelming flood He will make an end of Nineveh; He will
pursue His foes into darkness” (Nahum 1:7-8).
These verses speak of God’s
deliverance to His people from Babylonian exile and from sin through the gospel. And so the Lord crushed the enemy saying, “Nothing
can heal your wound” (Nahum
3:19). The prophet spoke out this destruction in about 700 B.C., which took
place in 612 B.C.
Prophet Jonah arose with God’s
single prophetic mission for him in 800 BC. Of course we know the story of the
Prophets’ running and hiding from the Lord’s desire to bring salvation to such
a heathen city as Nineveh. The destruction of the city came later because they
apparently fell away from faith. Even though the revival in Nineveh is thought
to be the greatest ever, it did not last.
And so perhaps this lesson of
history might be for the United States today. We are a unique country founded
on the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Interestingly Scottish historian
Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) wrote of the average lifespan of
civilizations being 200 years and moving through stages:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again
to bondage.
He wrote of how democracies exist until the
electorate realizes that they can vote for themselves largess from the public
treasury, which brings destruction. And so perhaps revival in Nineveh brought
complacency that ended up in their destruction. Are we going the same way? Are
we asking government for all things and forgetting God?
I just read a very thoughtful but scary
treatise by Eric Metaxas, If You Can Keep
It. It is a view of our Republic’s founding and history. He wrote that when Benjamin Franklin came out
of the Continental Congress, a woman asked, “Dr. Franklin, do we have a
monarchy or an republic,” to which he responded, “A republic if we can keep
it.” Well, that is a big question as our debt rises and our nation is severely
divided on many paradigms of public versus private and government versus the
peoples’ responsibility. I believe like Metaxas that we are on the verge of
losing our republic, unless there is a revival and a return to our original principals.
I recently had such a conversation with a patient at the hospital who was
Jewish sage and historian, concluding similarly.
The One who brings good news of peace also requires repentance and
turning around both personally and as a nation. God appoints and He deposes
people and leaders. He rewards obedience and restores peoples. He also destroys
and lays waste to the disobedient. Lessons
of History, by Will Durant warns of change saying, “The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom,
and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East
is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.”
Another
recent book, 12 Simple Solutions to Save
America, by Trek Bicycle CEO John Burke, has many great and important
solutions. However, it leaves out God, which in my estimation and also that of
our Founding President, George Washington, will be fatal. He wrote, “Let us with caution
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can
prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” We have lost our moral compass as
a nation, which can be articulated easily in increased crime, division and
desperation of our youth to name a few issues.
The peace that Nahum speaks of comes from praising and seeking
the Lord and receiving Salvation by trusting in Him alone. An Arabian proverb
puts it this way, “Trust in God, but tie your camel.” It is a time for faith in
action. Psalms 121 tells us to look to the mountain, or God for that is where
our help comes from. The photograph above shows a stark rock mountain, perhaps
of God, with clouds of smoke rising above. I look at this as a signal of the
good news of God’s peace if we will return to Him or the burning of our cities
if we don’t. Our country needs a revival.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.