Exploring My Strange Bible - The Amazing Jonah Part 4: Thrones & Ashes

Episode Date: August 14, 2017

Jonah goes very much against his own desires to the ancient city of Nineveh. He utters a very strange five word sermon and the people of Nineveh have a very interesting response. Also, we discuss the meaning of the biblical word “repentance” and what it does and doesn’t mean.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, we're diving into part four of five in this series exploring the book of Jonah. This is a teaching series I did back in 2013 when I was a teaching pastor at Door of Hope.

If you haven't listened to parts one through three of this series in the previous podcast, I'd recommend you doing that. In this teaching, we're diving into Jonah chapter three, which is the story of Jonah going very much against his own desires to the city of his ancient enemies, Nineveh, uttering a very strange five-word sermon at which the people of Nineveh, his great enemies, have a surprising response. It's a story that explores the meaning of the biblical word repentance, what it does mean, what it doesn't mean, and a whole bunch of other things besides. I hope this is helpful for you. Let's dive in. We are cruising along week four of our rescue effort to the book of Jonah. So remember, we're rescuing this really profound, sophisticated story of the Bible from the children's version of it that many of you

were subjected to, and that totally vaccinated you from this book ever having any power in your life as a word from God in the scriptures. And so this is part of our rescue effort. Week four, we followed this Jonah, son of Amittai. Remember, his name means dove, son of faithfulness. Of course, he's the most faithless person in the entire story, and you're supposed to laugh at that point. And that's the entry point into the strange nature of this story is that it has this comic, satire, crazy, extreme feel to it. And so you have this religious prophet man of God,

but he's an utter hypocrite and he actually hates his God. As we're going to see next week, he just chews him out big time for being too nice. So he runs from him. God invites him into life and grace and he runs from his own God and it leads him to become spiritually sleepy and literally sleepy.

Trace this, it became a wrecking ball in the lives of other people, and his situation and all his decisions caught up with him and brought him to the bottom. And so last week we explored how God leading Jonah to the bottom and actually having a brush with death, an encounter with the sea monster, is actually God's severe mercy, because this is the way that God brings Jonah to the end of himself and wakes him up to the truth of who he is and who God is. And so this is where we're picking up the story here is that God commanded the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. You remember the Hebrew word for vomit? Ka. Ka. Right? You're supposed to laugh.

It's ka. Right? So it's funny. Maybe you don't make that sound when you vomit. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to know what sound you make. But anyway, it's kind of funny. Caw. Right? The fish vomits him up after this beautiful poem that he writes. And then here we are. One thing I wanted to share with you among the stack of books that I've accumulated on Jonah and different things I found interesting. Actually, the most interesting one, and I think one of the authors who gets what's going on in the book of Jonah most, is not a scholar or a commentator. He's a poet. His name is Thomas Carlyle, and this is in the late 1978, so you know it's awesome. He wrote this little book, a collection of poetry that's a commentary on each chapter of Jonah. There's a

section, a collection of poems on each chapter of the book. So I wanted to share some with you. If you're kind of new to Door of Hope or you haven't been here for the rest of the series, this might not make as much sense to you, but for the rest of you, you'll get a kick out of this. So this is one of his poems about Jonah, chapter one, him running away. It's called Let's Cool Down. I know a better way to circumvent your silly streak of mixing love with righteous judgment. This is Jonah talking again. All I need to do is take the next flight west beyond your jurisdiction. This will give you time for sober second thoughts to swear off this kick of simple-minded kindness. Inside the monster. I was as low as I could get when I remembered, God, odd, that my distress impressed me with

his apparent absence when his premised daily presence hadn't meant a blessed thing. Finding myself in that hole with my soul fainting and rolling with the swell of my swollen was good enough to kill me. Good. Instead, I saw stars in the dark and started home on a welcome water spout. Isn't that a good phrase? Welcome fish. He's not a whale. You know, it's never called a whale. It's just called the great fish. It's the sea monster. These next two are about chapters three and four. Counselor to the Almighty. This is Jonah speaking again. These next two are about chapters three and four. Counselor to the Almighty. This is Jonah speaking again.

Think twice before you pardon. Men repent, even in ashes, but repent again of their repentance. Right? That's a good one. Repent again of their repentance. Take the wiser bias of my advice. Confine your charity to such good neighbors as your humble servant. This is the last one, addiction.

Consistently, Jonah chided his stupid and incredible creator for his addiction to mercy as though it were some miracle drug. A deity ought to be dependably capricious, keep the natives in mind. Decimating that overpopulated slum would wipe out delinquency in a hurry. Naturally, Nineveh would make a perfect target. That is, once he was safely outside. Hmm. Thomas Carlyle. The book is so rad.

1978, you guys. And he got his friend, I forget, he says his name, to make all of these original woodcut drawings of different scenes in the book of Jonah. It's a book of art and poetry. Isn't that rad? It's great. Anyway, he gets it. This is not a children's story, is it? Children can grasp it, but to really grasp what's happening here, you very much have to get what's going on.

And so we are going to pick up with Jonah again as he is cod out of the fish. He's vomited out and we're going to pick up our hypocritical prophet in chapter three. Let's dive in. So we hear the word of the Lord. Remember Lord in all caps means Yahweh in Hebrew. So the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time, go to that great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you. And there's almost a sense in which we're kind of like, oh yeah, that story. Like, I forgot about that whole thing. This whole thing was framed as a story. You read the first lines that this is a story about God and Nineveh.

But then it became a story about God and his own prophet, because his own prophet rebels and runs away and so on. And so God has to follow that whole thing through. And now we're back to the big storyline again, which is about God and Nineveh. Now look at what the wording here is really interesting. It says, go to the great city of Nineveh, proclaim to it the message I give you. What message is that going to be? What is this message about? And so on. Flip the page or look over a page to chapter one. And remember, what is this whole, how did the story begin? to chapter one. And remember, what is this whole, how did the story begin? The word of Yahweh came to Jonah, son of Amittai, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness

has come up before me. And so all of this is framed as a story that begins with God looking over his world and he sees this great cause of injustice and oppression and wickedness and so on, the Ninevites. And so he's dispatching his messenger, that's what prophets are, the messengers, to go confront the wickedness of Nineveh and preach against it. Now, I'm guessing that some of the language in this passage and so on preach against the wickedness of the city, this whole thing about God, his fierce angers, we might perish and so on. I'm guessing all of us are just feeling totally comfortable and our hearts are warmed by this language. So we kind of struggle with these parts of the Bible that

depict God as seriously ticked off at what humans are doing and bringing judgment. And so part of it is that we don't get where Jonah and his people would be at in relationship to the Ninevites. So let's start there. So the Ninevites, Nineveh is the capital city. We've done this a couple times. Let me show you the map here. You remember of what empire? Big, bad, ancient empire.

Assyria. And Assyria, there had been empires or kind of petty state empires before this. Assyria was the biggest, baddest empire that the ancient world had known up to that point. And for a number of different reasons, even still today, people study the military tactics of Assyrian generals and so on because they were brilliant. They were utterly brilliant at looking at territories that didn't belong to them. What are the strategic cities and roads? They would decimate those cities and then they were like the Borg of the ancient world, just absorbing. And so they grew and grew

and grew by sheer military expansion and conquering and so on. And so they were not only brilliant, however, militarily, they were also notoriously brutal. And this is just a fact of ancient history. They were the most brutal empire that the world had yet seen. And so they've done lots of archaeological digs and so on in what is now known as the city of Nineveh. It's in the region of Mosul in Iraq. And dug it up for 150 years now. They've been digging there. But they found the walls of the city, which was a big seven mile around oval, which is gigantic for that. I saw cities were defined as a settlement with walls around it. But they found the royal buildings,

the royal complex and so on, like the king's palace, this huge complex of buildings. And when you go into it, they discovered lining the walls of the king's complex were all of these pictures that the kings of Assyria had hired, sculptors and artisans and so on, to draw stories. This was like you'd go into the halls of the royal palace and it would just be like movies playing in front of you, so to speak, and just all of these stories. And the stories are all about the military exploits of the kings of Assyria. So the whole point is that if you're not an Assyrian, you're in that palace, you're probably in trouble, and you're going to be quaking in your boots,

kind of thing, as you go down these hallways. And so most of them are preserved still today in the British Museum in London. So in this particular hallway here, it's a story told of a battle that one of the kings of Assyria fought with the Israelites. This story tells of how one of the Assyrian kings conquered the Israelite city of Lachish. And that story is also told in the Bible. It's in 2 Kings chapter 18.

And it's one of the most detailed depictions of an ancient city being besieged and what the Assyrians would do over the course of the months that the siege went on. Here's a picture of an ancient siege ramp tower. So they had like the forefront of technology of making these huge defended, shielded, wheeled structures that would be the same height as the city wall. They'd build a huge siege ramp and then roll it up to it. And then these other pictures are depicting what the Assyrian soldiers would do to captured Israelites who had fallen off the walls or they had broken into parts of the city.

And so what is happening in the upper left here, this is Assyrian soldiers stripping naked and grabbing the legs of these Assyrians. And if you look close, you can see they have knives. They're about to skin these people alive in the sight of the city walls. And what they would also do is any captured soldiers or whatever, they would cut down trees

from the region around and would sharpen the tips into big spears. And then they would just impale people on the big spears and then set them at the hills around the city. So when Israelite soldiers still in the city would look out, they would just see their dead colleagues hanging on the hills and so on. And so this is how they roll. This is what the Assyrians do. They're brilliant and brutal. And so you need to just understand the deep emotion that would come into an Israelite's mind when they heard about the Ninevites, when they heard about the Assyrians, and the idea of God sending his prophet to

confront the injustice and the oppression of Nineveh. And Israelite readers would just be like, yes, yes, finally, go get them, Jonah, go let them fry. That's the idea here. God's not being a jerk. He's confronting one of the most exceptional instances of human injustice that the world had seen up to that point. And so he goes on his mission. That's the back story here. So let's see how Jonah responds. Look at verse 3. We hear that Jonah, he obeyed the word of Yahweh. It's clearly a new concept for him, but he's doing it. Or some of you have, he went according to the word of the Lord. The point is, is he's now going on his own terms, but on Yahweh's terms who called him. And so he went to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a very large city. And some of your translations might have very important city.

The word is just huge, but it can mean hugely significant or huge in size. Both are true because it was a huge significant city because it took three days to go through it, big seven miles around. And I think this is one of the more comic elements of the book because even if you're just walking 10 to 12 miles a day, it's depicting the city as if it's way bigger than it actually was. But the point is its significance was gigantic in the ancient world. And so it took three days to go through it. And Jonah began by going one day's journey into the city, proclaiming, and here's his message.

So it's five words in Hebrew. It's a five-word sermon, which I am incapable of giving. So a five-word sermon, and how many in English? That's eight. And I'm incapable of doing that, too. I'm already many hundreds of words. So you have a five-word message. Now, I hope that strikes you as strange.

Because, first of all, what does he say? He gives a time, 40 days, and then an event. Nineveh will be overthrown. Now, just by reading what God said he was supposed to go do, go to the great city of Nineveh, preach against it because of its wickedness, you already have an idea, well, he's probably going to say something about God and their wickedness and how they should stop and how it's wrong and so on. But do we get any of that in Jonah's five-word sermon? Jonah's five-word sermon is one of the most intriguing parts of the whole book, I think.

What kinds of things are missing here? All kinds of things are missing, right? So 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown by whom? So is this a Sodom and Gomorrah story, you know, about the fire and brimstone? Is this they'll be overthrown by another nation, something? And they were. They were overthrown by Babylon eventually. So nothing about who. We do know when, 40 days. Do we know why? Why? Why will Nineveh be overthrown? And you can imagine people, not everybody in Nineveh, it's a big city, like served in the army. And so you have like a blacksmith or a goat herder. And they're like, oh, first I've heard, overthrown? What for? I don't know why. I just work in here every day. Why? What would be the reasons that they are going to face this destruction? What can they do anything about it? Can they do anything to avert it?

The prophets always included some chance to turn back to Yahweh or something, repent and so on. But nothing of this from Jonah. We don't know if it's possible to avoid this disaster. And the most glaring absence is Jonah is there to represent what God? He's a messenger on behalf of Yahweh. And whom does he not mention once?

So this is very strange. This should make you go like, what? Something's fishy here, pun intended, right? Something's very strange here. But this is really strange. You know, you read a stack of books. And throughout history, there's been two ways people have understood the strangeness of Jonah's five-word sermon.

One could be this is another kind of extreme, crazy comic element in the story. No one behaves according to their stereotype. This is sin city, so to speak. This is, you know, Vegas or something like that. And you have the people of Vegas and the ruler of Vegas, I think the ruler, the mayor or something, I don't know. Anyway, so it means a bad analogy. But, you know, you have the most notoriously brutal, violent people that the world knows, and they're going to repent and turn back to God. They're going to stumble over themselves to repent after one day's bad preaching on Jonah's part, right? Essentially. Crazy, you know? Like, what did it take to get Jonah to repent? God had to go through hell and high water to get Jonah to soften his heart.

But the worst people on earth, they're just so ready, just like the sailors, to repent and turn to God that he just gets five words out of his mouth and he's just there. So it could be another one of these crazy turn of events, comic elements in the story that's just, well, it could be something totally different though. It could be that Jonah is engaging in a bit of prophetic sabotage, it's called. So does Jonah want the Ninevites to find the repentance that leads to life? Does he want this to happen? Why did he run from God in the first place? Remember, not because he's afraid of going into the king's palace. It's because he hates Ninevites. And he thinks that the world is much better off without them existing at all. So could it be that this is Jonah? Yes, he's physically obeying by going to Nineveh,

but verbally he's giving as little information as possible to ensure that they won't be able to repent and find forgiveness and grace. Would this be consistent with Jonah's character? Absolutely. So could it be that he's, now we'll talk more about this this week because there's all these layers of irony

and so on in his sermon, but we don't have time to go into it now. We will next week. I personally think the second option is more likely, but the author doesn't make it clear. This is another one of these things about Jonah's character. He just, does he mean this or does he mean that?

I don't know. And you're drawn into the story and into contemplating his motives and so on. Regardless of sabotage or not, it works. Despite himself. Look at verse 5. What's the Ninevites' response? It says, the Ninevites believed.

This is good. The Ninevites believed whom? Now that's weird. Because Jonah didn't say anything about God, did he? You would think they would say the Ninevites believed Jonah. But no, they believe in God. Their hearts are so attuned to what's going on here, they're filling in all of the gaps just themselves. They're so ready. And so the Ninevites believe God. And a fast was proclaimed, and all of

them, greatest to the least, the whole city, they put on sackcloth. So fasting is probably familiar to you. It's a way of engaging. It's like symbolic body language. You abstain from food or even some kinds of liquid. And sackcloth is just straight up putting like burlap on, like it's made out of goat hair. It's itchy. It's uncomfortable. And so the point is, is you're ridding your life of all distractions and you're showing God that you mean business, that you're serious. So fasting and prayer and putting on sackcloth. I mean, this is crazy. It's insane. This is Sin City, for goodness sakes. And they're doing this. Now, just a quick observation about what's happening here in verse five. Look at the

language that's used. So we hear this, they have this fast, and they put on sackcloth and so on. They're super earnest before God. And the first words of verse 5 are just a commentary on what's happening here. What's happening as they do this? Well, this is an expression of belief. They believed God, and how do you know? How did they express that belief? You know, they did these actions, this active response. And how do you know? How did they express that belief? You know, they did these actions, this active response. And this may seem to you kind of simple, but I actually think it's pretty profound. It's important for us to hear as Westerners.

Because especially in English, when we hear the word belief or faith, we primarily think of like a mental, something happens in your brain. I believe that. I believe the sky's blue. I believe the Beatles or the best band ever, something like that. You believe it's a mental activity. Yep. Believe that. Yep believe the sky's blue. I believe the Beatles are the best band ever, something like that.

You believe it's a mental activity? Yep. Believe that? Yep. Believe it. Done. Okay, cool. Moving on.

And so we take that mental idea of that's what belief is, and then we impose that onto the Bible. The scriptures are trying to tell us, to kind of redefine this whole concept for us. And so how do you know that the Ninevites, what do they believe God about? So again, in theory, they're filling in gaps that Jonah perhaps intentionally left out. They believe all of a sudden God's rendering a judgment on them. They think they're just fine. They think

it's just fine to be a part of an empire and to support and be a part of this thing that's growing through brilliance and brutality. And now all of a sudden they're confronted with this judgment that what they thought was good and fine is actually wrong. And so then you're put in a situation of trust. We can believe our own definition of good and evil, that this is all just fine what we're doing, or we can accept this new judgment on good and evil and what we're doing and that we have made something that is evil into good. But so they believe. And when they believe, it's joined and expressed solely by this life response of like, oh my gosh, what do we need to change course? We need to... And so in the Bible, belief is this other side of the coin of this active response of your life that shows what you

believe. I think this is important just for us to hear as Westerners, because we often, we've created this culture in which, do you believe in Jesus? Sure, totally. Yeah, believe, died and rose for me. Yep, check. Said that magic prayer. Double check. You know, I did it a few times, actually, you know. So you do that thing, and then you're good. I believe in Jesus, sure. Yeah, totally. But then it creates this situation where if you just have that box that you've checked, but there may not be a shred of evidence in your life at all that you care about Jesus or that you really think things through, you think your decisions through in light of the fact that he died for you, that you're recognizing, like, whoa, there's these areas in my lives that I used to think this was okay, but now I realize, whoa, that's not cool. I need to work on this.

There's all kinds of people who believe that they're Christians because they've had some mental ascent or they have some connection culturally to church or Christianity or something, but there's not a shred of evidence in their life. And so the scriptures just come alongside us and sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, say, if there's not a shred of any of that going on inside of you, you don't believe. And it's not a slam. It's actually, I think, pretty helpful for us. No one's doing anybody any favors by letting you think you're a Christian if you're actually not. You know, I mean, let's just be honest here. And so if you're not, that's great. Welcome to Dorf Hope. We're stoked that you're here, but we don't want to lead you along. Belief is this much more holistic life response. They believe and they express that belief through

action showing that there's something going on inside of their hearts. This is very profound, and we'll come back to this again as we continue on with the Ninevites response. So that's the people of the city's response. What is the king's response? The mayor of Las Vegas. I can't believe I said that. It's ridiculous. So here's the king. It says, verse 6, when Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh. Now, just look at that. Jonah didn't reach the king of Nineveh. He made it one day into the city in five words. So Jonah didn't go into the royal palace, but somehow his message went viral without YouTube, and it made it there, made it to the king.

Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh. He rose from his throne. And if you just stopped there, you would think like, oh, this is not good. This is the most powerful man on the planet, the most powerful empire on the planet, known for violence and brutality. This is not going to end well for Jonah. But it doesn't stop there. He rose from his throne. He took off his royal robes. He covered himself with sackcloth. He identifies himself with the sin and injustice of his people. And he went one more step than anybody else. He sits down in the dust,

the symbolic image of regret and remorse and repentance, like lowering yourself to the lowest place you can go. This is the proclamation that he then issued in Nineveh. By the decree of the king and his nobles, don't let people or animals or herds or flocks taste anything. Don't let them eat or drink. Let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Now, there is a laugh track cued right here. You're supposed to laugh at that, right? So that's crazy. This is totally crazy. This is not only like the leader of the Assyrian empire, who is he forcing into repentance as well, along with all the humans? The animals. He's making the animals repent, for goodness sakes, you know? And so you're just kind of led to wonder like,

what on earth for? I guess the cows like made the milk that nurtured the soldiers or something like that. I have no idea, but it's this comic element of the story. This is so an intense change of heart that they want to cover all their bases. Let's make even old Bessie repent, too, in case she ever did something wrong or something. I mean, it's crazy. You're supposed to laugh, just like you did. You're supposed to laugh at this.

It's crazy. And now that all the animals and people are in sackcloth and ashes, let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? Maybe God will relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we won't perish. So you have this crazy change of heart here. And actually the word that he uses to describe what he's calling everyone to

do is a key concept linked with belief and faith in the Bible. Look at verse 8, and you'll see it up here on the screens too. The New International Version, the NIV, translates it as, let everyone give up their evil ways. Some of your other translations, like the English Standard Version, have let them turn from their evil ways. And the Hebrew word that's used here, it's super common in the prophets, especially, is this Hebrew word shuv. Why don't you guys say it with me? Shuv.

If you see it spelled, it looks like shove, like junior hires shoving, something like that, but it's actually pronounced shuv. So shuv, literally, it's just an image from walking. And so you're going a certain way, and a judgment is rendered that you are going the wrong way. And so that reaches you, and you're like, oh, serious? Wow. Or maybe you knew that it was the wrong way, and you just wanted to go that way. Anyway, whatever.

One way or another, it pointed out to you, like, dude, that's the wrong way. And so shoving is just doing this. And then you go this way. That's shoov. And so it's just the image from like walking day to day life. The prophets picked up this word and turned it into this powerful metaphor for how we relate to God. It's developed out this metaphor that we're all on a journey. Life is like a journey. God. It's developed out this metaphor that we're all on a journey. Life is like a journey. And so we go down certain roads in life and the prophet's job is to speak God's word to his people and to say, dude, that's the wrong way. That way doesn't lead to life. That way leads to ruin for yourself or for others. You need to shoo. And the right response to that judgment rendered on your decision is like, oh, okay, yes, there we go, shuv, and you turn. And so that's what he's calling the people to do.

It's again one of these things of they believe God, check, how do you know they believe God? Because he's calling on them to not just believe something about God, but to actually change and go a different direction. That's the language that's used here. Now, here's what I'm guessing is there are other issues going on inside of us when we read a passage like this. Now, granted, these are the most violent people that the world had known up to that point, but I'm guessing verse 9 is not going to make it like as a magnet on your fridge or something like that. God may relent and with his compassion, he may turn from his fierce anger so that we don't perish. That's a great idea about God that I like to think about. He's fiercely angry at me and I might perish. And so I think in our culture, especially,

we wrestle with this language about God, his wrath, his anger, his judgment. We struggle with it deeply. You know, we're like, oh, I don't know about that verse. I need to go read something in the New Testament now. That's how we respond here. And so I want to camp out on this because that's what this passage is about. This passage is about God's judgment on human behavior, declaring that it's wrong and that people need to shoo and to turn around. And so I think most of us, certainly this is not a popular idea. Like you want to make no friends at a party, like, you know, grab your drink, go stand in the middle of the living room area and start talking about divine judgment and repentance.

No one's going to want to talk to you, right? So just in our culture at large, these are not popular ideas. But I even think even for Christians ourselves, many of us struggle with this. Because what do you mean that God's a judge, that he's fierce anger, right? People are going to perish. This is crazy. So I think of it this way, and this has been a way that's helpful for me to put this together. What we're struggling with is how to balance or connect different attributes of God, different parts of God's character. And so there's lots of passages like this, especially in the prophets that declare that God is a God who renders judgment on our behavior. So he's a God of judgment. He sends his prophets with his word through the scriptures or whatever. And there are things that we all think are just fine and that are good. And then all of a sudden

we hear this word of judgment that says, actually, this is wrong and you need to turn. So we struggle with language like this about God because we hold this other conviction, namely from Jesus and a lot of really powerful passages in the New Testament that speak of a God of love. It says in 1 John, God is love. God loves the world. And so we struggle with how to put this together. And to be honest, I think what happens to most of us is we just kind of pick one and screen out the other one. In our culture, at least people my age being raised in this culture, we really like this one. It makes us feel good about ourselves. And so we just kind of don't read these parts of the Bible. We wring our hands when we do. And for those of us who have tried to maybe hold these

together in some way, usually one trumps the other. If God is a God of judgment, but eventually his love will win out in the end. And we don't know how to talk about this or put this together. And I think the biggest trap that we fall into is thinking that these are opposites of each other. It's not a loving thing to judge or to condemn someone's behavior. A loving God wouldn't do that. He wouldn't render judgment like that. We somehow think that these are opposites. I'm going to camp out here and let this passage guide our thinking because we really have to think this through. And this will seriously, this is your view of who God is and who God is to you. A lot of this, I really just think is sloppy thinking that I've had exposed in my own

heart and mind. And I personally have had to figure out and wrestle with how to work all of this out. And so just think this through with me. What am I really saying when I say that a loving God wouldn't judge and condemn human behavior or condemn people? Think that through for a second. What's underneath that is the assumption, if God looks out on our world, and our world, you don't have to have a religious bone in your body to recognize that the world is seriously, seriously messed up. Amen. If you don't have a religious bone in your body, you wouldn't say amen. So you would just say, I believe that's true.

I think that's correct. Why is the world seriously messed up? It doesn't just happen to be that way. It's messed up because we are messed up, right? Nearly 7 billion human beings on the planet making 7 billion small and large decisions that are completely self-oriented, makes the world what it is.

And so if God exists and he looks out on our world and all of the horrible large and small things that we do and think about each other. And if his response is, oh, those humans, you know, God love them, but misguided bunch, but I sure love them. So I'll overlook this. Is that the loving thing to do? Is that a loving God who simply overlooks the mess that we've made of his world and the way that we vandalize people made in his image by how we treat each other? Is that a loving thing to do? And I would argue that it is not only not love, the opposite of judgment is not love. The opposite of judgment is apathy and not caring how people behave or treat each other and

just walking by. So think of it this way. You're walking down, maybe you live near a school or something. You're walking by a playground and you see this scene. You see a bunch of sixth grade boys surrounding a little second grader. You know, he's got his lunch pail, Muppet babies or something. And so he's got a lunch pail and they're pushing him around. They're slapping him around. They're calling him names. They're going to him around. They're calling him names. They're going to take all his stuff, right? And you're the adult. You're walking by on the sidewalk.

If you say to yourself, ah, kids will be kids, misguided, but, you know, they'll work it out. They're kids, you know, and you keep on going, is that the loving or caring thing to do? Absolutely not. Definitely not. It's the apathetic thing to do. What is the loving thing to do? Absolutely not. Definitely not. It's the apathetic thing to do. What is the loving thing to do? It's to render a judgment on that behavior. Those kids think that that's a good thing to do. That's a wrong thing to do. It needs to be stopped. They need to be held accountable. However you're going to do that, sixth graders, to grab them by their collars or something like

that until school security comes or something, right? And so they're held accountable. That's the loving thing to do, to make a judgment. Judgment is not the opposite of love. It's an expression of love. You're loving the victim, the second grader. You're loving your neighborhood, right? By not allowing this to set a precedent

that this kind of thing can happen around here. You're loving the sixth graders themselves by making a statement to them that this is not okay behavior. You're going to ruin your life if you keep doing stuff like this to people. Judgment is the loving thing to do. Are you guys with me? And we just somehow in our minds, we've been so sloppy in thinking about this, and actually just in a second, I think actually just really two-faced and duplicitous about how screwed up we are, though somehow we have made these into opposites of each other. You guys, the world's not okay. You don't have to be religious to think that. We can all agree on that. The world's not okay,

and it's not okay because we're not okay. And what we're doing to each other is not okay. That is a judgment. And for God to love the people made in his image, to protect the goodness and the beauty of his world, if he does not render a judgment, I would argue he's not caring and he's not loving. He's apathetic. And God is not worthy of worship, in my opinion. And so love and judgment aren't opposites of each other. They're two sides of the same coin. They're in harmony with one another. Now, here's what gets us. I may have convinced some of you, but this is where this leads me, is that you and I actually, if we really think about it, we want a world where there is justice, and we want there to be a God who will hold human beings accountable for our decisions. If there is not a God of judgment who's higher

than any human to define what we do as good or evil or good and not good, if there's not a God of judgment who's higher than any human to define what we do as good or evil or good and not good, if there's not a God of judgment, I would argue there's no hope for our world. Because if that God doesn't exist, or if it's some other God who doesn't care how we treat each other or whatever, there's no hope for our world. It doesn't matter how you behave. There's nobody you're accountable to except yourself and your culture. But here's the thing. Do you really want to make yourself and your culture the one who defines good and evil? How has that gone for most of human history? You end up with things like the Assyrian Empire.

That's what you end up with, with might makes right. If we don't believe in a God of judgment, there's no hope for our world, for wrongs being made right. God of judgment, there's no hope for our world, for wrongs being made right. If you cherish the hope of the story of the scriptures, of a world made right, of a restored creation where all wrongs are made right, you cherish the hope of a judgment, of all that's been done wrong being named, dealt with, and made right, and evaluated, and judged. If there is no God of judgment, there's no hope for the world. But flip it over, because this is a big dilemma for us. Because if there is a God of judgment, there may be hope for the world, but there is no hope for me or for you. Because you and I

are notoriously two-faced and duplicitous when it comes to justice, right? So someone cuts you off. You're driving down I-84, MLK, or something. Someone just blatantly just cuts you right off intentionally or whatever. All of a sudden, you're real passionate about justice. You know what I mean? You're like, wow. Like, yeah, did anyone see? Look at what's happening. This is me, right? And so there are certain things that happen in the world, especially when they impinge on our own personal security or comfort. And we're like, well, this is injustice. This is wrong. You know, who's going to make this right? You know, we think about this. Does everyone see this, how wrong this is, right? But all of a sudden, when the spotlight of justice, of God's judgment, which is impartial, then shines that spotlight

on me, then I get ticked off. And I'm like, it's not loving to judge. Like, what do you mean? I didn't mean anything, you know, by it. It's not, I didn't do it all the time. You know what I mean? We get all defensive about it. So case in point. And you guys, one silly example, and then a serious example back to Jonah. So I have so many driving metaphors, but partially because driving just reveals our true character. You know what I'm saying? So here's the thing about driving in East Portland. There's a lot of these real narrow arteries. And it seems like the size of the streets and the timing of the streetlights was like meant to match the population of the city two decades ago.

And so you get these real narrow arteries through East Portland here that have these left turn signals that last like three seconds. These ridiculously short left turn signals. And so 10 cars will pile up. How many cars get through a three second left turn signal? Three cars or something. And so it's developed this practice in East Portland. And you probably know about it if you've driven in East Portland, which is the orange light. And so, because if you're turning left, you know, there's the three cars that make it through on the green. And what you do, if you're the last car and the car ahead of you is making it on the green,

you ride the bumper of the next one so that by the time it turns from yellow to red, it's orange, right, that zone, it turns red, but you're out in the middle of the intersection. You're like, look, everybody, what am I supposed to do? You know, clearly I've just got to go through, you know. You know what I'm talking about. You've been that person before. Okay, now here's the next category. The next category is the person who rides the bumper of that person, right? And so what they've done is they've just have their nose of their car

like three feet over the crosswalk line. So then it straight up turns red. But they're like, look, everybody, my nose is out. I have to reverse. I can't. That person's behind me. And so they go through too. You know what I mean?

And so what happens is the light fully turns green. And here's this guy. Like, he's just fully turning in when it turns green. And so maybe you've been the person at the green light facing traffic. And what do you do? So you rev up. You maybe make a little forefoot advance to make the statement to everybody, look at this guy. He's turning it on. You hear? I've done this to people, and I know that you have too. This is the odd thing. Okay, so two

weeks ago, I'm driving down 20th, and I get to the short left turn signal off 20th onto Burnside, and it lasts like four seconds. And it was traffic time, and I had somewhere very important to go. My wife and I, two tiny kids, don't get on dates too often right now in this season of life, so we had a happy hour to make. It was busy. It's kind of going home traffic and so on, and so, you know, I'm real mindful. There's the three cars that get through in those four seconds. There's the guy who gets through on the orange, and I'm right there with him, and so here you go. I'm just, I'm going through on the red, full red, and there's a guy in a white 80s Econoline van, just, and he clearly, like a hot day, the windows are down. And so he just revs and just is right there in Jessica's

face, you know, like basically as we're turning by and he's just cussing us up and down. What do you think you're doing? Okay. That's not quite what he said, but guess, here's the whole point, you guys. Guess what's going on inside of me as that's happening. What's going on inside of me is not, oh, he's right. You know what I mean? Like, he's right. I look at this. You know, I don't like other people to do it, but I am totally doing that right now.

And I'm totally breaking the law, and I know it. That's not. What happens in me? This self-defensive posture of like, no, what? Who does this guy think he is? You know, what do you mean? I have somewhere to go. I don't get to go on dates very often.

So here we are. I got to make this light or whatever. And I'm sure, oh, I'm sure this guy's never done it before. You know, and all of these things are going on in your head. And so here you go. That's exactly it. This is exactly it. We're really passionate about justice

when it impinges on my convenience or something and my comfort. But the moment that the spotlight is turned on me and that I don't any longer get to define good and not good in ways that conveniently excuse my misbehavior, then I'm ticked off. And then I'm like, what, he's this guy to judge me. And so here's the thing. I actually think for many of us, we have this kind of theological issue with God's character that we have to work at.

And I think that's true for some of us. I don't think that's the core issue. At least I know it's not for me. The core issue is this, is if there is a God of judgment, I'm not it. If there is a God who defines good and evil, then it means that I don't get to do that in ways that excuse my misbehavior. And you know that that's the core issue when you say you believe all that.

I believe it's good to forgive people. I believe it's good to be generous. Meanwhile, I spend all my money on myself, and I have three relational bridges burned of somebody that I will not forgive. And you're just like, really? And when that gets exposed, you're like, what? Don't judge me. That's not loving to judge me. And you're just like, well, which way do you want it? You know, we're so two-faced about this. And so I think really the issue is just that we're not God. And that when God renders a judgment on our behavior, it exposes stuff inside of us. And we don't like that. It challenges us. Things that we thought were totally fine and that were good, all of a sudden declared not good. And it ticks us off. We don't like that. And you guys, I'm a child of this culture as much as you are. What's happening with the Ninevites,

this is so significant, because human cultures were so bad at defining good and evil that over time we can begin to slowly, you know, human behaviors, things that are not good, things that don't lead us to life. But a whole culture can come to believe like that's totally, it's good. Go for it. And so God's judgment comes as very unwelcome to us. And I'll be perfectly honest with you. There are areas about Christianity that are difficult for me to accept God's judgment. That's why it's an act of belief or faith. When I'm choosing to believe that God's judgment of what is good and not good is superior to my own. And so even though it doesn't resonate with me to say that that's not good, that that's wrong, I, by faith, trust someone above myself because what am I? I'm a two-faced

driver. That's what I am. So I'm going to trust myself. And so I think that's what this comes down to. And essentially then it's asking, well, what does God do with his judgment? It's an expression of his love, but what's it for? What's the goal of judgment? Is it to smash us, just show us and make us miserable, to wallow in the ashes and be like, I don't know if God's going to forgive us. What horrible people we are. Look at the goal of God's judgment. Look at verse 10.

This is the last verse in the chapter. It says, When God saw what they did and how they turned, they shoved from their evil ways, he relented. He did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. And so right here, when God's judgment is an expression of his love for the Israelites, for the Ninevites themselves, and so on, he renders a judgment on their behavior that's not good. They shoove, and when they shoove,

what do they find? We have a wonderful word to describe what's happening in verse 10, and it's the word grace. This is the goal of God's judgment. Out of his love, he renders a judgment on our behavior so that we'll be like, dude, that's not the right way. Oh, my gosh. Shoov. And the moment that I shoov, what do I find?

I find grace. So God's not out to destroy us. He's out to show us that we're going the wrong way so that we can turn and find grace and new life. God's judgment is a good thing. It's an expression of his love. It's aimed at restoring people to relationship with himself. And so you end up with this, reading a story like Jonah 3, and you're like, this repentance is a beautiful word. It's how human beings get reborn and restored and renewed when we realize that we're not God. What this king does is he gets off his throne. Look back at verse 6 with me. Let's camp out on this and kind of conclude. Verse 6 becomes this beautiful image then of the goal and illustration

of what God's judgment is aimed at doing. You have this man, verse 6, this king, the warning of God's judgment, it reaches him. Remember, he rose from his throne and we're thinking, oh no, like that's his problem. He's exalted himself into God's place to define as good all of these things that are actually bad. But instead, what does he do? He takes off these symbols of his autonomy and his power, his royal robes, and he puts them aside. He intentionally puts aside the very things that give him the authority

to define good and evil for himself. He lowers himself. He shoes, not by going, turning around, he shoes by, instead of going up, by lowering himself and by going down. Now, if Jonah was just a three-chapter story, according to one of the children's books on my shelves, it is. I have a children's book that just leaves out chapter four altogether, which is very strange. It becomes a different story altogether. If the story ended right here, together, which is very strange. It becomes a different story altogether. If the story ended right here, happy ending? That's a great ending, right? So Jonah's repented, and he went, you know,

and did this thing, and the Ninevites repent, and you're like, yay, everyone's happy, right? Everyone's happy, except think this through. Is there any guarantee that this king is going to stay off of his throne for very long? Is there any guarantee that the next king of Nineveh will also hear the story about God's judgment and turn and discover God's grace? Is there any guarantee? There's no guarantee that he will stay off his throne. I mean, what's your personal record for staying off the throne? So here we are. We want to define good and evil in ways that are most convenient for us. And a judgment is rendered on that. You're wrong. That's not right. And so here we have a chance to respond and to shoove and to turn to God's grace. But here's the thing, and this is the way

Thomas Carlyle put it in that poem at the beginning. Men repent in dust and ashes, but they repent again of their repentance. We're so screwed up, we can't even repent right. We can't even shoove right. Because, you know, like a week goes by, there's like some area of our lives that we define, we're on the throne, defined it as good. We hear the judgment as not good. The we shoo, we get off. Week one, doing good. Week two, we're like, well, God is a God of love and grace, right? And so we end up separating these from his judgment. And we'll be like, you know, he'll probably forgive me. And so, you know, it's just, I'll just get back on the throne for 30 minutes. And then by week three, like we're back on. And some of you are thinking three weeks, holy, you know, one week, you know, whatever.

But we just keep crawling back up to this addiction to our ego, to our desire for autonomy, to define good and evil for ourselves. And so there's this dilemma. Is there good news for people who can't even repent right? Is there good news for people who can't even repent right? Is there good news for people who can't even repent right? Dude, yeah, right. Yes, yes. So more than one of you should respond after 10 seconds. You know what I'm saying?

I'm completely serious. You should respond immediately. Yes, there is good news. Absolutely, there's good news. We're a community of Jesus, for goodness sakes. What is the good news? The good news is all wrapped up right at the heart of this. So the good news is this is a story about a king who oversees his good world,

and he sees that the people in his world are ruining each other. They're ruining themselves. And out of his love, he renders a judgment that's not right. This has to be dealt with. But the good news is that this king renders and brings about his judgment in a way that no one else expected, because he also gets up off of his throne. He also takes off his robes, and he comes in the language of Philippians 2. He humbled himself, becoming human, taking on the status of a slave, of a servant. He wallowed in the ashes of human existence. And on the cross, he absorbs his own judgment into himself on our behalf. He absorbs our selfishness, our

self-deception, our pain, the tragedy of who we are. He takes into himself. It kills him. But because his love is stronger than death, it's stronger than our sin and selfishness, in Jesus' resurrection from the grave, it makes possible this new way for those who will grab onto him in belief and accept his judgment on us that we're screwed up

and that there's no hope for us beyond his commitment to us. And when we turn to Jesus, the risen Lord, we find grace. I mean, the cross as a Christian, the cross is where all of these attributes of God come together in perfect harmony. The cross is a statement of God's love and his judgment, and it creates opportunity for grace. And it's precisely because of what Jesus did. The fact is, is you and I are going to be crawling on and off of those thrones probably for the rest of our lives. Lord willing, we make progress. And any progress that we do make is purely by his grace that's changing us, it's changing our hearts. But day one of becoming a Christian is hearing of God's judgment on me, turning and responding to his grace that's made possible through his love shown on the cross.

Day two is exactly the same process. Day three, and day four, and you get the point. As we continue to humble ourselves like this king, you begin to find all of a sudden that you resonate more with that judgment and you begin to see like, dude, that was so screwed up the way I used to think, the way I used to treat people, the way I used to spend all my money on myself, the way that you all of a sudden slowly begin to realize that his judgment is actually trying to give you life. And so this is the power of this picture of repentance in Jonah 3. It's beautiful. It's aimed at restoring us, not smashing us into pieces. And so, as always, big room, lots of different stories. I have no idea what the thrones, plural, in your life are. And I maybe have an inkling of what they are in mine.

There's probably all kinds of other ones that I'm not even ready for yet, but hopefully by the time I'm 50 or something, I will be, right? There you go. I don't know what yours are. You know the ways that you crawl back on the throne. You redefine good and evil in ways that excuse things that you know Jesus and the scriptures say are not the way to life. What are you going to do with that judgment? God's inviting you to turn to himself. And so in the time that remains, you know, some of us, we might be doing this in a new way.

For the first time, we're actually accepting this judgment and turning to find grace. For many of us, it's coming for the 78th time off that throne and doing it again. And that's the whole point. And so we're going to, as always, transition into a time for reflection, for music, for prayer. And I just encourage you, man, don't miss the moment.

If you sense the Lord's doing something inside of you, you're on a struggle to believe and accept God's judgment, like pay attention to that. Don't let that go inside of you. Hey guys, thanks again for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible Podcast. Dude, the Bible is strange and beautiful and amazing. And I hope this has been helpful for you. We'll have the next episode up very soon,

the last of five parts in the series Exploring the Book of Jonah. So we'll see you again next time. Thanks for listening.