The recent atrocity
in Pakistan in which 132 school children were slaughtered to further the cause
of Islamic fundamentalists barely caused a ripple in the daily news cycle. Those
waiting for denouncements and objections from ‘moderate Muslims’ on this
barbaric cowardice are not paying attention; no sentiment of horror or
revulsion ever follows because none exists. In Iraq, near the modern city of
Mosul, lie the remains of Nineveh, an Assyrian city that served as the capital
of that empire around the seventh century BC. If you have a cursory knowledge
of the Old Testament, you know that Nineveh is the city that God instructs
Jonah to travel to with a message of impending destruction because “… wickedness is come up before me.” Jonah 1:2 KJV What exactly qualified the Assyrian
people of Nineveh an envoy from God? Most people remember Jonah’s story because of
his surviving 3 days in the belly of a great fish while the stated purpose for
his journey tends to get overlooked.
The Assyrian empire was feared and reviled because they were ferocious in
battle and masters of siege warfare; surrounding a city and starving the
inhabitants into submission, they are acknowledged for mastery in the art of
war. For well-prepared cities with walls and wells, they developed siege towers
and battering rams. The Assyrians did not leave empty handed. Women and children of conquered cities or
tribes would be assimilated as slaves and typically relocated far from their
homelands. Vanquished men were put to the sword, a practice common to the
cultures of this time period. Assyrian cities were grim testaments to their
cruelty and cunning, surrounded with the corpses and skeletons of the
vanquished, impaled, crucified, and flayed; a grisly warning to the world as to
the true nature of these people. The macabre spectacle would surely cause the
newly captured to abandon any thought of escape or rebellion.
One of
the ancient monuments discovered in the ruins of ancient Assyria has this
inscription by King Ashurnasirpal II (reign began in 883 BC.) of a conquered
city:
"Their men, young and old, I took as prisoners. Of some I cut off the feet and hands; of others I cut off the noses, ears, and lips; of the young men's ears I made a heap; of the old men's heads I built a minaret."
"Their men, young and old, I took as prisoners. Of some I cut off the feet and hands; of others I cut off the noses, ears, and lips; of the young men's ears I made a heap; of the old men's heads I built a minaret."
Hawlinson's
"Five Great Monarchies" vol. 2, p85, note.
When the
prophet Jonah is instructed by God to travel to the Assyrian capital of
Nineveh, his reluctance is understandable. The thought of traveling to that
people to deliver a message of impending doom must have filled him with dread
and challenged his understanding of who God really is. Knowing the true nature
of the warring Assyrians enables us to grasp the prophet’s decision to proceed immediately
to the nearest port and book a cruise. It should also give us an appreciation
for the courage and selfless obedience of today’s missionaries who answer a
calling to work in the Middle East. The crux of Jonah’s incredulity at his
assignment is revealed later in the final chapter.
10 When
God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and
did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. Jonah 3:10 NIV
4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he
became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said,
Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to
Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger
and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now,
Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:1-3
NIV
Jonah
understands the heart of God to be large enough to forgive the people of
Nineveh for ‘evil’ if they will acknowledge and repent of it. It is the offer
that God extends to all people, of every age. In Jonah’s human understanding,
there is no forgiveness afforded to a culture that is founded on violence,
oppression, and barbarism; attributes that are antithetical to the God of
Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob. Jonah is angered by the repentance and delayed
justice for Nineveh and the book ends with God attempting to explain His
reprieve to the sullen and brooding prophet. If you have never read the story
it is worth the time; though very short relative to some OT books, it is full
of revelation about the character of God, obedience, and repentance.
Before we
come forward to ISIS, Islam, and the war on western culture, I want to address
those who portray God as being the fictional crutch of weak minded and lesser
men. Richard Dawkins covers all the bases with his extensive list of
descriptors from his book, The God Delusion, “The God of the Old Testament is
arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it;
a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic
cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,
filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully.” To be sure, there is an abundance of evil perpetrated upon
individuals, tribes, and cultures in the historical account of the 10 centuries
preceding the birth of Jesus Christ. Much of what is recorded in the Bible’s
Old Testament is corroborated by archeological proof and non-biblical records.
The Old Testament is the record of God’s on-going attempt to reveal himself and
His nature to mankind. As the source of truth, morality, and love, God is
incapable of subjecting humanity to the crimes that Mr. Dawkins charges Him
with; as the source of law and order, He is required to judge and punish sin. There
is neither time nor space to detail the ignorant and dishonest railings of an
expired scientist whose refusal to consider information theory in the
intelligent design school would be laughable if it were not so sad.
The
judgments visited upon the people in the days of Nineveh were because of
unrepentant and prolonged evil; sacrificing children to idols, bestiality,
sexual perversion and deviance, murder and rape, their cruelties and inhumanity
were legendary at a time when war and destruction was the default life for
most. God didn’t destroy people for their skin tone or tribal practices but He
did judge and eliminate cultures of depravity and violence that had abandoned
the basic tenants of humanity. The Ten Commandments and Levitical laws were
given to the Israelites because they were surrounded by cultures that had
abandoned the fundamentals of human conduct and civility.
The
myriad facets of Islam have something in common with their ancestors that
populated the ancient kingdoms of what is now Iraq and Iran. Whether they are
affiliated with the Taliban, ISIS, Hamas, or the PLO, their culture requires
that they destroy those will not convert to their beliefs. They are warring
people whose god requires death to unbelievers; a truly misogynistic tribe that
sees women and girls as property, with no restraints placed upon their
treatment. The oppressive condition of women in Muslim culture is not much
removed from the life they had 3000 years ago; they exist in the shadows of a
disparately patriarchal culture of repression and bias that finds parents
stoning daughters for being raped. There is no coexistence with Islam; bumper
stickers that assert we can would be amusing if not so blatantly myopic and
ignorant.
In
America we distract and amuse ourselves with any and everything that our
culture of glitter and wow affords while Europe is being sacked by the crescent
and the sword. The misogynistic disregard for women and young girls by
immigrants in England and other European countries is startling due to those
countries unwillingness or inability to confront it. The American media silence
is equally telling. Progressive correctness prevents truth from being spoken,
laws from being enforced, and native born citizens from being protected as immigrants
and refugees assail the host countries that have offered them a new life. When
the citizens do speak out and dare to confront the hate and division espoused
by clerics, they are charged with hate speech or have their freedoms further
restricted. Angela Merkel denounces her people for demonstrating against the
encroachment of Islam in Germany; immigrants who come not to assimilate, but to
subjugate and establish their culture upon the host country that has afforded
them refuge. You know that things are truly upside down when governments insist
straight-faced that pointing out hate speech is in fact ‘hate speech’.
As has
been their practice, dutiful followers of Allah are now bent upon destroying
what remains of the city of Nineveh, just as they have torched, defaced, and
maimed antiquities of other faiths when they take control. The existence of
such sites is deemed an affront to their god and must be destroyed lest they lead
anyone to doubt that their cause is just and true. How ironic that these
warriors would see no value in preserving a monument to their genealogical
origins, a city that declared the superiority of the Assyrian nation to all
unfortunate enough to be within its range. Such is the power of love and forgiveness
that a shattered remnant of a place where God issued a reprieve and withheld His
righteous judgments would pose a threat to a false religion that is spread by
fear and intimidation. Perhaps Jonah saw the legacy of Nineveh and the Assyrian
people and realized then the veracity in God’s word that truly there is nothing
new under the sun.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV)
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV)
