More than just good guys versus bad guys - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Nahum 3:15,

"There the fire will consume you; the sword will cut you down— they will devour you like a swarm of locusts. Multiply like grasshoppers, multiply like locusts!"

Nineveh is to be destroyed. The "they" in the "they will devour you", are the coming Babylonians. God is going to use the Babylonians to destroy Nineveh.

A few thoughts capture my thinking. 

God has already used the Assyrians, of which Nineveh was the capital, to destroy ten of his own tribes of Israel in 722 BC. God brought these merciless and greatly feared Assyrians against his own people and now he is going to destroy them. 

We know the Assyrians were merciless and greatly feared from the historical accounts passed down to us. The Assyrians would ravage a city, impale all its residents on poles, plant the poles in the ground and leave them as calling cards for all to see. From there it got worse. These were godless people who pursued their idolatry and refined the concept of terror. Yet, God brought these people against his own.

The Israelites had made themselves an object of God's judgment through their own rebellion against him, through their rejection of him, his word, and the prophets he sent them. They pursued the idols of the surrounding nations with their Baal worship, Asherah poles, fertility rites, child sacrifice, etc.

When I was a boy, back in the days of black-and-white TV, I recall watching the Lone Ranger. He had a white hat and rode a white horse. The bad guys all wore black hats and rode black horses. In a thirty minute episode the Lone Ranger always vanquished the guys in the black hats. It was always a clearly defined moral story of good against evil with the white hat always ending up on top, no matter how bad it got.

As I read the Scriptural accounts of the events in Israel's history, and her neighbors, such as Assyria and Babylonia, I find there are different stories than what I witnessed watching the Lone Ranger, not that morality is absent, but that here there is much more going on than just the Good Guys versus the Bad Guys. I read of God being not just instrumental, but even the cause of what might be considered black hat hostilities against black hat, black hat hostilities against his own people, God causing war, and even genocide.

Why is God using horribly wicked and sinful people for his purposes? Why would he bring "bad guys" against his chosen people? Why doesn't the Bible just portray the simple Lone Ranger theme of good guy against bad guy with God always insuring the victorious outcome of the good guy, as so many assume it does?

It is apparent to me that the Bible is much more than a collection of moral good guy versus bad guy stories. It reveals to us that our God has an agenda that transcends nations and that he carries out his purposes through them. God created the nations for his own purposes and uses them to achieve his ends, Acts 17:26-28. What is clear is that the Lord is building his kingdom, his family and what takes place on the international stage plays a very large part of that agenda.

Something to consider.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com