“The Lord’s Mighty Compassion”

Jonah 4:11 “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
 
1st Kings 19:14 “Then he said, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.’”
 
1st Kings 19:18 “Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
 
I struggled to figure out what to write on for you this month. There is always so much going on in the world, but for this November there is an exceptional amount of material to work with. I was going to write on having peace during the upcoming elections, being reminded that we are to submit to the government (with the exception being that we cannot go against the Lord’s commands, even if they are mandated by the government), no matter who is elected.
I was then going to write on abortion, a topic that is not political to the Lord but which has become the very center of our political fight. (I am firmly against abortion, as is the universal/orthodox church, in case you were wondering.)
Then I was going to write on something a little easier, commentating on the ongoing football season, and how athletes bend their bodies to their will, the same as we are supposed to do as Christians so that we will serve the Lord well. All those topics, though, I think can be wrapped up in some commentary about how the Lord is amazingly compassionate. The three scripture readings above give insight into the immeasurable mercy our Lord shows us.
The first verse is the last from the book of Jonah. (You know, the guy who got swallowed by the whale?) The whole point of his going to the city of Nineveh, was to preach the Lord’s word to a people who had never heard it.
Nineveh was the evil capitol city of the Assyrians, a people who would summarily conquer Jonah’s homeland. The Israelites, therefore, hated the Assyrians for many reasons. They worshiped false gods, they were incredibly brutal, they engaged in child sacrifice, etc.
You couldn’t say a nice thing about those folks, but the Lord sends one of His prophets there anyways to preach. Miraculously, by God’s hand of course, when Jonah reluctantly preaches to the people in Nineveh, they repent. They humble themselves before the Lord, they turn from their wickedness (for at least a generation), and they beg Him for mercy.
The Lord, in His infinite mercy, grants it to them, and it angers Jonah. The very end of the book is a plain statement from God to His prophet… and to us… that God desires the lost, even those who are engaged in great evil.
If you find yourself thinking that God has abandoned our nation, thinking that there is no hope for us, then take a look at Nineveh in the book of Jonah and recognize that even the most lost can be saved. Pray often, and take solace in the fact that God still loves us, even when evil seems to abound around us.
The second two readings share a similar message, and they come from a time when Elijah was the major prophet in Israel. Ahab was the wicked king at the time, with his even more wicked queen Jezebel at his side, and they had turned completely from God. They had led the nation into a massive downward spiral, worshiping false gods and engaging in lecherous and insane behavior.
Elijah, the foremost prophet, had openly preached against them, and so he was driven into the wilderness, fleeing for his life. It is there in the wilderness, at his lowest point thinking himself alone, that God comes to Elijah. Elijah shares his plight, that all of his fellow prophets have been murdered and that he alone is left amongst God’s faithful.
The Lord, however, tells Elijah that there were over seven thousand people who had not bowed a knee to false gods, nor worshipped them in any way. Elijah was far from being on his own. In fact, if you read the whole chapter, Elijah is told by God that in short order things would change, and that the wicked rulers who had chased him out would soon be gone. That prophecy, unsurprisingly, comes to pass over the course of 1st Kings, and Israel is largely restored.
Beloved, the point in bringing up these passages and their context, is to give you some hope and peace over what is going on in the world. The Lord is always at work, and He never has His plans go to rot.
Do not fear what will come with the upcoming elections, nor be tricked into thinking that we are the only ones left. The Lord is moving now, just as He always has, and He continues to do great and mighty things behind the scenes.
Who knows? In a few years we may be talking about a great revival. We may see the Lord do something that nobody expected, bringing to Christ even our staunchest opponents here in America. Maybe Jesus Himself will even come back.
For now, we can have peace because God has made it plain that He watches over us. We need not worry that His will shall ever be undone. We can have hope for the future, for Christ still reigns.
Many prayers for all of you, we will make it through!
 
Blessings,
-Pastor Jake