When the crowds went out to be baptized by him, John did not mince words. He called them all a brood of vipers and asked who warned them to flee from the wrath that was coming (Luke 3:7)! He was less concerned about ingratiating himself with his audience than with the sincerity of their repentance. They should not assume their standing before God was assured by their genealogical relationship with Abraham (Luke 3:8). John solemnly warned the Israelites: if YHWH was coming, that meant the day of YHWH, or a time of judgment, was at hand, which John explained by stating the ax was laid at the root of the tree, and every tree that did not produce good fruit would become firewood (Luke 3:9). The Israelites should repent and bear good fruit if they would be preserved; otherwise they would be cut down like so many of their ancestors!

The crowds heard John and accepted his warning; they wanted to know what they should do (Luke 3:10). How were they supposed to bear the good fruit of repentance? What would be John’s primary message for the Israelites so they would escape YHWH’s condemnation and be prepared to welcome Him when He came?

John told Israel to share. A person who had two tunics must share with the one who has none, and the person who had food must share with those who did not have food (Luke 3:11).

Yes, John would go on to give specific exhortations to specific groups who asked. Tax collectors should collect nothing beyond what was required; soldiers should not take money by violence or false testimony and should be content with their pay (Luke 3:12-14). Such would well demonstrate the repentance of members of those groups.

Luke would go on to speak about John’s confession he was not the Christ, but the Christ was coming and would be the Judge; Jesus was baptized by John; John was imprisoned, and at a later time, would be executed, by Herod Antipas (Luke 3:13-23, 9:7-9). Luke 3:7-14, therefore, represents what we know of the preaching of John the Baptist as he prophesied and exhorted Israel to repentance before the great and terrible day of YHWH would arrive.

And John the Baptist, whom Jesus confessed as the Elijah to come, the greatest among those who had been born of human parentage at the time, and literally the ultimate messenger of the Law and the Prophets (cf. Matthew 11:11-14), told Israel to share.

The people of God throughout time have been tempted to complicate the faith and the relationship with God and with one another they ought to have. It is tempting to make religion all about various ideas and perspectives divorced from real life experience. It is tempting to focus on defining who has standing before God and who does not. It is tempting to try to answer all the possible questions and objections and dig deeply into various scenarios and possibilities.

Yet John’s message to the people of his time was simple: YHWH was coming. That meant judgment was coming. Those who did not change would be condemned. Thus, God’s people needed to change. They couldn’t trust in their ancestry for their standing. They needed to act as if God was coming soon. And to do that they needed to share what they had.

When they shared what they had, they demonstrated they trusted in God to provide for their necessities. They demonstrated their obedience to His command and directive. They displayed love for one another in providing for what they needed. In sharing they confessed their light hold on the things of this world and the higher priority of one another than in material comfort.

Jesus also confessed, however, that the least in the Kingdom of God was greater than John (Matthew 11:11). All John had promised came to pass: YHWH came to His people as Jesus, dwelt among them, prophetically declared judgment, died, was raised in power, ascended to heaven, was made Lord and Christ, and rendered judgment against Judah and Jerusalem.

But John’s prophetic message endures. Jesus will return again soon (Acts 17:30-31). We must live in repentance lest we find ourselves condemned on that day, for God will not show partiality (Romans 2:5-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-11). And how can we display the fruit of repentance? By sharing what we have with our fellow people with God and with everyone. Jesus framed the whole judgment scene according to whether or not we do so in Matthew 25:31-46. James asked how a Christian could tell someone in need to be warmed and filled without giving what was necessary and then think their faith without works could save them (James 2:14-26). John wondered how Christians could really say they loved one another and would even die for one another if they did not prove willing to provide material goods to one another in need (1 John 3:16-18, 4:7-21). Paul continually exhorted Christians to give to those in need, especially to those of the household of faith; the Hebrews author affirmed the same (Galatians 2:10, 6:10, Hebrews 13:16).

As then, so now: it is not just about the act of sharing. We share because we trust that God provides our necessities and we confess our light hold on the possessions and material wealth we have, recognizing all of it comes from God, it cannot be taken with us, and it is always better used to assist others in the present than in the vain hope of future yield. When we share, we prioritize people over comfort.

Our faith in Christ, therefore, ought to be manifest in sharing. Let us consider well John’s prophetic message of sharing and embody it fully to the glory of God in Christ!

Ethan R. Longhenry

https://www.spiritualmanna.info/sharing/

John the Baptist proclaimed the way of YHWH before the great day of His arrival. Judgment was coming. What should Israel do? Share.

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514 | 11.22 | Protection | Psalm 32:7

You are my hiding place; you protect me from distress. You surround me with shouts of joy from those celebrating deliverance (Psalm 32:7).

Who can protect us?

Protection is a quite salient matter in a world full of dangers. Many want to speak of “the universe” as if it has some kind of specific will for us or will grant us certain things if we intend or behave in certain ways; yet scientifically it is beyond doubt that the universe is actively trying to kill us. Bacteria and viruses continually beset us. And we have all sorts of dangers in between: weather conditions and natural disasters, let alone what fellow human beings might do to us. It’s dangerous out there!

Some might want to think they live in greater danger today than those who came before us, but upon any level of investigation it would be difficult to sustain that kind of argument. If anything, our ancestors lived in greater dangers: various illnesses, wild animals and hostile weather conditions, natural disasters, and fewer ways to ameliorate the danger. Yet such kinds of comparisons ultimately prove futile: in truth, people have always been in danger; people will never run out of things regarding which they can be afraid and which they believe is dangerous; and therefore people have always looked to find some kind of protector.

As we have become ever more secular and skeptical of authority, many have come to suggest themselves as their own protector, or the protector of others. There is a whole American culture dedicated to the proposition of maintaining and upholding the honor and integrity of the family and friends through protection by any means necessary. It has deep roots in Americana; one easily identifiable source would be a particular Scots Irish frontier libertarian culture and mentality that elevated one’s ability to provide for oneself and one’s family without interference from authorities and protected with vigilance. Such types of perspectives easily meld protection within provision so that when many read, for example, that one who does not provide for one’s family is worse than an unbeliever (as in 1 Timothy 5:8), they understand it to mean not just to provide material and emotional resources but also protection, with violence if need be. We are now at the point when many profess the name of the Lord Jesus and will maintain weapons for violence on their person to be ready, at a moment’s notice, to harm or take the lives of others in the name of protecting those they love. Such is even done within the assembly of the Lord’s people, and is often commended as reasonable and sensible!

We understand the impulse; the desire to protect one’s own life and the lives of those we love and to whom we are dedicated is very strong. But is this the explicit will of the Lord Jesus? And who can really protect us?

The Lord Jesus spoke a word about protection through violence in Matthew 26:52: those who take hold of the sword will die by the sword. It was a message powerfully imprinted upon His disciples: Jesus had said as much to Peter when Peter had taken out a sword in an attempt to protect Jesus, and we never hear of Peter or any other Apostle using or encouraging the use of violence to protect themselves afterward. Such a posture only makes sense in light of what Jesus was about to do: He willingly gave Himself to suffer and die even though He had not done anything wrong. Peter himself would reflect upon this and declare that Jesus entrusted Himself to the God who judges justly and did not retaliate when harmed (1 Peter 2:22-23). Peter understood what Jesus had done as marching orders for those who would follow Him: they should go about doing good for others, even if they suffered for doing so, while entrusting themselves to a faithful Creator (1 Peter 4:19). What would motivate anyone to do such a thing? The testimony of deep, abiding love of God displayed in Jesus for those who sinned and were alienated from God (cf. Romans 5:6-11). As God has loved us even though we have sinned and fallen short of His glory, so we are called to love others in the same way. We are to love those who would hurt us and pray for those who would persecute us (Luke 6:35). Jesus loves the criminal as much as He loves you, me, small children, and everyone else. Jesus wants them all to be saved: even the person who wants to hurt you (1 Timothy 2:4).

So who can protect us? In the days of old few men proved as mighty in battle as David son of Jesse. Yet after he confessed his sins before YHWH because they laid upon him grievously and commended this for others, he confessed YHWH was his hiding place, and that YHWH would protect him from trouble (Psalm 32:1-7). David was surrounded by those shouting for joy because God delivered them (Psalm 32:7).

Throughout the Psalms, in fact, David and other writers reckon YHWH as their refuge, strong rock, strong tower, and place of hiding and protection. They praise YHWH for deliverance. They also warn Israel against trusting in military might for their protection (cf. Psalms 20:7, 146:3). The prophets would utter a similar warning, exemplified in Isaiah 7:1-17: if God’s people trust in military maneuvering and foreign policy and not in their God, they will be humiliated, fail, and incur judgment. They were better off trusting in YHWH as their King and Protector, and YHWH would provide deliverance for them. They did not trust; they sought protection in chariots and foreign policy; and they were overrun and destroyed by chariots and foreign policy.

The faithful and wise people of God have always understood that God, and God alone, can truly protect them. How God has protected His people has manifested itself differently at different times and in different circumstances, and sometimes through very strange means. It is not as if there is no place for violence; God has established civil government to establish justice in the land and to punish evil; God’s people are to let them take vengeance and wield the sword (Romans 13:1-7). The rulers of old were held to that standard as well (cf. Isaiah 1:10-17). God helped Israel fight its battles time and again (cf. Exodus 15:1-19). Isaiah envisioned judgment on Aram and Israel to deliver Judah by the hands of the bloodthirsty Assyrians (Isaiah 7:1-17). The same kind of Roman soldiers and guards who helped to execute Jesus protected Paul from death at the hand of the Jewish people almost thirty years later (cf. Acts 21:32-26:32). God will hold all such authorities responsible for how they used and abused their authority; God does not hold responsible those who live, or those who suffer, under it.

It is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which it did not look like God protected His people. Plenty of God’s people have died at the hands of raging persecutors. Many others have died at the hands of violent men. Many have suffered exploitation in a thousand different ways. Untold thousands have died of disease or because of natural disasters. That’s a lot of suffering.

But what have we come to expect, and to what end? It is futile to imagine that we can truly protect ourselves or anyone else from every danger. We are not as powerful, and often not in control, as much as we would like to think we are. If protecting others through intimidation or force were as important to faithful Christian witness as many would imagine, why has God not spoken about it? Why did Jesus or the Apostles not model it, and just as importantly, why did Jesus denounce it when one of His disciples actually tried it? When we must speak frequently when God has not spoken it should give us great pause regarding what we are saying. Perhaps we have imported something that was never there in the first place. Perhaps we are not listening to what is being said.

It is a particularly modern delusion to think we are in control and can control our environment. Those who came before us lived by time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11); and if we would hear it, so do we. If we will be protected from dangers, it is because God is protecting us. If for whatever reason in God’s economy, be it the freewill decisions of others, the work of the powers and principalities, or perhaps even just unfortunate circumstance, we are called upon to suffer and die, it is not as if God has proven unfaithful. We brought nothing into this world; we cannot take anything out of it (1 Timothy 6:7). We are weak and frail; our strength should have always been entrusted in the Lord and His might (Ephesians 6:10-13). If we would truly want to see our families, friends, and loved ones protected, we do best to entrust them into the hands of God our Protector. If a mighty warrior like David thus trusted in God, perhaps we should also.

In the end, we will all be held accountable for what we have done in the body when we stand before the Lord Jesus (Acts 17:30-31, Romans 2:5-11). We do best to stand there having entrusted ourselves to our faithful Creator, even through tremendous suffering, humiliation, and degradation, than to stand before a faithful Creator with the weight of the pain, distress, and perhaps even the blood of human beings on our souls and our hands. We should stand before Jesus having followed His ways of humiliation and suffering so we might be exalted through the unimaginably fantastic glory of God, praising God as the Protector and Deliverer of our souls unto eternal life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

https://www.spiritualmanna.info/protection/

Much is made of the need to protect others. But who can protect us? What are we really supposed to do?

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513 | 11.08 | The Incurable Wound | Nahum 3:19

Your destruction is like an incurable wound; your demise is like a fatal injury! All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy, for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty! (Nahum 3:19)

Who could have seen it coming?

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the great superpower of the day, featuring effective leadership and dominance in strength and power to a degree never before seen in the ancient Near Eastern world. Nineveh seemed to be the capital of the world, full of the wealth and the goods of nations from Europe to Africa and deep into Asia. The Assyrian army was notorious for its cruelty, but it had been the catalyst for the end of nation after nation. The Assyrians had leveled and rebuilt Babylon; they had humiliated Egypt and had sacked Thebes. King Ashurbanipal had just finished eliminating Elam and the Elamites, a nation which had been around for as long as anyone could remember, as a going concern. He would be remembered forever as one of the greatest of the kings of Assyria, overseeing the Assyrian Empire at its strongest, the “King of the Universe,” a great patron of the arts, and the collector of a great library of Mesopotamian literature.

At the same time, a prophet from the rarely faithful vassal Kingdom of Judah pronounced the doom of Assyria. YHWH declared through Nahum that Nineveh and the Assyrians had acted like wanton prostitutes practicing sorcery, seducing and enslaving the nations in their economy and ways, and thus He was against them. They had terrorized the world; the time would soon come when they would become terrified of their enemies. They thought they were superior to the nations they conquered, but would soon learn they were no better. They would be devastated and no one would lament; in fact, everyone who would hear about their demise would rejoice, having remembered the cruelty they had suffered from the Assyrians.

We can easily imagine how such a message might have been heard by Ninevites in Ashurbanipal’s day. Such sounded like wishful thinking from a bunch of restive nobodies in the middle of nowhere. As if the great and mighty Assyrians would be thus humbled! As if Nineveh, the center of the world, would be so easily overthrown! Many may have even laughed at the prospect or the possibility. Assyria’s enemies may have enjoyed the prospect but would have good reason to doubt its possibility.

But then Ashurbanipal died, likely in 631 BCE; his son Ashur-etil-ilani, likely a weak and ineffective king, would only reign for four years, and then another son, Sinsharishkun, took over the throne. Sinsharishkun was almost immediately confronted by a civil war against a general who aspired to the throne; in the meantime, the Chaldean Nabopolassar was able to take over Babylon, which was never controlled by the Assyrians again. Sinsharishkun was able to put down the revolt against his rule, and successfully recaptured some lost territory in Mesopotamia, but suffered another revolt in 622. Nabopolassar pressed his advantage and pushed north, entering Assyrian territory, and defeated the Assyrian army many times. If it had just been a conflict against the Chaldean Babylonians, Sinsharishkun and the Assyrians might have been able to hold firm if not prevail; but when Cyaxares and the Medes invaded from the east in 615, the doom of Assyria was at hand. Sinsharishkun had been able to successfully defend Assur, the ancient heart of their land, from the Chaldeans in 615; in 614 it fell to the Medes. Nabopolassar and Cyaxares made an anti-Assyrian pact, and in 612 their combined armies marched on Nineveh. Two months later the town was taken, ravaged, and burned to the ground. Sinsharishkun is presumed to have died in the fighting. We have some records of one Ashur-uballit II, likely Sinsharishkun’s son, who was proclaimed king at Harran but fled three years later and vanished from the record; the Egyptians would try to help prop up the rump state of Assyria for awhile but to no avail. Thus, for all intents and purposes, Sinsharishkun was the last king of Assyria.

Twenty years. It had only taken twenty years for Assyria to go from its greatest extent to complete destruction and devastation. Thus Nineveh and Assyria were exactly what Nahum had prophesied they were. They were no better than those they had defeated. They had generated intense dislike and hostility because of the cruelty they had inflicted; when their enemies obtained an advantage, there would be no mercy. As the Assyrians had destroyed Babylon, so the Babylonians destroyed Nineveh. There would be no renaissance or renewal for Assyria; this was the end. A nation which had existed since around 2500 BCE fell completely in half a generation.

There are many who remain skeptical about many of the messages of the prophets and the way they would be fulfilled. All of those messages would find their fulfillment, but often would take much longer than many expected. No such ambiguity exists about Nahum’s message: he prophesied it at some point after 671 BCE, and it was finished by 609. The world it imagined would have been unthinkable until it took place; but then it happened. Who could have seen it coming? Those to whom YHWH had spoken.

Those of us who live long after such events took place should still give heed. God would indict Babylon for the same kind of whoredom and sorcery for which He had indicted Assyria; Rome would also fall under the same condemnation.

We can therefore see a trend at work. Powerful rulers over prosperous and successful empires frequently boast of their great exploits and endurance. Their cities glisten with wealth and the fruit of power and prosperity. Everything looks stable; people expect things to continue as they have in the past.

But then, all of a sudden, disaster strikes. Difficulties which have been manifest for those who had eyes to see now undermine the presumed strength of the nation. Collapse, destruction, and devastation may come quickly and thoroughly; it may be drawn out for years, decades, or even centuries. But the end would indeed come.

Who could have seen it coming? Those who would heed what God has spoken. Power and prosperity remain ephemeral; everything seems to go on as it always has until it no longer does. We should not trust in princes or the powers of this world; instead, we should put our trust in the God who sees all things and who will judge. May we trust in God in Christ and obtain life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry

https://www.spiritualmanna.info/incurablewound/

Assyria was grand and glorious. 20 years later, it was entirely gone. Who could have seen it coming? Those who listened to God.

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The Elijah, the One who would prepare the way of YHWH to come to His people, had come. He was preaching in the Wilderness.

What is this embodiment of the Law and Prophets telling the people of God to do?

To share.

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Danger is always present. So who can protect us?

Who gave us the impression we are in control and should be the ones who provide the protection?

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Assyria was on top of the world…until they were utterly destroyed. Who could have seen it coming? The people of God.

513 | 11.08 | The Incurable Wound | Nahum 3:19
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