The Wind Of Judgment

 

 The Wind of Judgment

     What does the word "judgment" mean to you?  If we look up the word in the dictionary, this is the definition that it gives:  It is the ability to judge, makes a decision, or forms an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense and discretion. When you judge you are forming an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion from circumstances presented.

      And this is exactly what God did to Nineveh.  We begin this message in Jonah 1:1 & 2 and it says:  The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”

     The book of Jonah consists of only four chapters and is the story of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh, but tries to escape the divine mission.  The story centers on a conflict between Jonah and God. God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment to Nineveh, but Jonah resists and attempts to flee. He goes to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish, God calls up a great storm at sea, and the ship's crew cast Jonah overboard in an attempt to appease God. A great sea creature sent by God, swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights the scripture tells us that Jonah was inside the fish's belly. He says a prayer in which he repents for his disobedience and thanks God for His mercy. God speaks to the fish, which vomits out Jonah safely on dry land.

 

     After his rescue, Jonah obeys the call to prophesy against Nineveh, causing the people of the city to repent and God to forgive them. Jonah is furious, however, and angrily tells God that this is the reason he tried to flee from Him, as he knew Him to be a just and merciful God.  Jonah then prays to the Lord to take his life, a request which is denied when God causes a tree to grow over him, giving him shade. Initially grateful, Jonah's anger returns the next day, when God sends a worm to eat the plant, withering it, and he tells God that it would be better if he were dead. God then points out: "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor, and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals"?

     Why would God want to judge Nineveh?  It tells us in Genesis 10:8 Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. 

     What does the name Nimrod mean? It comes from the Hebrew verb marad, meaning “rebel.” The meaning then is “The Rebel” which is a representative of a system of government, people or religious culture that rebels against their creator, the one true God.  Nimrod was the grandson of Ham, which was one of the sons of Noah whom God saved from the flood.  Scripture tells us that God looked upon man (during the time of Noah) that He had created and He saw that the wickedness of man was great and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The scriptures also tell us that all the earth had become corrupted in their way and that it was filled with violence and so God blew the wind of judgment upon man during the time of Noah. Now four generations later we have Nimrod who founded and built Nineveh.

     If we take a look back into history, Josephus who was a Jewish historian and writer wrote this about the man Nimrod.  Now it was Nimrod who excited them (the people) to such an affront (meaning: to insult or offend somebody openly) and contempt of God.  He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah-a bold man, and of great strength of hand. Nimrod persuaded them (the people) not to ascribe (give credit or attribute) it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He (Nimrod) also gradually changed the government into tyranny-seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his own power. He also said he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters, to be able to reach! And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

      So Nineveh was built on rebellion and outwardly defied and mocked God.  They boasted in themselves of their self-sufficiency and pride and exercised extreme evil, oppression and cruelty. And God saw and heard the cry against the city and He said; for their wickedness has come up before Me. God was about to blow the Wind of Judgment upon Nineveh, but in His grace and love for man, He called Jonah a second time and told him to go to Nineveh and tell them: Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. 

     If we look at chapter 3:5 of Jonah it says that:  Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. What made them believe, call on God and turn from their wicked and the violent ways?  At the bottom of my Hebrew/Greek key Study Bible it gives us this thought:  The Rabbis thought their repentance was brought about so quickly because the people of Nineveh had already heard of Jonah’s miraculous deliverance from the fish. Jesus’ statement in Luke 11:30 that Jonah was a sign to the men of Nineveh as the Son of Man would be to His contemporaries renders this interpretation probable, since Jesus sign was His three days in the grave.

 

     In Matthew 12 - Jesus was talking to some of the scribes and Pharisees and they asked for a sign from Him and this was His response.

     Verse 39:  But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

    Verse 40:  For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

    Verse 41:  The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

     I believe that God has begun to blow the Wind of Judgment upon America and we as a nation stand guilty of the same acts of rebellion, evil, wickedness, violence and perversion as Nineveh did.  We have become a people that are self- sufficient, self-seeking, selfish and our god has become our material wealth.  We have built altars to foreign gods and sold our birth right to the enemy. America, it’s time to repent and turn back to God, take the blinders off of our eyes and once more be one nation, under God and God only. 

 

Blessings,

 

Elma Garlock