Nahum gives the prophecy Jonah desperately wanted to
give. Nahum lived about 150 years after
Jonah. Jonah hated Nineveh and wanted
her destruction worse than anything in the world but instead of destruction he
saw these Assyrians (remember the Isaiah passage from Sunday) repent and turn
from sin in response to his message. The
repentance was, however, relatively short-lived and God had no covenant with
these people to whom He showed great mercy in the time of Jonah. Now their sin is so great against His people
that He announces through Nahum that His patience is worn out, judgment is
coming. They will soon know that the enemy
and adversary of His people has bitten off more than they can chew, they are
His enemies as well and that won't end well.
The young man asks Jesus about good deeds and what one he
must do to enter the kingdom. Jesus
points to the fact that there is one good and He has already spoken in the
commandments about good deeds so just do those.
He points specifically to the Ten Commandments, but not all of them,
only those good deeds that refer to loving the neighbor. He does not mention the first several commandments
about having no gods before Him, no idols, not taking His Name in vain, and
keeping Sabbath. Those could be subsumed
under the opening salvo concerning recognizing that there is one good perhaps
but in the end Jesus' response is to say sell everything you have, your earthly
inheritance, and give it to the poor if you really want a heavenly
inheritance. What He has done is to
expose the man's idolatry, that he has other gods before Yahweh, that he is
practicing idolatry with his money, that until he renounces it he is also
taking God's name as vanity to be added to his wealth. The man's response was to admit he was
unable, or actually unwilling, to keep those commandments. The good deed would go undone.
The best platform from which the move out is the one Peter
builds, "set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at
the revelation of Jesus Christ." My
hope is not in good deeds or success in ministry, it is in grace alone, from
beginning to end my salvation and hope of eternal life rests on the grace of
God in Christ Jesus. We never transcend
that basis no matter how great the things we do seem in the eyes of the
world. Now, however, on the basis of
that grace we are called to be holy, to be no longer conformed to our old
pattern of thought and behavior. Our
deeds, on which Peter says we are judged are based on our faith. We undertake to live in accordance with our
faith by the power of the Holy Spirit's guidance and help and therefore our
deeds, after faith, matter because they reveal faith. Who we are should reveal what we
believe. If we believe that this life is
all there is then materialism and acquisitiveness are fine. If, however, we truly seek that eternal
inheritance of the Gospel, these things have no place in our lives. What do your deeds, how you spend your time,
talent and treasure, reveal about your faith?
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