New Thoughts (11/15/06-11/17/06)
Jesus takes up the role of prophet here. He speaks after the manner of the Old Testament prophets, pronouncing a troubling future that is the result of a negligent present. That word ‘woe’ with which He begins His message is one of the most common words among the vocabulary of the prophet. The prophet who comes with nothing but good news is likely no prophet at all, but merely an opportunist. God does not need to tell us the things we want to hear. We are quite good at doing that all by ourselves. When the news is that we are doing good, and should just keep on course, He really doesn’t need to tell us very often. But, when we’ve gotten off course and stopped listening to His directions, it takes a strong word to break through our resistance.
Consider those cities to which Jesus compares His list: Tyre, Sidon, Sodom. Each of these were major cities in their time. Each of them not only neglected God, but actively sought the harm of His people. Sodom, of course, is notorious even to this day for its practices. Tyre and Sidon, on the other hand, are less familiar to us, but they are worth a moment to understand, insofar as they are significant to the story of God’s people.
Take Sidon first, for it was the first of the two. The name itself means to lie in wait. Sidon did indeed lie in wait in the midst of Israel. When Israel came into the land of Canaan, Asher was given the region surrounding Sidon, but they failed to take the city. It lay in wait, biding its time until it could turn upon the Israelites. At that time, Sidon was powerful. It was a primary city of the Phoenicians, and had built up a rich trade, working the sea lanes to bring trade from far places, and having skilled artisans whose goods could be sold abroad. With such wealth to protect, of course the city was strongly built and strongly defended. It was a place of power, and yet, God’s prophets spoke against it, for it was also a place of vilest idolatries, and despised the Creator.
Sidon was not only known for its arts and its trades, however. Its wealth led to an almost inevitable development. Sidon was a city of self-indulgent people. All was luxury and lust seeking fulfillment. Compassion was all but nonexistent. Profit was everything, and every man’s focus was upon himself. This is really how they lay in wait for Israel, for Israel also profited by trade with Sidon. What that city was to the waters of the Mediterranean, Israel was to the caravans of the east. Consider what the prophets were speaking to the kingdom of Israel in later years. They had grown callous in their fatness, a fatness gained by trade with the city that lay in wait. In their trade, they had picked up not only the goods of that city, but also the habits. The idolatry and the callousness of that capital-driven society became common in the northern kingdom.
Sidon, however, became a tempting target for the more aggressive inland empires. Nation after nation came to overrun that place, to take its wealth for themselves. Unable to defend itself, Sidonians instead fled to other places, most notably Tyre, which was situated nearby, and which had been founded by the Sidonians. Tyre was named after the rock upon which it was built, being half on an island. It, too, became a city preeminent in trade, eventually reaching the point where it was greater than Sidon. From Tyre, the Phoenicians traveled far and wide for trade, and they established colonies on the western reaches of the sea which was their roadway.
Tyre, however, shared more than skilled seamanship with Sidon. The city had created its own god in Astarte, and this idolatrous religion was also spread into Israel to poison even its kings. Solomon was deceived into raising altars to Astarte because he had taken women from Tyre into his harem. Worse yet was Ahab who, at a later date, took as his queen the daughter of Tyre’s king. Jezebel’s father was king in that city, but only because he had murdered the previous occupant. Prior to that, he had been a priest of Astarte. The poisonous snake that lay in wait in Sidon had, through its daughter Tyre, bitten Israel.
These were not the sole crimes of the Phoenicians against God’s people, though. As evil as was this introduction of idolatry in the form of Astarte, Ashtoreth and rank humanism, there was another issue. When Jerusalem suffered the corrective punishments of God, Tyre and Sidon gloated over her trials. They saw not the suffering of a people, but the opportunity to take on the trade that Jerusalem had been handling. More profits! Further, as Israel receded in importance as a trading partner, Tyre turned upon those Jews who dwelt within her walls, and sold them into slavery.
Oh! What a picture of the dangers of this life! What a picture of the great risk of befriending the world. The world is a fickle friend, who will be with you only so long as it is more profitable than turning on you. She sells herself to the highest bidder, and is ever looking for one who will bid yet more. She entices with her sins and her glamour, but she conceals a knife tipped with poison that awaits but a careless moment to slip through your guard and throw you down. She who will be ruled by murderers is a murderer, and can be trusted only to murder when it becomes advantageous.
The other aspect of Sidon and Tyre that we ought to be aware of in our time is that they were a society that by and large held out man as god. As much as they supported their idolatries, they held up the skills of man as greater yet. These were the people that were happy to declare Herod a god. They were used to making such claims. They looked upon the things their people had done: turning shellfish into profitable, scarlet dye, sailing to the farthest reaches, making fine metal-works, and they were like those who built the tower at Babel, thinking to raise themselves on high. What need of gods when man can do this? We can easily hear the echoes of this way of thinking in the humanism of today, along with its companion religion of science.
I am not decrying science as an evil. What I am decrying is the raising up of the scientific community as the priests of the religion of enlightened mankind. When we look to scientists as the moral authorities, something is terribly wrong. This is the same moral basis that allowed the Canaanites to pursue the cult of Molech, sacrificing their own children on the altar of their idolatry. Welcome to the modern world. Here we are in one of many nations that allows for the same sacrifice of children upon the altar of convenience. Here we are in a society that can suggest as morally acceptable the idea of killing a child even after birth simply because that child was born with an inconvenient birth defect. Why should we suffer the loss of profits that will be the inevitable outcome of caring for that child? Why take the chance that it might live to see a cure? Oh, but it’s perfectly acceptable to harvest children for their genes, just in case we can develop a profitable cure from those genes and sell it to somebody else. What’s the difference between giving the child a chance to survive into the day of its cure and killing the child on the off chance of creating a cure for some elder member of society? Quite simple, really. That elder member is more likely to have the means of paying for the cure, should it come. The child represents a loss of revenue, and the elder a potential for profit. Say hello to the god of the 21st century. Profit uber alles.
Our situation is not far removed from Tyre at all. We have been pursuing her course for a long time. Consider this comment from the ISBE. “Man in our days by discoveries in science hopes to be so completely lord of the elements as to be independent of God, so that ‘no secret can be hidden from him’ in the natural world, which is the only world that self-willed fools recognize. When just at the summit of blasphemous self glorification, God shall bring these self deceivers with their masters, antichrist, the false prophet, and Satan, ‘down to the pit,’ as Tyre.” There is the idolatry of the current age in a nutshell, and there is doubtless prophetic pronouncement of its likely future.
Now, the record shows that in Tyre and Sidon the prophetic word was shown true. The prophets spoke of Tyre being scraped clean from its rock, and so it was. However, that was not the end of the prophecy for Tyre, nor was it the end of fulfillments. Consider this part of Isaiah’s pronouncements: “At the end of seventy years the Lord will visit Tyre. She will go back to her harlot’s wages, playing her harlotries with all the kingdoms of the earth. And her gain from all this will be set apart to the LORD. It will not be stored up, but it will become sufficient food and clothing for those who dwell in the presence of the LORD” (Isa 23:17-18). As the church spread out from Jerusalem, this word was fulfilled. The church was established in Tyre and prospered there. Thus, much of what remained of Tyre’s wealth was dedicated to the ministering of the Christ.
It needs to be said at this point that the prophetic word need not be seen as the seal upon the outcome of things. It is more usually a declaration of the likely outcome of the current trajectory of events. When Isaiah and others prophesied against Tyre, there was still the possibility of repentance in those cities. It may have been unlikely, but it was not impossible. Likewise, when the prophesies were in regard to Israel, they were not spoken as removing all hope from the land, but with an eye toward repentance. They were spoken in the hope that the people would see where they were headed and turn it around before it was too late.
Ninevah stands as the best example in this regard. Jonah came with a word of warning. The city would be destroyed for its wickedness. But, the people heard and they recognized the justice and truth of what he said. So, they repented. As a city, they repented. It was not just a few folks here and there who got it and cried out for themselves. Neither was it those few crying out for their fellows. The whole city discerned the peril and repented. They committed themselves to a new course of action, and because this repentance was real and heart-felt, God relented. He was pleased to see His word go unfulfilled in this instance. I tell you, He is always pleased to see His word of destruction unfulfilled! God’s word does not go forth without accomplishing His purpose. His purpose in these prophecies is not destruction, but repentance. The Lord is quick to save those who will wake up and call upon Him. These messages of woe are not the declaration of a final, irrevocable verdict. They are wake up calls.
The exact same thing is happening as Jesus speaks of the places He has been laboring. Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are not condemned outright in these words. They are a wake up call. Consider what you have been witness to. Recognize that the kingdom is here, and repent. Recognize the presence of a holy God in your midst and your own terrible defilement, and repent. Come to the King who has come to you. Recognize His mercy held forth and take it to yourself. The woes that He pronounces here are pronounced because, as Matthew states, they had been witness to so much of what He was doing, and still did not repent. There was still time, but time was running out. They could still change, and even as Jesus spoke these words, I sense His heart was breaking because He realized that they would not.
Those cities are no more. Like Sodom, like Tyre and Sidon, the most that remains of them is ruins. We think of our cities as such permanent places. We look at the likes of Rome and really think of it as the eternal city. But, it is not just Rome that we view in that light. We have that same impression of younger places like New York City, Boston, and even our hometowns. They may change over time, but they’re not going anywhere. I’m sure that those in Tyre and Sidon had the same sense in regard to their hometowns. I’m sure the fishermen in Bethsaida felt the same way, that the people of Capernaum were assured in their city’s continuance. But, those places are no more. The word of God over them has proven sadly true. In spite of the brief respites of goodness, the sinfulness of those places remained strong, and eventually, God’s justice demanded that justice be done.
There is that verse which declares that God will not always strive with man (Ge 6:3). The setting of that verse so near to the story of Noah makes clear His meaning. His patience knows no bounds, but His patience does come to an end. His mercy is new every morning, but His justice will be upheld. Mercy triumphs over judgment, James writes (Jas 2:13), but His mercy will not operate where repentance is not to be found. Understand that this is not to say that our repentance brings His mercy. No! Mercy and forgiveness, and even the repentance that we experience, are all as much gracious gifts from a loving Father as is faith. However, where the mercy of God does not produce the fruit of repentance, that place is like the fruitless fig tree, and shall be dealt with in the same way. It shall wither under the woe of God’s justice.
The clear message of this is that the only proper response to God’s merciful salvation is repentance. The cities Jesus cries over did not ignore Him completely. They were duly impressed with what He did in their sight. They oohed and ahhed, and told all their friends. They chased Him around like some sort of celebrity. They acknowledged His gift for teaching, and His clear authority. But, they did not do the one thing that mattered. They did not repent. They saw the miracles, they enjoyed the healings, they heard the truth in His message, but they refused to be changed by it.
It is striking that the city of Capernaum, that place where Jesus chose to make His home, was named ‘comfortable.’ So much can be said about this! To begin with, I would have to say that man wants nothing so much as to be comfortable with God. This is as true of the atheist and the idolater as it is of the Christian. The atheist finds himself unable to be comfortable with God, and therefore, to become comfortable with the God who Is, declares that God isn’t. He must deny the Truth because he is unwilling to be changed by the Truth. The practices of idolatry have always been done in hopes of appeasing whatever gods were being served. It was thought that by doing whatever was being required of them, they could at least keep the god de jour from being inclined towards their destruction. If we give him a few fish now, perhaps he won’t take our fishing fleet later. We just want to be comfortable.
Sadly, that same attitude still intrudes itself into the Church of Christ. Too many of us are still in appeasement mode. We still don’t get it. We just want God sufficiently well disposed to leave us alone. So long as His wrath is directed somewhere else, we’re fine. But, God’s not fine. He’s not satisfied with that. He’s not looking for a people who will cower in fear before Him. He’s looking for family.
In other cases, we have grown comfortable with God, but in our comfort, we are neglecting Him. We look to host the Presence of God, but when the Presence comes, we are like Capernaum. We get all tingly and excited by that Presence, but we do not allow His Presence to change us. We do everything in light of His miraculous and tangible presence amongst us except what we should. Instead of repenting of our sinfulness, we get caught up in celebrating our obvious worth. After all, if we had not managed to work ourselves up to worthiness, why would He show up? We still don’t get it! We’re too comfortable. We still think we’re something, and we still don’t see that God is everything. We don’t yet really believe what He says when He says our righteousness is as filthy rags. We’re pretty sure He left us out when He said that no man was found righteous. That was, after all, before we showed up on the scene. We’re so comfortable with who we are, now, that when He shows up, we see only ourselves.
Listen. Capernaum had the incredible honor of hosting the Son of God for some three years. They were privileged to witness some of His greatest wonders. And, yet, Capernaum is no more. The Temple in Jerusalem was host to God for many long years, but they grew comfortable. The Temple is no more. The Presence of God in our midst, being truly host to the Son of God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit is a privilege so far above and beyond what Capernaum or Jerusalem was given as to be incomparable. Well, if Capernaum is condemned for having ignored what it experienced, how much worse can we expect if we ignore the great privilege of being home to the Christ? If their failure to repent during His brief visit was cause for condemnation, how much worse if a lifetime of knowing Him and His salvation does not produce the fruit of a lifetime of repentance?
The whole message of the Gospel is that we must repent. The kingdom is here, and the King bears forgiveness towards us for our rebellious ways. But, He will not strive with us forever. The good news is that there is a way to be comfortable with the God Who Is. Many have found the Way. The Way to comfort lies along the road of repentance. Martin Luther recognized this. Repentance is not a one time, tears at the altar thing. It is a lifestyle. It is not a matter of flagellations and works done to as if paying a fine. It is a matter of the heart, the mind, the will and the soul. As we are to love God with every aspect of our being, so repentance involves every aspect of our being. It requires real knowledge of our sinfulness. It requires that we measure ourselves against the True Standard of God’s holiness. It requires the wisdom to take action on our knowledge. I am terribly sinful, God is terribly holy, but He offers forgiveness and gives the gift of repentance to those who will take it. Surely, I must take it in hand, and walk in the ways He has pointed me to!
Enough of looking for miracles as a form of entertainment! Enough of running all over seeking out the next ‘move of God.’ God isn’t moving. He’s right where He has always been: on His throne. Enough! The Presence of God comes to promote repentance, not giggles. He comes to give us a backbone, not tickle our funny bone. That is not to say that the people of God must be dour and downcast. No! Again, I can simply point to Martin Luther. Here was a man who understood repentance as few had understood it, yet He was more joyful after he understood than ever he was before. I love what I saw amongst his theses yesterday! Because we know God, because we understand forgiveness, we can look forward with joy to the way of repentance. We can rejoice over making what amends we can for our sins. We can look to our repentance as we would look to certain victory. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, as the old song says. Because He lives in me, I can face the repentance that I must walk through tomorrow. Because He lives, I can face the me I am today, knowing that in repentance and forgiveness I will not be that me tomorrow. I am made new. My heart has found a new theme to pursue, a wiser course.
