David was a great communicator, sharing the most timeless words ever penned by a human. Recently I taught about David’s communication, a lesson that was immediately followed by a wonderful retreat discussion with our senior staff. We considered our own communication in light of David’s, and made use of Joseph McCormack’s book Brief: Making a Bigger Impact by Saying Less. [For Brief we used a marvelous summary our church elder Dan Cox crafted for us.]

Jeremy Meyer, one of our pastors, developed a fetching conclusion to the conversation. With slight modification by me, here is his mantra for healthy, godly communication:

Be bold. Be calm. Be clear. Be done.

This simple and memorable synopsis is founded on Psalm 37 and Proverbs 25, which read in part:

Don’t worry about the wicked

or envy those who do wrong.

Stop being angry!

Turn from your rage!

Do not lose your temper-

it only leads to harm.

Put your hope in the Lord.

Travel steadily along his path. (Psalm 37:1,8,34 NLT)

A man without self-control

is like a city broken into and left without walls. (Proverbs 25:28 ESV)

Be bold. Be calm. Be clear. Be done. That’s a pretty good guide for making the words of our mouths like David’s – acceptable to the Lord.

After returning from the retreat with our pastoral leaders, I heard a song that neatly summarizes the desperate need for Davidic communication. Dale Stewart, John Humphrey, Pat Callahan, and Shaun Morgan wrote these lines for Seether’s “Words are Weapons:”

All I really want is something beautiful to say

It’s oh-so playful when you demonize

To spit out the hateful, you’re willing and able
Words are weapons

All I really want is something beautiful to say
You keep livin’ in your own lie

All I really want is something beautiful to say
To never fade away, I wanna live forever!

That plaintive cry is universal. Scripture, especially through David’s leadership, has the answer. Be bold. Be calm. Be clear. Be done. If we speak like that, our words can become wonders instead of weapons. Then we have something beautiful to say, something that can live on, something that praises God.

And yet Christians are at least as fearful as the population at large. We see it in the way Christians overreact. We see it in what I call pansy parenting – parenting that can’t distinguish between legitimate threats and innocuous issues. We see it in the acerbic politics of many Christians and in our lifestyles that mirror the nations around us. In other words, we are just like Israel. Like us, they also had no reason to react in fear … but they were driven by it anyway.

So reacting in fear, they were given Saul, whom I briefly described in a recent sermon. In response to that depiction of a fear-strangled leader overseeing a fear-straddled society, I received some remarkable letters. People described how difficult it is to move in a state of fear. They wrote depicting the “Saul” moments of their own lives, when CYA “best practices” led to a dystopia. Others shared about the pressure they receive from media, schools, family, and even government to live in a constant state of heightened concern.

And one friend shared this brilliant post penned by two sisters, who write together even though they are raising their families hundreds of miles apart. [READ] here.

It may be the best treatment of the current stranglehold of fear I have yet read. I look forward to your thoughts on the issue.

David felt and exhibited a reckless abandon to the Lord. He was truly a “man after God’s own heart,” meaning he shared the joy God finds in His own greatness and goodness. His singularity of focus led to his amazing successes and delights; the loss of that focus on God led to his painful defeats. The restoration of close relationship with God illustrates God’s hesed [covenant love] and David’s true heart.

In Nahum 2, the Lord is dealing with a rebellious Assyrian people who have thrown aside God Himself and His truth. Yet in the middle of His prophetic, taunting declaration about Nineveh, the Lord makes it clear that He is also dealing on behalf of His abused people.

Remember – especially those who tend to hate modern Israel – remember how zealous God is for His Jewish people. We may and sometimes should disagree with human Israeli governments. Yet we mustn’t ignore the truth that God means His promise to judge everyone based on how one treats Jews.

For example, a dummy named Balaam once tried to curse Israel. Instead, God forced a blessing out of that prophet’s mouth. God made Balaam restate the unconditional declaration that the Lord had shared with Abraham …

“He [YHWH] crouched, he lay down like a lion,

and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?

Blessed is everyone who blesses you [Israel],

and cursed is everyone who curses you.” (Numbers 24:9 NRSV)

God exercises vengeance for the Jews, a truth that applies to all time and is sorely in need of remembrance today. Throughout the Bible there are both a positive and a negative side to this vengeance:

Positively, God’s love is shown in the Jewish Messiah – the only real lion. Unlike the false “lions” of Assyria who are mocked in Nahum 2, Jesus is an interminable lion. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah who calls Hebrews & Gentiles to follow Him in everlasting life.

Negatively, God’s love is shown in how He promises to punish those who pick on Jews.

Therefore, while aching for victims of anti-Semitism, please remember to pray for Jews and Gentiles to receive the real life that only comes through Messiah Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And pray for those who abuse Jews. Unless they repent, their future looks very grim. Jesus is not a tame lion, and He will repay.

How could that be?

When teaching Jonah & Nahum together, one inevitably receives some form of the excellent question, “How could this be? If the revival in Jonah was legitimate how could Assyria have turned so anti-God by Nahum’s day?”

History displays a sound answer for that insightful query. Human nature fights against the lessons learned by one’s forebears. This is a continuous truth of all cultures. That’s why the book of Judges contains repeated cycles of apostasy. It explains why a free civilization is always one generation removed from a relapse into tyranny. Societal memories are notoriously weak.

There is no reason to take Jonah’s revival as anything less [or more] than what Jonah 3-4 depicts. Just as America’s two Great Awakenings changed this culture, so did Assyria change under Ashur-dan III and Jonah. Yet however positive and genuine, neither revival prevented subsequent culture from experiencing a generational relapse.

Greek chorus

In Nahum 1, God switches audience and topics rapidly and repeatedly. One moment He is comforting Israel; the next second blasting Assyria; and with the next breath revealing amazing things about His own character. Such rapid shifts are common in Old Testament oracles – passages where YHWH shares His burden over sin. One of our curriculum writers [developers of our sermon-based Bible studies] sent me a fascinating insight about this:

The way Nahum switches back and forth throughout chapter 1 – addressing the audience in general, Nineveh, and Judah – almost feels like the chorus in Greek drama. Especially in the earliest dramas, the chorus speaks first to one character, then to another, and sometimes to the audience directly with no transition. I don’t know how accurate that analogy is, but the mental image tremendously helped me follow the thread of the chapter.

That’s a remarkable observation and very accurate. What I find intriguing concerns the amount of trade that we know went on between Greece and Judah during the developmental years of Greek drama. Is it possible that best-selling books like Isaiah’s collection of YHWH oracles influenced the progress of the Creek chorus?

Invisible ink

Considering the short duration of revivals in society caused me to ruminate on the continuing battle against spiritual hardening in my own heart. Wonderfully, my thoughts were spurred even further by a brilliant blog post by Karrie Hahn. Karrie Ann is one of the gifted thinkers I am blessed to know, and I highly recommend you follow her posts by clicking here. Blank Check or Invisible Ink?

Here are Karrie’s thoughts that moved my spirit:

Most of us are familiar with the concept of giving the Lord a “blank check” with our lives. The blank check metaphor communicates our desire for everything in our lives and our future to be at the Lord’s choosing and disposal…our pursuits, direction, decisions, etc. Usually this is not a one-time event, but a prayer that is repeated throughout our lives as we fight to seek His kingdom above our selfish pursuits. And this fight, of course, is a good thing. The Lord calls us to deny ourselves and submit ourselves to His rule, His plans, and His desires. And Scripture makes plain that He is a sovereign God who has ordained the good works that we should walk in and controls all the providences of our lives.

In the past, I have truly thought that I had offered the Lord a blank check. But lately I am beginning to see that the metaphorical blank check I handed over is laden with invisible ink. Though I’ve never tried it, I have seen on TV how a “secret message” can be written in lemon juice. By exposing the paper to heat, the words that had previously been invisible on the “empty” sheet of paper begin to appear seemingly out of nowhere. In a similar way, the “heat” of trials in life have revealed some stipulations I had written on the check without consciously realizing it.

Apparently, the Lord could do whatever He wanted in my life (and here comes the invisible part)…but only (fill in the blank) or as long as (fill in the blank). For example, the Lord could inflict me with sickness and disability, but onlyto a certain degree and for a certain length of time. Or the Lord could keep me single, as long as eventually I got married. Or perhaps the Lord could call me into any kind of ministry and career anywhere, as long as I found it interesting, fulfilling, or important. I thought I had given a blank check, when in fact I began to see all over the check the invisible ink of a comprehensive contract which I was expecting God to keep. And only the heat of life revealed it.

What’s written in the invisible ink of your own heart and life? In what ways do you need to surrender the story of your life again to the Lord? As you consider, be sure of this: though each of us has written a “bad check” so to speak, there is One whose perfect check has been fully accepted. He wrote a true blank check to His Father, submitting to His will at every point because of His love for the Father. And in return the Father was pleased to accept His offering and apply it to the bank accounts of those who trust in Him. Jesus has done what we could not do and through His Spirit empowers us to become more like Him. One day at a time we can purge the invisible ink, offering ourselves in greater measure to Him, trusting that the investment of faith and obedience is worth every penny in heaven’s economy.

Kindness moves the soul

Jonah is a book of brilliant irony, filled with staggering surprises. One of the biggest shocks is how God’s kindness brings Jonah to repentance. Reading about this rebellious, pompous fool sparks two immediate responses in my heart: 1. Jonah is uncomfortably similar to me in many ways. 2. Were I the Lord, I would zap the guy into the next county when he disobeyed me like that.

Yet God’s response is one of boundless kindness. Of course, the Lord brings serious consequences to His rebellious prophet; yet the storms, stress, and sea-creatures merely serve as a dark velvet background to show off the brilliant jewel of God’s grace. The text bears this out in macro and micro ways. One of the little statements is found in the word choice in verse 8 where the text uses the Hebrew term סֶד hesed. Jonah relates how those who tie themselves to empty idols forsake all chance for hesed, for faithful love.

Hesed is a most marvelous and important Hebrew word. It means covenant love that will not be broken. Hesed – especially from God – is the longing of every heart. Most of human activity is a desperate desire to find security and significance. Only God’s hesed provides perfectly for that desire. Jonah is reminding himself and all of us that hesed is found only in the one true God. And that’s what causes Jonah to give thanks – even while trapped in the belly of Sheol.

Ever-new truth for each generation

Over 200 years ago, the great preacher and hymn writer Robert Robinson nailed the idea in the poem we call “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” This verse springs straight out of Jonah’s own poetry in chapter 2:

O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

seal it for thy courts above.

Back in the 20^th century, Stuart Briscoe summarized the process with this pithy insight:

“It is the kindness, the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. Even Jonah, crusty old rascal of a prophet that he was, recognized this. In him we see a delightful picture of God’s kindness taking hold of a person’s life.”

– Stuart Briscoe, Hearing God’s Voice Above the Noise

And just last week, a member of our church’s pulpit team wrote me a great note on this:

“I am struck by the parallels between Jonah’s literal experience and Christians’ spiritual experience. We were dead in our sins because we denied the knowledge of God, but God graciously brought us to repentance and belief and made us alive in Christ.” – David Wade