February 12, 2015 | Invisible Ink

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.