“The end is near!” “Repent!”
Have you ever seen a statement of prophetic warning spray-painted on a wall or in a subway station? Did you ever consider that statement might be for you? I’ve got to be honest, I don’t take much notice to such warnings.
A Moabite’s Perspective
Now, transport yourself back to the 7th century BC. You’re a Moabite living just across the Dead Sea from the Kingdom of Judah (the Southern Kingdom of Israel). One of the Jewish prophets speaks prophetic warnings over your country. Do you take any more heed to those warnings than I do to a spray-painted subway warning?
Why would the God of Israel speak a warning to a foreign country to the Israelites? I believe a strange section of Jeremiah shows us both God’s mercy and his patience with unbelievers even today.
Opening Mail to a Stranger
The other day as I was nearing the end of Jeremiah’s prophecy, a section stood out to me like a sore thumb. After several dozen chapters devoted to warning Israel, Jeremiah carves out six chapters to warn other nations: Egypt, Philistia, Moab, and Babylon at the targets of Jeremiah’s warnings. In the middle of a book of warning and prophecy to Israel, God sends his warning to the nations.
These are not sugar-coated prophecies. These have all the brashness of the graffiti on the subway wall. God says things like:
“And I will bring to an end in Moab, declares the Lord, him who offers sacrifice in the high place and makes offerings to his God… On all the housetops of Moab and in the squares there is nothing but lamentation, for I have broken Moab like a vessel for which no one cares, declares the Lord.”[i]
“Moabites!” God calls out from Jeremiah’s pen: “you are going to cry out with lamentation if you continue on this path.”
And How Are You, Mr. Wilson?
It reminds me of a scene from the classic movie Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart. At one point in the movie, the orderly named Mr. Wilson picks up a dictionary to decipher what “pooka” means. He reads out loud, “'P-O-O-K-A. Pooka. From old Celtic mythology, a fairy spirit in animal form, always very large. The pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature. Very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?" Mr. Wilson grows pale and shakes the dictionary: "How are you, Mr. Wilson?” He asks incredulously, “Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?”
Can you imagine a Moabite picking up a Jewish scroll from Jeremiah and reading it through and then, there he is in chapter 48, face to face with God’s warning to him and his country: “…and how are you, Mr. Moabite?” A warning from the Jewish God to me? What?! And then you have a choice: do you believe this warning? This call to repentance?
Who Heard?
How many of those from other nations ended up hearing or reading God’s warning in Jeremiah? How many heeded that warning? We know at least some outside Israel repented and followed God. Enough that Israel had a special section of the temple for these foreigners. Enough that we meet several of these “God-fearers” in the Scripture.
Their belief is both a testament to the grace of God and the power of his Word. It doesn’t make sense they should come to trust in God given their backgrounds, and yet somehow they do.
Insufficient Evidence?
Here we are 2,000+ years after the Bible was written and so many in our world feel like the cultural distance between them and the Bible means that the Bible is irrelevant to them. I can understand why. The Bible can feel dated, its warnings can feel like they’re for a far-away people in a far-away land. They're obsolete, they're irrelevant. And we have the choice to believe they’re for us or not.
In his book Why I’m Not a Christian, renowned atheist Bertrand Russell reported that he was once asked by a friend at dinner, “’What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you’re wrong?... I mean, what if—uh—when the time comes, you should meet him? What will you say?’ Russell replied, ‘Why, I should say, ‘God, you gave us insufficient evidence.’”[ii]
I get it. I can’t convince you that the evidence is sufficient. But the evidence is there. And it’s written for me. And it’s written for you. The claim that God became flesh and died and was resurrected so that the eternal penalty of our sin might be lifted demands a response from you and me.
A 2,000 book calls out to me and to you, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”[iii] How we respond is up to us.
Photo credit: Art Crimes
[i] Jeremiah 48:35, 38
[ii] Quoted in Room for Doubt by Ben Young, chapter 4.
[iii] Matthew 3:2