Sunday Message: the ghosts of Nineveh

Right now I am studying 1 John 5 for Wednesday upcoming, and it has taken me some time to realize that the point is, everything we learn flows together.  But the point from which it must flow for us to get anything out of it is that first verse:

1Jn 5:1  Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 


It HAS to start with God loving us.  He touches us then with faith in His Son- a faith born of His testimony.  The point where we HAVE to jump in is believing that Jesus died for our sins- not just collectively, but YOUR sin, and MY sin.  John goes about things in an elliptical way (to me), but the basis comes back to this- we are nowhere without belief that Christ and Christ alone is the way to heaven.  You might glean some understanding from other paths, maybe even hints of how to live a better life on earth, but Heaven requires faith in Christ alone.

The Pharisees thought they had a way through life well enough without putting much mind to God, or to the Messiah that had been prophesied by the Prophets they claimed to listen to.  But Jesus taught them the folly in that:

Mat 12:38  Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you."
Mat 12:39  But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Mat 12:40  For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Mat 12:41  The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Mat 12:42  The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
Mat 12:43  "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.
Mat 12:44  Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
Mat 12:45  Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation."


Sorry for such a long passage, but you need to see what Jesus said here.  First, that these other paths that make you content on earth do NOTHING for you eternally- that's the point of the story in vv 43-45.  Second, how much do you need to be told this?  Look at the verse- 41- about Nineveh.  What was the message they got?  "Jon 3:4  Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
Jon 3:5  And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. "



The message was nothing more than being confronted with their sin.  It was the same message Peter gave in the first sermon, and the answer was much the same:

Act 2:37  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
Act 2:38  And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.


However, the Pharisees "knew better".  And because they knew better, because they knew a 'shortcut' that would bring them peace in this life, the men of Nineveh will get to accuse them in the end because they applied the lesson- they repented.

We live in a world where the Word of God is almost universally available.  What will the men of Nineveh say about US in that day?