Marks of a Doomed Society
Notes
Transcript
We have been looking at the book of Nahum over the past few weeks and we have noticed that the message of God against this great city of Nineveh was a message of wrath. 100 years before the prophet Nahum had brought this message of judgement God had sent another prophet, the prophet Jonah and Jonah had also spoken to them against their sin but they had repented. On that former occasion they had been willing to heed the warnings of God but now they had returned to their sin and this time there was to be no turning from their sin. And we have pointed out the wickedness of this city. Nineveh the capital of Assyria was the capital of a people who were known for their great cruelty. Impalement, flaying, and amputations were the trademark of the Assyrians. The Assyrians depicted the torture in great detail on the walls of the imperial palaces. They created tablets containing every single punishment the Assyrian army carried out. They cut off the limbs, gouged out the eyes, and then left those poor victims to roam around. Those poor people were to serve as a living reminder of the Assyrians’ cruelty. The Assyrians were also proud of the mass executions. They loved to impale their victims on large stakes. Such sights instilled terror and fear into the rest of the population. For the Assyrian kings, it was a showcase of their power. And although impalement was their preferred method it was the Assyrians who also invented crucifixion just to add to their cruelty.
But now God was saying to them that their end was coming. In the last verse of the book God warns them of the inevitability of their judgement. It says There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
And we have pointed out before that the prophesied destruction of Nineveh is a fulfilled prophecy. In 612 BC an allied army composed of Medes and Persians, rebelling Chaldeans and Babylonians, together with Scythians and Cimmerians besieged the city and sacked it, leading to the destruction of the city. After that Babylon will become the new world empire. We think of the fall of great cities down through history There are cities like Rome and Jerusalem that have been taken at times during history but perhaps the fall that would have brought the biggest destruction in its day was the fall of Nineveh. The destruction of Nineveh was probably greater than that of any city in the entire history of the world. They were going to suffer for their sin. And the great city of Nineveh was never to rise again. The rubble of Nineveh was only discovered again by archaeologists around the year 1840.
But I made a remark in the middle of the message a few weeks ago that I did not plan to make. It was not in my notes. It was about the fall of empires and I said that at the end of all empires they descend into decadence and pleasure. And then I made the remark about what we call western civilisation and that it is showing the same marks that indicate that its day is coming to an end. Many years ago in 1776 Edward Gibbon wrote a classic volume called
“The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” And in that book Gibbon traced the reasons why the Roman Empire declined. The Fall of the Empire was a gradual process. The Romans did not wake up one day to find their Empire gone! And there were many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. There was a a growing disparity between the rich and the poor. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Then nobody wanted to do the dirty jobs. They increasingly relied on outsiders and foreigners to fight in their armies and so on. But one of the reasons was that there was a growing immorality. Sexual morality in the Roman Empire was permissive, based on social status, and sexual desire could be fulfilled in a myriad of ways. Homosexuality was common and paedophilia was accepted. And it became a society in which anything went and in which the family structure began to break down. And it was a society which became lazy and unproductive. And it was a society in which the people began to be more appreciative of their enemies than on their own country. Gibbon famously said “[A]s long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”
And there are many who would see that kind of a thing as a pattern in the decline of civilisations. And if that is true then we have a divine account of a decline in a civilisation right here. Here is Assyria and its great empire and how it is going to be utterly destroyed. What I want to see is if we can see this pattern in the city of Nineveh just before it was destroyed. God gives us the reasons why Nineveh is destroyed. Up until chapter 3 in the book of Nahum the sins for which Nineveh was being judged had not been stated because they were so well known but here he begins to specify some of the evils that were prevalent in that society. And we want to look at them. And if there is a pattern here and if we are seeing similar symptoms in our own society then I think we should take it as a Divine warning. Maybe the warning of God that His wrath was on Nineveh is a bit more up to date and near at hand than we would like it to be. And so want I want to do today is to take this chapter and other references in the book and I want us to see the characteristics of a people under the wrath of God and on the brink of destruction.
I Violence
And the first symptom and reason why Nineveh was destroyed here is because of their violence. Nahum 3: 1 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; It calls Nineveh the bloody city or the City of Blood and that is of course a reference to the violence that was going on and that was perpetrated by her people. When Nahum calls Nineveh a “city of blood,” his words are a massive understatement. In all the ancient world no single city had matched the Assyrian capital for its calculated cruelty. Indeed, none had boasted about it as the rulers of Assyria had done.
I have already rehearsed some of the ways that Nineveh and the Assyrians were known for their violence which they would implement on those who opposed them. Their violence is remarked upon by nearly all of their adversaries, who saw it as inhumane. Some may have been propaganda, but there was fire behind the smoke. Ancient Assyria’s Ashurnasirpal II wrote about his exploits here:
“I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me [and] draped their skins over the pile [of corpses]; some I spread out within the pile, some I erected on stakes upon the pile ... I flayed many right through my land [and] draped their skins over the walls.”
And God said that they were going to be judged for their violence. Now they were able to get away with their violence for quite a while. It was not that their empire was brought to an immediate end because of the violence but when God looked at them there came a time when God was not going to put up with this any more. And He says Woe to the bloody city!
Now the question we ask is if this is a characteristic of Britain and of the West in general? And on the surface we would have to be honest and say no. Modern western nations would not boast of violence and torture the way that the Assyrians did. They would profess to be against torture and they would have signed agreements against torture. The culture of the Western world, prefers to perceive herself in benevolent terms. Atrocities such as torture hit the headlines precisely because they do offend the Westerner. The scandal that there was at the time over Iraqi war photographs showing local people being mistreated demonstrated the ambiguity of the West. On one hand, the photographs show tortures exacted by the hand of the Western military forces on a powerless people, but on the other hand, the public outrage that followed the publication of the photographs (by the Western media) shows that such brutal behaviour is an anathema to Western culture.
But that is not the whole story. You think of the wars that have been provoked by the United States and Britain in particular but also with the aid of other nations in their trying to impose western democracy on all the world. You think of the invasion of Iraq which was done on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Prime Minister Tony Blair assured us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of Mass destruction being developed but it was found that was a lie. You think of the disastrous intervention in Afghanistan and how it has left that land as far back as ever. And there have been other wars that have come about because of the policy of Western nations. As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, "Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019," the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
And what about personal violence? Well again there is a mixed picture. The crime Survey of England and Wales has reported a drop in violent crime from 4.5 million reports in 1995 to 1.2 million in 2020. But that would mask a worrying increase in really violent crime. Police recorded crime showed that the number of homicides in the year ending March 2022 increased by 25% to 709 offences compared with the year ending March 2021. There was also a 10% increase in the number of police recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments (knife-enabled crime) in the year ending March 2022 (to 48,931 offences) compared with the year ending March 2021. But this was up 35% from 2012-2013. So we may not have as much of the low level violence crimes but murders and the use of weapons seems to be growing. Many young people are carrying knives as a matter of routine. So while our society may be one in which we frown on violence the paradox is that there are wars and violence as much today as there ever was
So while our nations may repudiate violence that is not totally borne out by actions.
II Social Injustice
What about what is now called social justice? We are talking about fairness and equity. Notice what is said of Nineveh here in Nahum 3:1 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;
This was a society of lies and robbery and where people were treated like prey. In other words they were exploited. And we are told that the prey does not depart. In other words there was no end to their plunder. They never stopped. The word “robbery” is a word that could be translated as extortion. They were extorting people and robbing them and plundering them constantly. And God puts a woe on them for that. I want to tell you that God is interested in how we treat others. If you have been feathering your own nest by exploiting other people or overcharging them then God counts that as sin. If you have been mistreating other people in a selfish way then God is dispeased with that.
But we have been asking whether our nation or western society as a whole shows the characteristics of this nation of Assyria that was about to be obliterated from the face of the world?
And again we cannot say a firm yes. We live in a day when people in our western countries would profess to be very much interested in fairness and equity and equality. They are very much against those who exploit the poor. At least that is what is said. Indeed these things have become something of a watchword and campaigns that purport to be lobbying for fairness are very much in fashion at the present time. Indeed you have many large companies who have jumped on the bandwagon and in this month that has now been designated as Pride month there are companies that are tripping over themselves to parade the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ+ campaign. And they do so to appear to support minority groups. They will also tell you about how environmentally responsible they are and all of these things. And they compete with one another at how woke they are, until you scratch the surface. Some of the firms that are most vocal and militant in their profession of wanting to fight for social justice are Disney Starbucks and Universal. In May Tesco’s another company announced that they were donating £100,000 to celebrate pride.
But let me tell you the story of a small Thai factory without a name, more of a room than anything else, few windows, a ceiling low enough that those inside could touch it, toilets too dirty to use, one door at the front, another at the back providing the only fresh air, and no electric fans to cool temperatures of up to 37 degrees Celsius (100F). This is the setting where 26 garment workers spent seven days a week earning well below the minimum wage of 310 baht (£7.99), making clothes for some of the world’s biggest companies: Disney, Starbucks, NBC Universal and Tesco.
The factory, referred to as Kanlayanee after the owner Kanlayanee Ruengrit, was based in the Mae Sot region of Thailand, close to the border with Myanmar. The region is a well-known regulatory black hole where exploitation is rife and many garment factories operate uninspected, with sub-contracting a regular occurrence. Over 44,500 workers are based in Mae Sot, most of them migrants from neighbouring Myanmar.
The workers in this factory were all from Myanmar. They, like thousands of others, crossed the border to Thailand in the hope of earning more than they could in Myanmar in order to send money home to provide for their families. The reality has been very different. “I know that most factories in Mae Sot do not pay the minimum wage, but if we refuse work, we will starve,” Ma Tin, one of the Kanlayanee workers told me.
Migrant garment workers are in precarious positions; often on short-term, low-paid contracts, they are extremely vulnerable to abuse of their rights, and many do not or cannot join unions, fearing reprisal and loss of their jobs if they push for their rights. They take such jobs because they are desperate and it is all that is available to them.
Conditions in the Kanlayanee factory (which would be shocking were they not so common in the garment industry) were made public in September 2019, after which Starbucks cut and ran, pulling its orders, causing the factory to close suddenly, leaving the workers without jobs or their legally-owed back wages and severance pay.
In October 2019, workers filed a complaint with the Ministry of Labour, demanding compensation for underpaid wages, unpaid holidays, unpaid overtime and severance pay. The case went to court which ruled in favour of the workers, awarding them 3.48 million baht (£77,293) However, now more than one year on, the workers have still not received anything.
The Thai courts cannot give these workers justice. Although the claim was upheld, workers now are being pressured to take a far lower amount, less than one-third of the original settlement, which is all that the factory owner has; her sweatshop sideline was not the high earner she might have hoped. As always, the only ones with the money are the brands.
This case exemplifies the problems with the global garment industry. Four of the factory’s clients – Disney, NBC Universal, Starbucks and Tesco – have a combined market value of $516bn, yet have failed to collectively find £77,293, to ensure these workers, who were exploited making their clothes and their profits, receive what they are legally owed.
To these brands, the dip would be imperceptible, but to these workers, it could be the difference between life and death. As one Kanlayanee worker said: “I live my life surviving day by day, without a future. If I need to see a doctor, I won’t have any money to pay.”
This is no Disney story with a happy ever after. The 26 Kanlayanee workers are currently in desperate situations made worse by COVID-19, and many are surviving on borrowed money. Most have been unable to find new work having been blacklisted, their names and photographs sent to nearby factories, naming them as troublemakers. Some simply wish for enough money to return home to Myanmar, but they cannot afford the travel costs.
And that is the reality in more than this case where big global compnies are exploiting workers in poor countries and then lecturing the rest of us about how we should treat others.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a US police officer in 2020, the world saw widespread demonstrations against racial injustice. And many companies jumped on the bandwagon. Many corporate figures felt the need to perform a pantomime of support for the cause. One, the CEO of multinational biotechnology corporation AstraZeneca, boldly declared that ‘urgent change is needed in society to tackle racism and to ensure equality for all, regardless of colour.’
A month after this declaration, AstraZeneca announced their exclusive partnership with the team of Oxford researchers who had previously pledged to share rights to their vaccine with all manufacturers. This deal struck a blow to Africa in particular, further delaying global immunisation and ultimately contributing to the vaccine disparity between that continent and the rest of the world.
And they will tell us all what we should do but many of the global companies will soon throw professions of equality out of the window if they see a profit to be made. And it is this kind of deception and lying that marked the society of Nineveh. And we have a society in which lying seems to be endemic . We have had the report on the former prime minister Boris Johnstone that found him guilty of lying. But he is not the only one by any means
III Sexual Immorality
But there is another mark of this doomed society of Nineveh and that was sexual immorality. Look at the reference in Nahum 3:4-5 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. Now the reference to whoredoms there is probably a reference to the way that Nineveh allured other nations but the reference to whoredom and nakedness I do not think is totally allegorical. I think that there is a reference there to the kind of society that Nineveh had. We know that Nineveh was decorated by statues of naked women. And people accept that these were put there by King Ashur-bel-kala, as a form of state sponsored pornography.
And the theme of sex is one that ran through their culture and their poetry. There was a song that was sung with the repeated line “this city was built for pleasure.” And that was something that was considered to be true. There is evidence that prostitution was carried out in the temples by the priestesses. And according to scholars some ancient Assyrian texts contain prayers for divine blessing on homosexual relationships, while others suggest that homosexual prostitution was permitted, possibly on a ritualistic basis, and homosexual prostitutes were regular participants in public processionals.
And there is a direct relationship between the collapse of a traditional two parent family structure and the undermining of society. There was a scientific research that was done in 1936 by J D Unwin and it was a study that measured what he called a nation’s “expansive energy” by which he meant a nations ability to remain competitive andproductive and to maintain a position of influence among the nations and he measured this against how liberal a society was in its sexuality and how faithful people were in marriage and one of his conclusions was "expansive energy has never been displayed by a society that inherited a modified monogamy or a form of polygamy . . ." And Sexual immorality undermines God’s purpose of marriage and when God’s purposes are undermined it is always bad for society. But retreat from marriage is a fact. Reports the January 20, 1997, Newsweek magazine said : "In Sweden, more than half of all babies are born to unmarried parents; in France and England, it's about one in three.” In America in 1980, 78% of households with children were married couples. In 2012, that number was 66%. There are many reasons for the decline in traditional marriages, and government is not blameless; in fact it has been complicit. Governments have promoted policies that have encouraged one parent families and undermined the traditional family. Let me say that family is at the very heart of society and when that is undermined we are like the man sitting on the branch of a tree sawing the branch behind him.
And we have had a many sided attack on marriage. Many children are now born outside of marriage. Can any objective person doubt that permissiveness is engendering a problem of major proportions? The words of the ancient Hebrew prophet Hosea aptly describe such cause and effect: "They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7, emphasis added throughout). The hurricane-force winds of violence, cruelty and crime batter modern society. When large portions of a nation behave irresponsibly, its social structure must deal with the inevitable serious—and sometimes catastrophic—consequences.
Many Americans are concerned about the future of their nation. In a Newsweek poll, 76 percent of Americans said that they believe the United States is in a moral and spiritual decline. The same is true in Britain. The whole structure is going to fall. And we live is a day when the family is certainly under attack as never before. Marriage is the proper context for raising children. Even secular research shows that marriage is head-and-shoulders above other types of human relationships in terms of the benefits it gives to adults and children. In our own country same-sex marriage has been introduced. For the first time in our nation’s history there is a legal understanding of marriage which is fundamentally contrary to the Bible. Homosexual marriage sends out the message that having a mother and a father is not important for children. Familiar words such as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ are being abolished in law and by government bodies. The idea that sexual decadence leads to the corruption and downfall of civilisation can be found in many cultures. It is a view that has been held for thousands of years. Why? Because it is true. The Bible speaks against adultery and sodomy and incest and fornication and all other forms of deviance and when those things come in it is always a disaster. And men and women this kind of sin is common. Today it is being celebrated. But that does not mean that it is right. It is still sin in the sight of a holy God and you will have to give an account of your sin
IV Stupidity
But there is another character of a society that is about to perish and that is stupidity. Look at Nahum 3: 13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars. They disregarded the enemy and so underestimated the enemy that the gates of their city was left open. They did not seem to be able to discern the danger. Assyria had been in the ascendancy for so long that they felt that it would always be the case.
And in our society today there seems to be a blindness to the danger that is out there. There is a blindness to militant Islam and there is a blindness to Chinese communism. Take militant Islam. We have seen the dangers of that very plainly. We saw it in the 9/11 attacks and in ISIS and their desire to set up a Caliphate that woud spanthe Islamic nations. And then when that broke down they said that they would infiltrate into western society and from time to time since then there have been atrocities by those who believe in this cause. There have been attacks and bombings and so on. But in the West we are being told that Islam is just like Christianity- that it is a religion of peace and when attacks take place the media show a great reluctance to declare the motive in case we should engender anti-Islamic feeling
V Opposition to God