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Matthew Stuckey here and I wanted to make a quick video on three myths of ancient Assyria. Three myths of ancient Assyria. Now the truth is that little is really known about ancient Assyria. In fact when you read online and you read various sources they're gonna tell you that there's just a dearth or a lack of many sources regarding Assyria so they're really not sure about a lot of the finer details. Now when when you're a Bible believing Christian this makes sense because God destroyed Nineveh. Assyria was so wicked that they were destroyed and the result is that we just don't have a lot of the archaeological remains that you have from other locations. A lot of things have just kind of passed away and there's not a whole lot of knowledge. So the truth is the best source of knowledge regarding ancient Assyria is no question in the Bible. Now obviously the Bible is 100% accurate and it's always a great source of information but especially in the case of Assyria there's just not a lot of information outside of what the Bible says rather than little pieces here and there that you got to piece together and try to figure out you know what's accurate what's true what's not. So three myths of ancient Assyria. And myth number one is that ancient Assyria was a polytheistic empire. Myth number one is that they were a polytheistic empire and when I say that they were not polytheistic when I say that's a myth I'm saying that they were not classically polytheistic as you might think of it as. And so I want you to realize when they looked at the view of God and Asher was a name of their primary or head or true God and basically they looked at all the gods lowercase G as basically making up the one true God almost kind of like a oneness view on it not quite but it's like a morphed idea on monotheism. But they believed in Asher as being the true God and what they specifically as an empire looked at was that all of these lower gods were basically like powers of the one true God. So Asher was the one true God and then all these lower gods kind of represented his power. It was kind of a way that they were able to manage or come to grasp on the the nature and idea of God. In their texts sometimes you'll see Asher and the great gods and it makes a distinction between Asher being the true God and it makes a distinction with these other gods that are here. Now you might say well that sounds like they're polytheistic because it says Asher and the great gods as if there's different co-eternal gods that were competing against one another and that were all all powerful or omniscient and things such as that. But I want you to think of you know Roman Catholicism to understand this idea because if the Bible were being written today and it were to talk about the Roman Catholic Church it would call the Saints as gods I believe. Because in other religions and philosophical belief systems and cultures and stuff like that the way that Catholics treat their Saints is the exact same way that other people treat as gods. They just call it something different and so it'd be no different than the fact that the Catholics believe in one God. No doubt that they're monotheistic and yet the way that they pray to Saints and they have idols it's as if they're polytheistic. And obviously that's because it comes from the Roman Empire and they merged Roman Catholicism and Christianity with the Roman Empire and all those pagan gods. But I want you to realize that Catholics actually do believe in one God but when you look at the Saints it's as if they believe in multiple gods. It's actually that way for a lot of ancient civilizations and a lot of cultures that we would have considered being polytheistic. They're not really polytheistic in the way that you really think. In fact, most of them almost all of them were monotheistic. And this is definitely true with the ancient Assyrian Empire where they would look at these lower gods as just being kind of representations or parts of the power of the one true God of Asher. And so you know it says with Asher that he was a source of all manifest divine powers and so basically all these powers are coming directly from Asher. And there's this statement written in a lot of you know ancient Assyrian texts where it says, Gabulilani Asher which is the sum of all gods. So basically you know Asher was kind of like a summation of all of these gods put together. Obviously as a Bible believing Christian this is different than what the Bible says. I'm not saying I believe this. I'm not saying when they were you know kind of a morph monotheistic view that it's the same monotheism that we believe. But it's also not a classical polytheistic view as if that there's multiple eternal fighting powers that are against one another and that are all omniscient or all powerful. It's a different idea than what the Bible says about there being one God but also believing in the Trinity as Bible believing Christians. But myth number one about the ancient Assyrians is that they were polytheistic. They weren't really polytheistic and so they really believed that they had the one true God. And when they took over and won battles versus other ones it doesn't mean that they believe that there was another God that was like equally also a fight against them. They were basically saying this proves that we are the true power and that Asher is the one true God. Myth number two about ancient Assyria is that they were not that powerful. And so I want you to realize that in our modern day aside from the Bible the general view in the secular world is that Assyria just wasn't really that powerful. Not really a whole lot is known about them since they got wiped out. When you look in the Bible though it talks about how during the end times there's gonna be this seventh end times power. Seventh end times world power indicating six came before. We understand what four of those were from Nebuchadnezzar and his dream. We understand the Babylonian Empire. We understand the Persian and the Medes put together. The Medo and Persian Empire. We understand the Greek Empire and then we understand the Roman Empire. Those four are known but before that there was two great empires that existed and those were Egypt and Assyria. What's funny is you look at these other six and you consider them very powerful. Egypt obviously so much is known about them. So powerful. I mean obviously we're aware of that and everybody in the secular world is aware of that. You know the Roman Empire obviously they were in power at the time of Jesus Christ. Julius Caesar everybody knows who he is. Many of the Egyptian Pharaohs people know them King Tut and other ones like that. The Greek Empire or Macedonian Empire with Alexander the Great a lot is obviously known about them. You look at the Babylonian Empire and King Nebuchadnezzar a lot is known about them. Everybody knows that they're powerful. Then you've got the Persians and they've got a lot of the most famous kings that have ever existed. King Cyrus, King Darius, King Xerxes. A lot is known about them and it's known that they were very powerful and yet when it comes to the Assyrians nobody unless you're a Bible believing Christian really knows any of their kings that have ever existed. It's kind of like they're just completely done away and you you wouldn't even realize that they were that powerful. And yet the Bible lists them as one of the six big powers. In fact in the book of Nahum chapter 3 when it talks about the destruction that's coming to Nineveh which was the chief city or capital of Assyria. You know Assyria had developed this attitude inside of them that no one could take them down and then God basically told them that you're not better than Egypt. Egypt's power was infinite. So I believe we're gonna take that literally. It at least means that Assyria was not more powerful than Egypt. I personally take it to mean that Egypt was a little bit more powerful than Assyria but it does list Assyria in the same sort of ballpark with those other empires throughout the Bible. So Assyria was actually very powerful and you know honestly they deserve to be known as one of the most powerful empires that have ever existed. Now you say why is it that you know it's not known how powerful they are? That actually goes to the third myth that we're talking about. So myth one was that the ancient Assyrians were polytheistic. Not really true. Myth number two is that they were not that powerful. In a secular world not that much is really known about them. That's not actually true. If you read the Bible you can tell they were very powerful. And they're starting to find this out from archaeological evidence. It's amazing how history and science and everything ends up catching up to the Bible. Myth number three is Assyria was not that evil. And so the reason why not much is known about Assyria there's very little that remains and people don't even realize how powerful they were is because Assyria was so wicked that God destroyed Nineveh. Now this is pretty amazing because Egypt was wicked. Rome was wicked right? The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Grecians they were wicked. And yet these societies were not just completely destroyed by God and yet Nineveh was completely destroyed because they were so incredibly wicked. And so because of the the fact they were so wicked it's not even known that they were that powerful. But in our modern day when they talk about Assyria they'll try to say well Assyria wasn't that wicked. Cultures are just kind of different and everything like that. You know it's a misrepresentation. And yet the Bibles are best source of information on Assyria and it's completely accurate. And when you read about Assyria there is no question they are the most evil of those empires that I've mentioned. And it's not even close. They are by far the most evil and it makes sense that God would destroy them. Now I want you to realize this is not a criticism of anybody that has that you know lineage today that passes down from thousands of years ago. That has nothing to do with you. And obviously you know people that are modern day you know Assyrians have you know completely different religious system. It's more like an Orthodox type belief and stuff like that. I'm not saying this is you today but but the truth is the truth and that is that the ancient Assyrians were incredibly wicked. And so one proof of that is the fact that Nineveh was destroyed. And you know when you're reading about Assyria in the Bible you're seeing how they're mocking other gods and saying they're the one true one. And the wicked things that they're gonna do to Israel when they take over you can see how wicked they are. And you know it's funny because I actually preached about this a little bit in a sermon and somebody was visiting our church and he said everything you said about Assyria is true. Because he said he went to a museum in London that had a lot of archaeological remains on Assyria. And Assyria in their own artwork in their own sculptures and artwork they depict themselves as brutally torturing their enemies. Cutting out their tongues and doing all these brutal and violent things. Not just killing but just brutally torturing their enemies. And so look if you if you want to know a lot about a society look at look at their own sculptures and and how they depict themselves. And they depicted themselves as being incredibly wicked. There's no question there they were wicked and obviously God did the right thing when he decided to completely destroy them. Now from what I understand what I would say is the best reason why they became so much more wicked than anybody else is that their view of God was that God really you know really loved war and their God was like a god of war. And so he took glory in the fact if you would brutally kill and destroy and conquer and things such as that. I'm hesitant to say that dogmatically because honestly there's just little evidence of the remains of Assyria. So I think it's up for some some debate or speculation and you know maybe my opinion will change if I read more sources. It's really difficult because not only are there a few sources but the only way for me to have an understanding of this is read things that are translated into English. And you know when things are translated depending on who's translating it it kind of depends on you know what they're gonna bring to the table. Whether they're gonna give a slanted view or an accurate view it's kind of hard to tell. But one thing I do know from reading the Bible and from studying ancient Assyria is this that no doubt number one they were not really classically polytheistic. They were actually more of a monotheistic or morphed monotheistic view. Number two though there is no question especially just straight from the Bible that they were very powerful. One of the most powerful empires that have ever existed. And myth number three you know is the fact that they weren't that evil. They were actually very powerful. They're actually very evil. And the fact that they were very evil is the exact reason why God decided to destroy Assyria. Thank you and God bless.