Scripture
Nahum
3 sermons
Our Good God Judges the Wicked
Nahum 1:7–14 sets the goodness of God against the backdrop of his unstoppable vengeance, and the two cannot be separated. The Lord is good precisely because he is a stronghold for his covenant people and because he will make an utter end of the wicked who oppress them — salvation and judgment belong together. Nineveh, the brutal capital of Assyria, stands under a certain death sentence, while Judah, even in a self-inflicted affliction, is promised the breaking of every chain. The passage calls the people of God to flee to Christ as the only refuge from end-time judgment, confident that his mercy endures forever toward those who trust in him.
The Fall of Nineveh
Nahum 2–3 presents one of Scripture's most vivid and theologically precise announcements of divine judgment: the total destruction of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire. The sermon works through chapter 2 as a prophetic description of the city's fall — its siege, compromise, plunder, and humiliation — and chapter 3 as a theological explanation, identifying the specific sins (murder, deceit, false religion) that called down God's wrath. The sovereignty of God over history is the governing doctrine: it is Yahweh, not merely the Babylonian-Median-Scythian coalition, who scatters Nineveh and fulfils every detail Nahum foretold a generation before 612 BC. The sermon closes with a call to consider the final judgment, to reject the comfortable lie that God's patience signals indifference, and to flee to the mercy of Christ before that mercy gives way irrevocably to justice.
The Comforting Truth of God's Judgment
Nahum 1 opens with a stark declaration: the God who is slow to anger will not acquit the wicked, and no power on earth — not even the Assyrian Empire at the height of its brutality — can withstand His coming in judgment. This expository survey of Nahum 1 grounds the doctrine of divine wrath in the character of God Himself: His jealousy, His patience, and His sovereign control over history. The sermon argues that far from being an embarrassment, the judgment of God is the very foundation of Christian comfort, because the same God who destroys His enemies is a stronghold for those who trust in Him. The pressing application is direct: every hearer must answer whether they can stand before His indignation, and if not, must flee to Christ before that day arrives.