of the vision of Nahum the Elkishite. God is jealous and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries and He reserves wrath for His enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm. and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bation and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at his presence. Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him. But with an overflowing flood, He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies. What do you conspire against the Lord? he will make an utter end of it. Affliction will not rise up a second time, for while tangled like thorns and while drunken like drunkards, they shall be devoured like stubble fully dried.
From you comes forth one who plots evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. Thus says the Lord, though they are safe and likewise many, yet in this manner they will be cut down when he passes through. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. For now I will break off his yoke from you and burst your bonds apart.
The Lord has given a command concerning you. Your name shall be perpetuated no longer. Out of the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the molded image. I will dig your grave, for you are vile.
Behold, on the mountains, the feet of Him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace. O Judah, keep your appointed feasts, perform your vows, for the wicked one shall no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off. Amen.
Opening Prayer
Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, we give You thanks for the Holy Scripture. We give You thanks for Your Spirit and we pray even now that He would come and guide us and lead us into all truth. Help us to see the relevance and the practical importance of this study in Nahum.
We thank You, God, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, that all of it is profitable for doctorate, for correction, for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness. And our genuine desire, God, is that You would thoroughly furnish us unto every good work. And we pray for any and all who do not know You here, that they would feel the weight of this passage, the reality of a judgment coming that is far more serious than what you dished out to Nineveh. We pray, Father, as well for Pastors Dunn and Smith.
We give you praise and glory and adoration that you spared these servants. We pray for that church in Islamabad, that they would continue to be faithful, that they would persevere in the grace of God, and that a whole host of Muslims would turn from their useless idols to serve the living and true God. And we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Well, in our studies in the minor prophets, we have seen the prophet Jonah. And Jonah had prophesied to Nineveh about a hundred years prior to this prophet Nahum. Now, of course, Jonah successfully evangelized Nineveh. They repented, they believed in God, but unfortunately they turned their back upon the Lord, and so God sends Nahum, or gives Nahum, this particular written message about the judgment coming to Nineveh.
Verse 1, the burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Al-Kashite. Now, the emphasis of this prophet is simple, very simple. God will visit all of his enemies with retribution. And hence, this message is extremely practical for the church in the 21st century, for we often forget this.
And the church, unfortunately, has soft-pedaled and shrunk back from declaring the whole counsel of God and the reality that our God is angry with the wicked every day. The Apostle said, knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. If we do not have that element of the terror of the Lord, then we run the risk of not persuading men to repent and flee for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sermon Outline Announced
I want to look at three things this morning. The first are some introductory matters. Whenever we come to a new book in the Bible, it's good for us to introduce it, to see it in its context, to see the author and the audience. Secondly, we'll notice a hymn of glory celebrating the doctrine of God.
Chapter 1, verses 2 to 8 are a hymn of glory celebrating the doctrine of God. And then thirdly, verses 9 to 15, is an oracle of judgment targeting the enemies of God. An oracle of judgment targeting the enemies of God.
Introductory Matters: Nahum and Nineveh
But first of all, by way of introduction, We know very little about the prophet Nahum. We know that he was a writer. We know this for two reasons. The first is that he tells us, and secondly, because he writes so well.
As you read this particular prophet, you will be struck with the imagery. You'll be struck with the artistry. Notice in verse 1, the burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkashite. He wrote.
Most of the other prophets were preachers and they would take those sermons and put them into print. Not so with Nahum. It seems as if the Lord gave him this burden simply to be written down and to be distributed amongst Judah and hopefully amongst Nineveh as well. We know that he was an Alkoshite.
The trouble is we don't know where that is. There are three places proposed. but I will not bore you with those particulars. But we also know that he had a great deal of courage, a great deal of courage. The northern tribes of Israel had already been captured by Assyria.
Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. They were the empire in vogue at that particular time. And so the northern tribes have been carried away. And depending upon the specifics of when Nahum wrote, He may have wrote during the reign of Manasseh or Amen, who were kings in Judah, and they had alliances with Assyria.
They tried to pay them tribute money to try and get some protection from them. So Nahum writes this particular letter talking about the downfall of Assyria as a whole, and Nineveh specifically, so it is a great deal of courage that moves him and a great commitment to the Lord God with reference to this prophecy. And as we work through the book, we'll notice it is very detailed. In fact, the judgment that ultimately fell upon Nineveh in 612 BC is so accurately depicted by Nahum that he would have been risking a lot going into print because the penalty for false prophecy in Israel of old was not you get your own TV show and you get to tell all kinds of people bad things and they'll send you a lot of money.
That was not the penalty for false prophecy in old covenant Israel. Rather, it was death. So when Nahum puts into print the particulars about Assyria, about Nineveh, about the king of Assyria falling under the judgment of God, he is putting a lot on the line. Obviously he has received this burden from the Lord.
Now the date that he wrote, we have about a 51-year window in which he wrote. In chapter 3 at verse 8, you can turn there to Nahum, chapter 3 verse 8, he speaks of the fall of Thebes, translated in our New King James, and it's Hebrew, no amen. That is Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt. Assyria, interestingly enough, destroyed Thebes in 663 BC.
Nineveh fell in 612 BC. So somewhere in that 51 year period, Nahum wrote his particular book. Now, the enemy of God's people, we need to see it. It is specified here, though it exceeds just what is written in this book.
In other words, the particular application of Nahum's message in the 7th century BC was Assyria and its capital Nineveh. But the message transcends that, and that's what I hope you'll appreciate today. The message transcends that. In many ways, Nahum is the Old Testament book of revelation.
Revelation presents us with a view of Jesus Christ on His throne, waging war against His enemies. All comers will fall. All comers will be destroyed. All those who resist the Lord's reign will be subdued under His feet.
And essentially that's what Nahum reports to us. But Assyria, generally speaking, was the great power in the 8th century and most of the 7th century BC. You remember, as I just said, Assyria took away the northern tribes of Israel in 722 B.C. The southern tribes had come very close to being intruded upon by Sennacherib in 701.
I realize these are a lot of dates, but it's important that you get that the Bible is written in real language. It's in real history, in real events, in real things. Not just an ethereal message that makes us feel fuzzy. It is rooted in God's history.
And so this empire was a very ruthless people. In fact, they mocked the God of Israel. At that event in 701 BC, Sennacherib's representative taunted the people of God. He said, all the other gods were not able to protect their people.
How is your Lord going to protect you? Well, how did the Lord protect him? But he sent the angel of death to destroy 185,000 in the Assyrian army. Good lesson.
Don't ever taunt the living God. Don't ever challenge the living God. Never lay down the gauntlet for the living God. One man has written, whenever we find any records of this people, the Assyrians, He says, we are immediately startled by their savage cruelty and deep-seated desire to dominate as much territory as possible.
Already in 1100 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I described on victory monuments how he conquered 83 kings and littered the mountains with their corpses. Two centuries later, Asher Nasserpahl II vaunted his deeds by flaying captive kings alive and wallpapering pillars with their skins, putting out ice, cutting off hands, feet, noses, and ears, and burning boys and girls alive. The atrocities and brutalities of the Assyrians became legendary in the ancient Near East. And you know what?
They were good records keepers as well. All of the stuff that we find written in the Scripture is corroborated or matched by the records of these Assyrian kings. They like to boast. They like to parade their victories.
They like to put it in the face of all of their enemies just how successful they were in war. Now the capital of Assyria, which is targeted here specifically, was Nineveh. And Nineveh is located on the east side of the Tigris in modern day north Iraq. Just bordering the city, or just across from the city of modern Mosul in northern Iraq.
Now it was one of the grandest and most powerful cities on earth. I just want you to feel the weight of this because so very often we as Christians can walk by sight and not by faith. We see these grand enemies of the living and true God and we begin to think they're going to be the winner. They're going to trump over the church of Jesus Christ.
They at the end will be the victor over the Lord and His anointed. Well, if ever there was a time to fear an enemy, it was the Assyrian Empire and specifically the city of Nineveh. And yet God says, I will destroy it. I will cast it down and it will be ruined.
Its size, its power and its wealth inspired fables. Its walls were a good picture of this magnificence. At least two series of walls surrounded the whole city, running on for miles and miles. The inner wall, the higher of the two, was about 100 feet high and broad enough for three chariots to race abreast.
On the outside of the two walls was a moat 150 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The Tigris and other smaller rivers surrounding Nineveh made the city appear impregnable. It was a gigantic city. Now the prophet Nahum speaks of flooding.
Interestingly enough, in 612, when Babylon, the Scythians, and the Medes came to destroy Nineveh, one of the problems was that there was a great bit of flooding, and it caused those rivers to overflow, knocking down some of the massive walls surrounding Nineveh, by which the troops could then go in and sack the city. And this magnificent city was so well destroyed, archaeologists did not find any reference to it until the 1840s. It was one of those types of things in the Bible. Oh, they said, oh, the Bible speaks of this Nineveh.
There was no such thing. Oh, there was such a thing, and it was so destroyed the way Nahum had predicted that archaeologists never found a piece of it until 1842. Just about 300 years after 612 BC, a Zenith and a Greek took some Greeks through that particular region and they were retreating in a battle. They had no idea that a great city ever was there.
That's how completely the Lord had destroyed it. So that's some introduction. Let's step into the text.
Hymn of Glory: The Doctrine of God
Notice first of all, with reference to this hymn of glory celebrating the doctrine of God, we find in verses 2 and 3, theology proper. What do I mean by theology proper? I mean the study of the doctrine of God. Always when you finish a book, or at least for me, you got that period of time in there before you jump into another book, you're wondering, what do the people need?
The wives probably need a good sermon on being good wives. Husbands need a good sermon on being husbands. You really hit up the children because they always need to be encouraged to obey their parents in the Lord and to honor their father and their mother. Probably when you come and you announce a sermon on theology proper, people are saying, wait a minute, what does this have to do with me?
It has everything to do with you. In fact, the church has been inundated and blooded with all kinds of special studies and has no sound understanding of who God is. We've got big problems in that regard. A man was asked several years ago, what's missing or what's the problem with the church's doctrine of God today?
His answer, the church's doctrine of God. We've got a God who's about that big. He's a performer. He's our genie.
He does what we tell Him to do. That's not Nahum's God. And everything that follows in this book, Nahum 2 and 3, all goes back to this foundation of just who God is. We notice that pattern very often in the New Testament.
You'll see the Apostle Paul, for instance, spend several chapters writing out doctrine. And then he comes to the application, the therefore. You can't have the therefore without the doctrine. You can't be a good wife or a good husband or a good child.
You can't be a good member of society unless you know God, unless you understand what Nahum speaks of in this particular chapter.
God's Jealousy and Vengeance
He highlights two things with reference to theology proper. He speaks of God's jealousy. God's jealousy. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges.
Verse 2, The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies. In the second commandment, God gives as one of the reasons why we're not to make carved images, because He's a jealous God. He doesn't take kindly to rivals.
He's not about sharing His glory. The relationship of marriage very often typifies the relationship between God and His people. Jealousy is legitimate within the confines of marriage. Some dude is coming on to your wife, jealousy and a righteous bit of anger is godly.
The same way, ladies, if some chickadee is throwing herself at your man, jealousy and righteous anger is godly. We get this idea that, oh no, I can't do that. We don't understand man's God. We don't know Dan's God.
Walter Kaiser says, unlike jealousy on the human plane, which unfortunately involves all the wrong attitudes, suspicion, distrust, rivalry, God's jealousy shows itself as an eager zealousness to maintain the integrity of his own character and truth. He's a jealous God. Notice the implication of his jealousy is vengeance. Revenge.
Avenge. That's what Nahum says. Verse 2, God is jealous and the Lord avenges. Why does He avenge?
Because He's a jealous God. Why does He take vengeance on His enemies? Because He's jealous for His own glory, for His own honor, for His own dignity, and for His own supremacy. I submit to you, brethren, without a jealous God, without one who is like this, We would all be in a bad state of things.
Our God is jealous.
God's Patience and Power
Notice, secondly, he speaks of the patience of God in his lesson on theology proper. It's a bit of a refresher lesson. They should have all known these things. But again, it sets the stage for all that will follow.
Notice in verse 3, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked." You might be asking yourself, why do we need to be reminded about His patience in a document that is orchestrated to target Nineveh for her sin? Well, I think the thought is simply this. The Lord is patient, not indifferent. See, while Assyria is marching around, gobbling up territory, cutting off arms, gouging out eyes, burning boys and girls and extending their kingdom, the godly are tempted to think, the Lord doesn't notice.
The Lord is indifferent to our suffering. The Lord doesn't care. Sound familiar? When you see God, or when you see God's patience rather, And the fact that He doesn't immediately act like you think He should, isn't the temptation to conclude that He's indifferent?
I mean, we wouldn't voice that. We would never say that. But we've got issues and trials and difficulties in our life, and the Lord is not vindicating us. What's happened?
You see, he reminds us, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. In other words, he is patient but not indifferent. See, the righteous see this patience of God and begin to unbiblically conclude that he's not going to act. Nahum's reminding the camp of the faithful.
You know his patience. You know his long-suffering. You know the fact that he doesn't immediately lash out in anger. But you need to remember that He does not acquit the wicked.
That's a principle the church needs to embrace today. Far too often, brethren, we fall prey to that. We interpret the patience or the long-suffering of God as indifference. He doesn't care.
He's not for us. Don't you see us suffering, Lord? Don't you see us troubled, Lord? Have you no feeling, Lord?
Again, a lot of times we wouldn't express this verbally or in the Sunday morning prayer meeting or on a Wednesday night or with our sister or our brother or our husband or our wife, but sometimes it is what's going on in our hearts. Where's God? You see, one of the other problems with the patience of God, not that it's a problem with God, but it's our problem with the patience of God, is for the wicked. God's long-suffering and God's patience is interpreted by them to say, well, he doesn't care, he's indifferent, so I'll just get better at sin.
I'll just grow more reckless and abandoned in my wickedness. In fact, you can trace through the Scriptures, you'll see that sort of mindset. Bad theology promotes wickedness. When you misinterpret what God is all about, you begin to get embrazened with this idea that you can sin and get away with it.
Nahum says no. You need to understand. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. Don't you love that?
Nahum. He's going to speak of the utter devastation of Nineveh and Assyria, highlighting the patience of God. Doesn't that just bug you? when God does send judgment and everybody freaks out. Oh, what's the deal?
How come? Do you know how long God suffered in that instance? How about your own private life? Can you not praise God for His long-suffering toward you?
Can you not praise God that He has not acted immediately on your sin and rebellion? Is there not an element of theology here to take to your closet and praise the Lord God Almighty for, that He is slow to anger, that He has not dealt with me as I deserve immediately, but there is grace and mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ? There is theology proper set forth in this hymn of glory celebrating the doctrine of God. But
The Divine Warrior
notice, secondly, he speaks of the divine warrior, verses 3b to 5. Cam couldn't have read a better portion of Scripture than Psalm 18. God steps on the clouds. God comes. in the whirlwind.
God comes through the lightning. God comes in this phenomena of power and of judgment. The Bible uses this language throughout Old and New Testament, that the Lord steps upon a cloud when He comes to judge. And here, this is what the prophet does.
Verse 3b, The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before Him.
The hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence. Yes, the world and all who dwell in it." The idea here is the effect of His coming. The Scripture oftentimes envisions the coming of God as a reversal of creation. When He comes in His anger to mete out His judgment, it's as if all the rivers It's as if the fertile places like Bashan and Carmel and Lebanon, all the fertility is gone.
Sterility has taken its place. When the Lord God Almighty comes to judge, it's as if the creation goes and hides from His presence. You know, the man comes home and he has a righteous anger and he begins to issue commands in his home. What happens?
The animals, they run and they hide. They can detect the stress in the voice. It's something like that with the creation. When Jehovah mounts His cloud of judgment and He begins to come in visitation from on high, it's as if the creation acts off.
The prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah used the language of reversal of creation. The coming of God as warrior and the withering of nature are very typical in the prophets and in the book of Revelation as well. And
Who Can Stand Before His Indignation?
notice in this hymn of glory concerning the doctrine of God, there is a most important question in verse 6. Who can stand before His indignation? If you don't know Jesus today, I want you to consider these questions. Because Christians, as I said, oftentimes are a little bit afraid, a little bit embarrassed by what God has done in the Old Testament.
You know, we get embarrassed when God tells Joshua, and the armies of Israel to go and march around Jericho and utterly destroy every breathing thing. We like to picture Noah and his happy family and all the animals sitting comfortably in the ark, but we don't like to speak about the fact that in that God was killing every other sinner that populated the earth. There's a certain reticence that the modern evangelical fears or has when it comes to these judgment passages. But brethren, I submit that what will happen on that day of judgment, when Jesus comes in the glory of His Father with all of His holy angels, will make these events pale in significance.
You ask yourself today, verse 6, who can stand before His indignation and who can endure the fierceness of His anger? Now notice, though there was a general statement concerning Nineveh in verse 1, the specifics concerning Nineveh and Assyria have not come out yet. Verses 2 to 8 are a general hymn. It could be any time, any application, any society, any generation, any people group.
These truths do not change. God is jealous. God avenges His people. God is slow to anger.
God comes in judgment. God comes on the clouds and in the whirlwind. All these things are true all the time, so verse 6 is an appropriate question for the 21st century North American to ask himself. It doesn't matter how old you are.
It doesn't matter how young you are. You ask yourself the question, can I stand before His indignation? Can I stand before a thrice holy God? Have I always lived consistent with the Ten Commandments?
If I'm a child, have I always rendered obedience to my parents? Have I honored them consistently? Pastor Crawford and I were talking recently. He said he's been preaching on the promises of God.
We all like our promises. Oh, give us the promises. We all like the promises of blessing. If you're a child, you like the promise of blessing that if you do this, it will go well with you.
You will live long in the land. Notice it's an if. It's a condition. Promise promotes responsibility.
Promise denotes obedience. Have you always kept the law of God? As an adult male here, can you say you've always been faithful to the seventh amendment? You've never cast a longing eye upon anyone other than your wife?
Can anyone in this room say they have never coveted? That's the thrust of the question. Can I stand before His indignation? Not just those dirty, rotten Assyrians and Ninevites.
Can I? Not just, oh, wicked Canada, oh, wicked Middle East, oh, wicked California, oh, wicked these places, oh, San Francisco, oh, the meccas of evil that populate the earth. That's not the Prophet's question. The Prophet is saying, can you stand before His indignation?
Can you endure the fierceness of His anger? When Jesus comes in judgment, according to Revelation 6, the whole created realm go to the mountains and beg the mountains to fall upon them, the rocks to fall upon them, and to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is a wrathful lamb that will execute judgment on all of his enemies. That's Nahum's take-home message for us.
The question for us is, can I endure? Am I safely folded in the arms of Jesus? Have I run to that stronghold? Have I come to Him in the day of trouble?
Do I know something of His saving grace? Do I know what faith in Christ is all about? Have I called Him Lord and Master and meant it? Not just did it because there was pressure.
That's the question of our text. Of course the obvious answer is no one, right? It's like the psalmist in Psalm 130. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
What's the answer to that? No one. If God took out His notepad and He started to mark our iniquities, what would we do? We would run and hide.
When God comes to have dealings with Adam and Eve, what did they do? They ran and hid. That is typical. That is our response.
The Bible isn't against you running and hiding. The Bible is against you running and hiding in a way not sanctioned by the Lord. You are to run and hide in Jesus. You are to run and hide in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Twofold Perspective on Divine Judgment
Notice the final portion of this hymn is the twofold perspective on divine judgment, verses 7 and 8. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who trust in him. I praise God for this church because if I had read that after saying what I've already said. A lot of churches would say, how could he be good and wrathful?
It doesn't make sense. His goodness necessitates his wrath. His goodness demands his wrath. You don't spank your son and your son say, you're a bad man for spanking me.
No, I'm a good man. And I am determined to punish sin. I am determined to correct you. I am determined to chasten you when you victimize someone else.
I'm a good man. God's goodness demands His recompense of evil. You know, that's been one of the lessons lost in evangelicalism today. You know these shows, Larry King Live, A Bad Thing Happens, get the evangelical on there, professing evangelicalism.
Where was God on September 11th? I don't know. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases.
There has been a retreat from this doctrine into what's called open theology. Open theology is something like this. God doesn't really have control over the bad things that happen. Oh really?
How does that comfort the Haitians right now? You go to Haiti, and you start to minister the gospel, and you tell them, Oh, God really couldn't have stopped this after all. What manner of God is this? He's not the God of the hills.
He's not the God of the rains. He's not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Far better to answer with the Scripture, Our God does whatever He pleases, and He has morally sufficient reasons for the evil that exists. He will bring all things to His own glory, and He will bless His people immeasurably.
Shrink back from this truth? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him.
He doesn't just know, hey, that's that guy over there in Chilliwack. The knowledge of God here is the intimacy, the love, the commitment, the union, the fellowship. He is committed to them. He is for them.
He is their covenant God. Notice conversely, verse 8, "...but with an overflowing flood He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemy." You see, the blessing of God upon His people often involves the damnation of God upon His enemies. What kind of a kingdom would it be if it were not secured with power? You remember when Solomon took the throne from his father David?
There was a bit of a skirmish. Adonijah wanted the throne. They found out about that. They told and informed David, Bathsheba, and Nathan the prophet.
David said, no, Solomon's the heir. Adonijah gets very repentant very quickly. Oh, well, I'll respect that. 1 Kings, though, however, records David's charge to Solomon. You need to secure this kingdom.
You need to maintain its security. You need to establish it. And you do this two ways, David tells Solomon. The first is you obey God's law.
It's not your feelings. It's not your experience. It's not your ingenuity, it is your commitment to the written will of God Most High. That's how you will maintain security and establish peace in this kingdom.
The second, you need to deal with your enemies. In fact, you read in 1 Kings when Solomon takes the throne, Benaiah is quite busy. Benaiah is a swordsman. Benaiah swings it for Solomon.
See, in order to establish the safety and security of the kingdom, some heads, unfortunately, had to roll. In order to establish the safety and stability of Christ's kingdom, He is armed with a rod, a scepter, yes? To chasten His people, but to dash His enemies to pieces. That's the message of Nahum.
Oracle of Judgment Against God's Enemies
That brings us thirdly to consider briefly, we'll just make a few observations on this, oracle of judgment targeting the enemies of God.
Futility of Assyria's Opposition
He speaks first of all of the futility of Assyria's opposition to Yahweh, verses 9 to 11. Now there's a lot of personal pronouns used here that it's a bit difficult to sort of figure out who's in the limelight. The NIV supplies in brackets Nineveh or Judah to sort of help us along. If you look at verses 9 to 11, I believe what's in view here is Nineveh.
What do you conspire against the Lord? He will make an utter end of it. Affliction will not rise up a second time. What's that mean?
Once is enough. In other words, when God comes in judgment via historical persons in Babylon, the Medes and the Scythians, when God comes in judgment via them, There won't be a need for a second time. This isn't remedial training. This isn't rehabilitation.
This is retribution from God Most High. Verse 10, For while tangled like thorns and while drunken like drunkards, they shall be devoured like stubble fully dried. From you comes forth one who plots evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. A bit of a difficulty there, but the idea is, I think the king at the time specifically, or perhaps the kingship generically, conspiring evil against the Lord.
The Certainty of God's Judgment
Notice as well, the certainty of judgment, verses 12 to 14. Verse 12a again is addressed to Nineveh. Though they are safe and likewise many, yet in this manner they will be cut down when He passes through. I think the He there refers to God.
God passing through on His cloud. God passing through in the whirlwind and the storm. God passing through via Babylon. They will be destroyed though they are safe.
Though the city looks impregnable, Though it's set up high and the walls are surrounding, and these rivers provide a natural fortress, and they've built their own moat, it looks as if nothing can bring down that city. I meant to check Snopes to see if it was actually true or not, but I've heard, with reference to the Titanic, prior to them putting it in the water, they said something like, even God Himself couldn't sink it. I don't know if that's true. If you happen to know the particulars, I mean, it may be an urban legend or whatnot, but you could have equally said that about Nineveh in the time.
It was the Titanic of cities, man. Even God Himself couldn't take it down. God Himself couldn't destroy it. Though they are safe and likewise many.
I mean, the angel of the Lord cut down 185,000 in one night. Didn't ruin their army. didn't stop Assyria, didn't keep the empire from marching on. That happened probably a half a century prior to that. So they were able to replace those 185,000 several times over.
They were many. Judgment will come despite Assyrian strength. Notice in verse 13. I believe this is addressed to Judah.
Verses 12b and 13. Notice at the end of verse 12, "...though I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more. For now I will break off his yoke from you and burst your bonds apart." You see, if you're thinking biblically, you cannot escape the exhaustive and comprehensive sovereignty of God. Another doctrine we like to shrink back from, but Isaiah 10 tells us very clearly, God raised up Assyria.
I preached a sermon several years ago in a prison, and it was about the ten plagues in Egypt. The title of that sermon was, A Haunting View of the Sovereignty of God. Not haunting bad, haunting awe-inspiring. God raised up Assyria to chasten the northern tribes.
Assyria turned on God. Assyria raised its fist at God. So what does God do? God puts them down also.
This is what he's saying in verses 12, B, and 13. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Now, you might ask, well, Babylon's going to come and cart off the southern tribes of Judah. Well, not the Assyrians.
They are not carting anybody off ever again. The Assyrians are history. And this was written prior to the fact. Some say, well, Nahum was so spot on, he had to write after the fall of Nineveh.
No. God's able to take a man and predict the future with him because He's God. He's not the God of open theism. He's not the God who will never violate your precious will.
He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who orchestrates all things according to His will. And without that God, brethren, we're hopeless. We are helpless. We are destitute.
Why would anybody want a non-sovereign God? You can go build a statue and worship in your home and get the same effect. We want the God who is committed to us and who will work out every single detail in our lives and who will take Assyrian oppressors and break them so that the bonds will burst apart. And then notice in verse 14, judgment is certain according to God's decree.
The Lord has given a command concerning you back to Nineveh. Your name shall be perpetuated no longer." What's that mean? Death to the current king and death to his sons. Just thinking about this, in our modern democratic elections, it's difficult for us to envision how important it was to kill the heir to the throne.
You read about the kings and you read about, even in the history of Israel, you'll see very often, sons are targeted for destruction. You say, wait a minute, what did they do? They had a legal right to the throne. So by killing them, you cut off his name.
In fact, some speculate that when Nahum wrote specifically, the particular king of Assyria had tasked his son to build a monument with his name on it. God says, your name is going to perish. There is one name that will triumph throughout, and it's Jesus. It's God.
It's the Lord. It is Yahweh. Your name shall be perpetuated no longer. Notice, their religion or their gods would be destroyed.
Out of the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and the molded image. Remember when God executed judgment in Egypt? It was against the gods of Egypt. Remember when the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant and they put it in the house of Dagon?
Why? To capture an enemy's gods was amazing. Well, when they captured the Ark of the Covenant, Dagon fell helpless before it. This God says, I will destroy your religion, I will destroy your idols, I will destroy every vestige of your religious commitment.
And then he says, I will dig your grave for you are vile, speaking specifically of the king. Well, that's an oracle of judgment targeting the enemies of God.
Good News and the Call to Worship
Notice the good news of verse 15. Behold, he says, It's hard to know if verse 15 goes with what precedes or with what follows. I'm taking it with what precedes. Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace.
In this instance, the proclamation would be, the king is dead. Assyria is dead. Nineveh, that thought they were impregnable, is destroyed. That is the peace pronounced to Judah.
And notice the legitimate response from the people of God is to worship. Verse 15, O Judah, keep your appointed feasts. Perform your vows, for the wicked one shall no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off.
God would destroy the religion of Assyria. The religion of Yahweh would flourish. There would be joy in Judah at the demise of Nineveh and of Assyria. You see, when God sends His judgment, the saints in heaven cry out with a fourfold hallelujah, according to Revelation 19.
They don't get embarrassed. They don't try to explain it away. They don't trump the card of open theism. They don't say, well, man's free will is more important and powerful than God.
They say, hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigns. And because of that, we will worship. See, we miss the boat when we take out the wrath of God. We get rid of the terror of the Lord.
We don't persuade man, and we don't worship God the way we're supposed to.
Application: The Comfort of God's Judgment
The title of this message is, The Comforting Truth of God's Judgment. There's one other piece of who Nahum was that I didn't tell you. What his name means. It means comfort.
It means consolation. Remember the prophet Micah? His name means, who is like you, Lord? And in Micah 7, he asks that very question.
Who is like you, Lord? Pardoning iniquity, forgiving transgression. Some of the commentators say they don't know whether Nahum's name of comfort really does actually weigh upon his ministry to Israel. I say it most certainly does.
This is a message of comfort, a message of consolation. You cannot look at the world around you, and if you're godly, if you're like God, cry out with those saints under the altar in Revelation 6, O Lord, how long? Nahum's answer is, God will visit his people with vindication, and he will judge those who oppose. One is called the Book of Nahum, an unmitigated hymn of hate. while another spoke of Nahum's malicious joy at the prospect of Nineveh's defeat.
No, Nahum was the comforter sent from God to encourage his people to take heart, to press on, to realize that though the Lord is slow to anger, he will not acquit the wicked. The practical importance of theology proper It is the foundation for everything. The foundation for everything. That's what the prophets spoke of.
Who God is. That's what the New Testament authors do too. Who God is. In the midst of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire, which could make the Assyrian Empire look like amateur. What did the Church of Christ do in the New Testament documents? They told the Church who God is, what Jesus is or who Jesus is and what He's done, and they never ceased to call praise or call for praise to the God who has stationed Christ in His right hand until He made all of His enemies His footstool. You see, the Church was far from pessimistic.
The Church was far from thinking that their enemies would overcome them. That's what Nahum's doing. He's calling the troops. He's saying, be encouraged, the Lord reigns.
Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and He must reign till He makes His enemies His footstool. We've seen the sovereignty of God. I encourage you, go home today and read Isaiah 10. Hopefully you'll come away just like...
This God is not the God of our making. We don't domesticate Him. We don't put Him in a box. We don't set Him on a shelf.
We don't treat Him as if He's an equal. This God is almighty. He is glorious. He is sovereign.
He doesn't consult with us. He doesn't check in with us. Have you ever gotten a call from God saying, hey, how should I handle this? God does not have an advisory council.
The prophet and the apostle ask the question, who has become his counselor? The obvious answer is, no one. Paul ends his declaration of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of sinners by saying this, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen.
I submit, brethren, that's the proper response to this view of God's sovereignty. to Him be glory forever. Not the shaking hand of unbelief, not the rebellious infidelity that exists under the guise or rubric of evangelical religion today. Can you imagine our Puritan brothers and our Reformed brothers coming, or the Reformers coming in and seeing a church that would actually entertain open theism? I just read an article recently about this.
When open theism began, or when it began to be in vogue among evangelicals, In 2003, the Evangelical Theological Society had a vote to determine it to be heresy or not. What's alarming is that it wasn't voted to be heresy. What's more alarming is that as of 2008, many who were involved in that felt bad that it even had to come to such a debate. Okay, debating on whether it's heresy or not to de-God God, If we're not going to debate about that being a heresy, everything goes.
If the godhood of God has become a debatable item in evangelical religion today, it's a whole lot worse than I ever imagined. But Jesus is on his throne. The God of Nahum comes in the whirlwind, in the storm, in the clouds of the dust of his feet. the good news of the gospel, perhaps verse 15a resonates with you. Behold on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings.
Yes, it's in the prophet Isaiah 52.7 as well, but it's also in Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10-15, our brother Paul takes this passage as he's developing the blessings of the Gospel, and he says, Behold on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings. If you've embraced those good tidings by the grace of God, the appropriate response is to keep your appointed feasts, to perform your vows, to praise and worship our God, and to give Him the honor that is due His name. If you have not embraced this good news, don't go to bed tonight until you believe the Gospel.
Don't make peace with your soul when there is no peace. Don't try to pretend, oh, that was 7th century BC, that'll never happen again. The reality of Nahum 1-6 ought to haunt you until you have a closure to this question. Can I stand before His indignation?
No, but by the grace of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, I will be able.