At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a
sermon series entitled when God speaks. During this series we are spending our
time together looking at these letters that we
often have a tendency to skip over, which are referred to as the prophets. We
are discovering who these letters that we have a
tendency to skip over were written to. We are discovering what these
letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about who we are. We are discovering
what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about the nature
of God and God’s activity in history. And as we go through this series, our
hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our
heads, hearts and hands so that we understand and embrace the timeless and
timely truths that these letters that we often skip over have for our lives.
This week, I would like for us to
spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old
Testament of the Bible called the book of Nahum, which is the next letter that
was written by prophet chronologically, which is not necessarily the order that
they are found in the Bible, where they are organized by size. So let’s look at
the man and the message of the Book of Nahum, beginning in Nahum 1:1:
The
oracle of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Here we are introduced to the
prophet Nahum, who most scholars believe wrote this letter between 650-642 B.C.
Nahum wrote this letter to the city of Nineveh, which was the capital
city of the Assyrian Empire. Nahum was sent to Nineveh to proclaim an oracle,
or announce a judicial sentence, against the Assyrian
Empire from the Lord.
Earlier in this series, we looked at another letter
that was written to the Assyrian Empire by a prophet named Jonah. Upon hearing
the message of Jonah, the Assyrian Empire repented and were converted to the
worship of the Lord. However, it had been 120 years since Jonah’s time and
approximately 70 years since the time of the prophet Hosea. And over the
successive three generations, the Assyrian Empire had not passed down their
knowledge of the Lord to their children.
As a result, the nation quickly returned to their
cruel practices and to worshipping false gods. After conquering the Northern
Kingdom in 722 B.C., the Assyrian Empire began the threaten the Southern
Kingdom of Judea. After the Lord protected the Southern Kingdom from an
Assyrian attack during the reign of King Hezekiah, a new king, named Manasseh
ruled over the Jewish people. However, King Manasseh’s reign left Judah in
spiritual shambles as a result of his rebellion against the Lord, and the
Assyrian Empire conquered much of the Southern Kingdom. And it is in this
context that Nahum wrote this letter of judgment from the Lord to the Assyrian
Empire. We see the Lord’s message to the Assyrian Empire revealed in verse 2-6:
A
jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The
LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies.
3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And the LORD will by
no means leave the guilty unpunished.
In whirlwind and storm is His way, And clouds are the dust beneath His feet. 4
He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and
Carmel wither; The blossoms of Lebanon wither. 5 Mountains quake
because of Him And the hills dissolve; Indeed the earth is upheaved by His
presence, The world and all the inhabitants in it. 6 Who can stand
before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is
poured out like fire And the rocks are broken up by Him.
Nahum
begins his letter of judicial sentence against the Assyrian Empire by
proclaiming the character of the Lord. As we have
talked about in the past, when we read about the wrath of God in the letters
that make up the Bible, this is not God blowing a head gasket. God’s wrath is not a selfish passionate emotional
response. Instead, it is God’s perfect justice resulting in a rightful response
to the wrongdoing and injustice of others.
Nahum is proclaiming
that the Lord, in His very nature and character, is righteous and avenges those
who have been wronged as a result of wrongdoing and injustice. Nahum is
proclaiming that the Lord, in His very nature and character, is both
longsuffering and all-powerful. Nahum is proclaiming that the Lord, in His very
nature and character, is just and executes justice.
Nahum then asks a
rhetorical question to hammer home this reality: “Who can stand
before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger?” Now the
reason why this question is rhetorical is due to the fact that the answer to
this question was so obvious it did not require an answer. The answer to this
question, is no one. No one who has engaged in wrongdoing and injustice will be
able to stand before the Lord as He executes His right and just response to
wrongdoing and injustice. Nahum then continued to proclaim the character of the
Lord in verse 7-11:
The
LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take
refuge in Him. 8 But with an overflowing flood He will make a
complete end of its site, And will pursue His enemies into darkness. 9
Whatever you devise against the LORD, He will make a complete end of it.
Distress will not rise up twice. 10 Like tangled thorns, And like
those who are drunken with their drink, They are consumed As stubble completely
withered. 11 From you has gone forth One who plotted evil against
the LORD, A wicked counselor.
Here
we Nahum proclaim the absolute justice of the Lord who is just. Nahum is proclaiming that the Lord, in His very nature
and character, is morally good. Nahum is proclaiming that the Lord, in His very
nature and character, is a stronghold of strength in the face of trouble and
difficulty for those who trust and take refuge in Him. Nahum is proclaiming
that the Lord, in His very nature and character, is knows and cares for those
who trust and take refuge in Him.
By contrast, for
those who place themselves in opposition to the Lord, the Lord will overwhelm
them with a flood of justice and judgment.
Nahum is proclaiming that the Lord, in His very nature and character, is
able to destroy the plans of those who oppose Him in rebellion against Him.
And because of that
reality Nahum proclaimed “Distress
will not rise up twice”. In other words, the Lord’s judgment of the Assyrian
Empire would be so complete that it would not have to happen twice. In spite of
the Assyrian Emperor’s attempts to destroy the Southern Kingdom of the Jewish
people, the Lord would make a complete end of the Empire in His good and just
judgment of their wrongdoing and injustice that flowed from their rebellion and
rejection of the Lord.
After
proclaiming the nature and character of the Lord, Tomorrow we will see Nahum
proceed to proclaim the Lord’s judicial sentence against the
Assyrian Empire…
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