Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to Living Hope Church. We're glad that you chose to join us this morning. Children ages 3 to 5 are welcome to go to children's church. The rest of us can open our Bibles. And if you don't have a paper Bible in front of you, tap your screens, whatever that might be. It's going to be important today that you are looking at a Bible because I did not put all of these passages on the screen for you. So use your Bible. You're going to need it. This morning.
[00:00:27] We have been in a series. If you aren't new here with us in the Old Testament, we started at the beginning of the year in Genesis, and we're working our way. It's a survey of the Old Testament, working our way to Malachi. And today we land at the infamous Book of Nahum. Right. This is what you were thinking about this morning. I can't wait to get. You were thinking about that in Genesis, weren't you? When is Nahum gonna get here? Well, don't worry, folks, today is the day.
[00:00:54] Feel free to look in the table of contents at the front of your Bibles to figure out what page number Nahum is. It's all of three chapters, so it's easy to miss. It is Micah is where we were a couple weeks ago. That's right before and then after Nahum is the book of Habakkuk. So if you get to Habakkuk, go back a page or two, and if you're at Micah, go forward a page or two.
[00:01:13] That's where we are today. And what I wanna do before we really dive into this, there's a snapshot that I wanna put on the screen here for you right now that gives you, as the title implies, a snapshot of this three chapter book. And then what I'll do here, because I know this is not a book that most of us, myself included, until recently, very familiar with. And so I want to explain how we get to this book and what is going on in this book. So let's look at the snapshot here. If you want to take a literal snapshot of this, you can do that to help you just kind of remember what's being talked about here.
[00:01:50] Then we'll pray and we'll dive in a little further.
[00:01:53] Here's what it says. God's irrevocable judgment on Nineveh in the Book of Nahum is rooted in his character as a just jealous and powerful God who will not leave the guilty unpunished, while also comforting and warning his people. So Nahum is a prophet, and he has a message for this giant city called, what, Nineveh? All right, this message, how did we get here? So here's where here's gonna be. I'm gonna start way back over here at the beginning of this story.
[00:02:24] You know, many of these stories that I'll reference here, the Israelites come into the promised land after some time. They ask for a king. The first king of Israel. His name was what?
[00:02:36] Saul. After Saul, there is David, and then there is Solomon. And then after Solomon was. We have what's called the kingdom splitting in two. The kingdom divides into two nations. And here's my hand. This is the nation of Israel, if you will. The nation split in half. It's split. Not really actually in half. There's 12 tribes. The lower portion is called Judah. There's two tribes there, and the upper portion is called Israel. This is the Mediterranean Sea right here.
[00:03:00] The nation split in two. And for hundreds of years, these two nations functioned in many ways independently. They had their own king. They. They had their own place of worship. The southern nation worshiped at Jerusalem. The northern nation worshiped at a place called Samaria. And in both of those places, these two separate places, they had people that sometimes worshiped God in the southern kingdom, but most of the time, they were not worshiping God. And in the northern nation, they were always not worshiping God. They were a nation regularly rebelling against God. There was many kings in the northern nation who did not. All of them actually did not walk with God. The southern nation, on the other hand, had various kings that would walk with God.
[00:03:44] And in the midst of these two kingdoms, what we see in the major prophets, which we've already seen, and some of the minor prophets, we see warning after warning after warning. After what?
[00:03:55] Warning. So most of these prophets, they're aiming themselves. They are from these nations. They're aiming themselves at the leaders or at the people. And in these two nations saying, turn back to who?
[00:04:07] Turn back to God. Turn back to God. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they're telling the kings and the people, please, turn back to God. And if you don't, destruction is going to come. This is a regular reminder. And if you've been with us for the last few months, you've heard this over and over and over again, turn back to God. And that's what many of these prophets have been doing. Some of the prophets and have been aimed at the southern portion called Judah. Some of the prophets have been aimed at the northern portion called Israel. And some of the prophets have been Aimed at both, with a message for both of them. And so as we have been walking our way through these books, we have not only learned from the messages of both of these prophets, but also we've learned about the character of God. And as the series title implies, we've seen Jesus come to life in all of the these books. Now that's what we've done so far. There has been one other prophet. His name is Obadiah. Can we say that together? Obadiah, right. That's a fun name. Name your dog that or something or person. That's fine too. There's other people named Obadiah. That's fine. Anyway, Obadiah had a message for a people that was not Israel and not Judah. He had a message for the Edomites. They. They were another people group out over in this direction. And he was telling them, hey, destruction is coming to you because you've been prideful, you've been arrogant, and by the way, you're actually related to the Israelites and you have not helped them.
[00:05:35] Other than that, these other prophets have had messages for Israel and for. What's the southern nation called? Judah. Judah. Today we land at Nahum, who actually is kind of part two to one other prophet who had a message and went to another nation way up here. Here's Israel. He went to this place way up here, and his name was Jonah. And Jonah went to the major city of what, Nineveh, which is the capital city of Assyria.
[00:06:06] So other than Obadiah, and now we know Jonah, the rest of the prophets had messages for the people here. Nahum is like part two of Jonah in many ways. You wonder, like, what happened to those Ninevites, like they repented. We saw that with Jonah. What happened with Jonah, that was a different. I don't know. We could ask maybe later.
[00:06:25] I don't know about that. Nahum, on the other hand, he says, all right, I'm going to give you kind of the rest of the story with what happened with the Ninevites and also the nation of Assyria. Nineveh is the capital of Assyria. And so here we see we land finally at the book of Nahum. Here we are kind of end of the end of the timeline. Nahum now has a message, not for Judah, not for Israel, but he has a message to who was Jonah's message to Nineveh. And Nahum's message is also to who? Nineveh. And it's kind of complicated even when I say that, because he never went to Nineveh. He actually has a message about Nineveh, but he's talking to the people of Israel. And I'll unpack that here in a moment. Some of you are thinking, when can we start writing things down? And don't worry, you can do that right now. The basics on your outline. This will give us some clarity about this book. And then I'll show a map for you on the screen, give you kind of a perspective that's better than just my arm up here in the air about what we're talking about here. Who's the author of this book? Can we all say it together?
[00:07:34] Nahum. Now, Nahum, he's from a place called El Kash. And. And some of you are like, I don't know about that. I've never heard of that. Neither has anybody else. Nobody knows where it is. But some people think. Here's fun fact for you. Some people think it is, at the time of the New Testament, the place of Capernaum.
[00:07:53] Now, I say Capernaum. I'm going to say it slowly. Capernaum.
[00:07:58] It means. Capernaum means the village of anybody.
[00:08:01] Nahum. So perhaps he might have been from Capernaum. I don't know. It's just interesting when you look at. What does Capernaum mean? It's the village of Nahum. His name means consoler or comforter, which you'll see in a minute. Why that's kind of ironic because of the message that he has for the city of Nineveh. When did this happen? The timeline is somewhere in the neighborhood of 660 to 630 or so BC. This is about 100, 140 years or so after Jonah. So we talked about Jonah already and how he had a message for Nineveh. Nahum shows up on the scene. He says, I have another message about the city of Nineveh. And this is about 100 or so years after the fact.
[00:08:42] And we can see here it's about Nineveh, but really he's still in Judah and they're all listening to him. Put that map on the screen. You can see the size of the nation of Assyria. Assyria is this massive.
[00:08:55] This massive military, this massive nation that spread throughout at the time, much of the known world. You can see it goes down into Egypt. You can go see it goes past Babylon towards India or towards Iraq and Iran, that direction there. The Persian Gulf is at the corner all the way around that whole eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea. They were a mighty nation. They were the most powerful nation in the world at the time.
[00:09:19] And Nahum has a message for them.
[00:09:23] And here's what the message is.
[00:09:25] Y' all are about to die.
[00:09:28] The whole nation is about to crumble in not much time.
[00:09:32] Now, when you and I look at this, you're thinking, that's a pretty massive area that is covered there. Nations like that don't crumble like that.
[00:09:41] Well, they do if God wants them to.
[00:09:44] And here we're going to see that. The message of Nahum says that God is the one in charge. No matter how strong you think you may be, no matter how powerful you may think things are in your realm of life, no matter how big the kingdom is that you have built, God is the one who has ultimate authority over everything.
[00:10:01] And so now we think even about the name Nahum, which means comforter or consoler. You're thinking that's not very comforting news to who, Assyria? No, but it is comforting news to Israel, isn't it? Because Israel has been watching this nation, because Israel's been around longer than they have, watching this nation grow and grow and grow. And not just that. Assyria is known for its incredible brutality. You know that if you've heard stories of Jonah and why he didn't want to go to Nineveh, Assyria was a horrible, brutal, evil nation. And God says that I have had enough.
[00:10:41] So let's look at the outline here. There's three very simple basic points, and they mirror the three chapters of this book. All right, let's look at the very beginning. Chapter one, verse one.
[00:10:52] An oracle. And the word oracle. Some of your Bibles might say burden. That's maybe even a better translation in verse one, a burden that's laid upon or concerning what city? What's it called? Nineveh. And then we have, in the first seven verses, and I'm just gonna read it here for us. We. We're going to have God explaining who he is. And this is what you can read. Write down on your outline. God is about to announce judgment. So judgment announced is what you could write down on part one. Listen in and read with me. In verses two and following of chapter one, the Lord. And this is telling us why God is going to do this, right? I already said we've seen the size of the nation. We know they're an evil nation. We're going to see more details on that later on. Why is God going to destroy this nation that even he let get this big? Here's what it says. Look in your Bibles with me. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. There's a good bedtime story for you. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is. This is the part that we like to hear. Slow to what anger. And great in power. The Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is.
[00:12:06] His way is in a whirlwind and storm. And the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes them dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him. This is again talking about the power of God. This is important for us to know as we get into this book. The world and all who dwell in it also heave before him. And Here is verse 6. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? This is kind of an internal question, like listen in. Who can stand before God? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. We'll stop right there.
[00:12:48] This unpacks for us the character of God in a way that we need to pay attention to. This reminds the reader, particularly the people listening. In the nation of Judah and ultimately the Ninevites, God is the one who controls everything on the earth. You think you're a powerful nation, Assyria, You've got nothing on God. That's what we see here. Now, another verse here in verse seven that we would love to kind of sit in a little longer even than verse three, where it says the Lord is slow to anger. Verse 7. Look in your Bibles. The Lord is. What's the next word? Good.
[00:13:23] The Lord is good.
[00:13:26] The Lord is good.
[00:13:29] We have redefined what good means in so many ways. And we're going to see that here in this book. Because this principle of God being good is important for all of us here today and at all times to hold fastly to you. God is not sometimes good. He is always good. But you might look and say, well, God is good. That seems to be in opposition to verses two through six.
[00:13:50] But it's not. The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. He. He knows those who take. This is a key word here, who take refuge in him. Was the nation of Assyria taking refuge in God?
[00:14:04] No. Can we say no together? No. They were running from him. You know, from the story of Jonah. Jonah goes to the city of Nineveh. He preaches to them and calls them to repent. And if they don't, there's going to be judgment upon them. And what do the people do? They. They repent.
[00:14:24] Nahum is writing about the nation of Nineveh, but this is again a hundred or so years later.
[00:14:31] And are they still being obedient to God?
[00:14:34] Not at all. They have slid back into their own ways.
[00:14:40] So in this place we see that the character of God comes to life in a way that we need to pay attention to. The the Lord is good. He is a refuge. He cares for those who trust in him. So if God is this strong, which we already know, and God is good, and good doesn't always mean that nice things are going to come from him all the time, does it?
[00:15:01] Good means that he is not going to stand for evil and it needs to be punished.
[00:15:08] So Nahum, chapter 1, verse 14. What is going to happen to Assyria?
[00:15:13] Judgment has been what's going to happen? We know the character of God. What's going to happen? What does the Lord say? Look in your bibles in verse 12. Thus says the Lord, though they the Assyrian empire, though they are at full strength and many they will be. Two words here, cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Now what is he talking about there? Here's what he's saying. We talked earlier about how there were prophets that came and spoke to the people of Israel and to the people of Judah and said, if you don't turn back, punishment is coming. And they experienced a lot of hard things at the time of writing this northern nation, Israel, these 10 tribes have already been conquered by the Assyrian empire and they are in captivity. And now Judah, little Judah down here, if you will, is looking up and going, Nineveh's. I mean, Assyria's really big.
[00:16:13] Are they going to come for us next?
[00:16:15] How do you think they're feeling right now, Judah? Pretty scared?
[00:16:19] Thinking, is God going to wipe us out?
[00:16:23] Have we disobeyed God so long that we're no longer going to be in his good graces anymore? And here's the message of comfort from the prophet whose name means what?
[00:16:35] Comfort. God is not going to afflict you. Look what the end of verse 12 says. I will afflict you no more. Verse 14 goes on and says this. The Lord has given commandment about you. No more shall your name be perpetrated. Now we're talking about Assyria again. Your name is going to come to an end. For from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal images I will take.
[00:16:58] I'm sorry, I will make your grave, for you are vile friends. You don't want God against you, do you?
[00:17:04] You read something like this and you're thinking, I would like to be on the right side of my relationship with God. And that's a rightful conclusion. Consider who and how powerful God is. It's not to say I'm afraid, and so I will go to his side. It's realizing the power of God. We like to see verses like God is slow to anger and and God is good. And we like to skip over some of these other pieces that say God is jealous and God stands against evil, and God is perfect. And just because God shows mercy, he also is willing to do something, like he did with Jonah. Now, did God know that Nineveh was going to repent and then backslide? Did he know that?
[00:17:48] Did he still send Jonah to them to say repent? God literally can look at the timeline of all of existence and say, and I will preach a message of repentance, and then they will repent, but then they will backslide. And God doesn't say, well, then, never mind. I'm not going to preach repentance.
[00:18:05] He still says, I am a God who is merciful, and I'm a God who is faithful, and I am a God who is, as we see here, a God who is good. And I will still let them hear the message of repentance, and they will even repent. And within a few generations, I know they're going to backslide, but my goodness is going to be demonstrated there. God is not sometimes just. And then when he's just, he puts his goodness on hold, and then he's good and he puts his justice on hold, and then he's merciful. And when he's merciful, he puts his goodness on hold. He doesn't go back and forth between those different attributes. He's all of them, all of the time. That, friends, is the God that we serve in. And this is why we revel in and relish the verse like Romans 5, 8, that God demonstrates His love toward us in this while we were still, what, sinners? He didn't wait for us to come looking for him while we were still sinners, while we were still enemies of Him. He ran towards us. He came towards us and said, I'm going to die. Jesus hanging on the cross, people spitting in his face and yelling at him and mocking him. He didn't say, well, never mind. I'm not doing this until you want me to he hung there knowing that they were still mocking him.
[00:19:14] He did that because that is the goodness and the mercy of God.
[00:19:18] Part two, Part two, Chapter two.
[00:19:22] So it's been announced.
[00:19:24] Judgment is coming in the form of the annihilation of this massive empire.
[00:19:30] Particularly pointing the message at Nineveh, the capital city of this empire.
[00:19:35] We've seen already, and we see this again in verse two, that God is a God who is good. He says in verse two of chapter two for the Lord. You can go to the next slide. I'm sorry, the next slide says this. Judgment is not only announced, but it's executed.
[00:19:47] Verse 2 of chapter 2 says this. For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob. In other words, this is good news for the people of Israel.
[00:19:56] Chapter two unpacks something for us that is even more detailed than I have gotten so far. Verses 3 through 9 tell us what this battle is going to be like.
[00:20:07] There is various poetry and types of literature in the Old Testament. Some commentators call the book of Nahum war poetry. It seems like an oxymoron, right? Thinking poetry is nice and lovely. War poetry. That's what we see here. Look in your Bibles in verse three of chapter two.
[00:20:26] Read some of it here, kind of skip through a few verses. Here's what it says. Though the shield of his mighty men is red. Here we're describing the battle that's going to take place in the city of Nineveh. The shield of his mighty men is red. In other words, there's blood. His soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them. The cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly through the streets. Have in your mind right now a city in chaos. And. And you'll see more language here being understood. The chariots race madly through the streets. They rush to and fro through the squares. They gleam like torches. They dart like lightning. He remembers his officers, and they stumble as they go. Imagine soldiers falling through this city. And then you continue to read on verse 6. The river gates are opened, the palace what melts away.
[00:21:14] This is a verse 8. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. They call halt. Halt. But none turn back. And then verse 9 concludes here. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold. There is no end of the treasure or the wealth of all the precious things.
[00:21:31] That is not a bedtime story.
[00:21:36] What's interesting is within about 25 or so years after Nahum says this, these things come to be this massive city called Nineveh that we Know that Jonah spent days walking through preaching repentance to crumbles very quickly. And it actually says, if we look back at history, it says there was a flood that happened at the same time that this occurred. And the floodwaters rose and from this massive storm that happened and actually the city walls of Nineveh started to fall apart in various places. And this even is spoken of here when it talks about. Look at verse 8. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. Literally a few decades later, that exact thing happens where it becomes begins to crumble, just as Nahum said. Now how did Nahum know God? Because God knows all things, right? God knows exactly what is going to happen.
[00:22:30] And some of us look at this and say, wait a minute, isn't God good?
[00:22:38] Why would God let something like this happen?
[00:22:43] Is God going to restore them and bring them back? I mean, he's warning them. He's warned Israel and he's warning them, right?
[00:22:49] We see something different with this nation.
[00:22:53] In verse 10 of chapter 2, we see the conclusion of what's going to happen after this battle. Will they win or will they lose in this battle? When actually the Babylonians are coming in and destroying Nineveh. Here's what we see. Look in your Bibles, verse 10. Here's the conclusion of the battle.
[00:23:09] Desolate, desolation and ruin. Hearts melt and knees tremble. Anguish. The faces are pale. Where is the lion's den, the feeding place of young lions? Why are we talking about lions? Because like the mascot, if you will, for the nation of Nineveh and the Assyrians? Was anybody. You want to guess what animal? A lion? Yeah, you guys, this is great. You guys are great.
[00:23:33] So where is the lion's den? In other words, where do you go for refuge? Now, people, there is no place. Where is the feeding place for your young, your young soldiers, if you will, your young people? It's gone. Where is the lion and his lioness went? Where did they go?
[00:23:46] They're gone. Desolate, desolation. Now why would God do this? Yes, they are evil. Why would God do this? We saw in chapter one that God is slow to what?
[00:23:57] Anger. We relish that. But just because he's slow to anger doesn't mean he doesn't get angry.
[00:24:03] God is slow to anger. And you and I appreciate that every day.
[00:24:07] We're so grateful for the personal work of Jesus Christ. That means we didn't need to take the anger of God. Jesus took his wrath.
[00:24:14] Yes, God is slow to anger. And God has been waiting for hundreds of Years this nation has been growing and evil and growing and evil. And here's what God says. Verse 13 of chapter 2. Look in your Bibles. God says this, Behold, I am against you declares the and this is a military type word for for the Lord, the Lord of hosts, that is the Lord who is the commander of the armies. I am against you. And I will burn your chariots and smoke and the sword shall devour your young lions or your people.
[00:24:50] This is hard news isn't it? If you're in the Assyrian empire.
[00:24:56] But if you are a Jew, imagine how good this sounds.
[00:25:00] They are finally going to stop destroying the world.
[00:25:06] What's the takeaway from this before we look at point three? It's this.
[00:25:11] No matter how invincible you may think you are, or a nation or a country might think it is, God possesses complete and total authority.
[00:25:21] And God is not destroying this kingdom because it is big and expansive and covers much of the earth. He is destroying it, but because of its profound evil. Its profound evil. And that's what we look at in point three. God then gives a, if you will, a reason or a rationale for why he is destroying this nation. If we haven't picked up on it thus far, chapter three unpacks this for us in a more specific way.
[00:25:47] God says in verses one through three the reason he is doing this in many other places. But in verses one through three of chapter three gives us some clarification. So you can look in your Bibles with me verses one through three. Let's read them. It says this woe to the what bloody city. Like I said, not a bedtime story at all. This is a hard message.
[00:26:10] So we know this is a brutal city that is, that takes death and brutality and torture lightly. Full of lies and plunder, no end to the prey that they have. Verse 2 the crack of the whip and the rumble of the wheels, the galloping of horse, of bounding chariots, horsemen charging, flashing swords. This is a picture of the way they would go out and conquer the world. And glittering spears, hosts of slain heaps of corpse, dead bodies without end. This is not a picture you want to have in your mind. They stumble over dead bodies. What's God saying very clearly here? How evil this nation is. This is how they went about conquering the world is they would go and bring death and destruction everywhere. People trembled in fear at this nation. And so what is God's response? Says this is how evil you are. What is the response that God has for this kind of evil? Look in Your Bibles verses 5 and 6 tell us I am.
[00:27:13] He says this the second time.
[00:27:15] I am against you, declares the Lord of Hosts. I will lift up your skirts over your face. I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.
[00:27:28] There is no hope for them. Verse 19 brings the whole thing to conclusion. The last verse of the book.
[00:27:35] Look at it with me.
[00:27:36] Nothing can heal your wound.
[00:27:41] Your injury is fatal.
[00:27:44] Everyone who hears the news about you what weeps, claps their hands for who has not felt your endless cruelty.
[00:27:56] People around the world are rejoicing because you are going to fall.
[00:28:01] Wow.
[00:28:02] Wow.
[00:28:04] And for some of us here right now, you're thinking, when is the good part of this book? Right? Is there a light part of this story? We're not supposed to come here and feel the weight of this. And that's how the book of Nahum ends, with that kind of weight.
[00:28:18] For not God's people, but for the people who are opposed to God. What do we learn through this? What I want to do, which is a little different than what we've done before. At the bottom of your outline, you can see an application.
[00:28:32] Go there on the screen or anything. That application will be for us. But right now, what do we learn about God from this book? And this is where we have to start. If we want to look at God's word and apply it properly, we first start with what we learn about him and his character. I said this many times already, as did this book. It says this that God is good. Can we say that together? God is good. We also see something else in this book that God acts as a judge. Here. We saw this in Micah as well.
[00:28:59] Now step away from this for a moment, this book, for a moment, and just think about a judge in a courtroom setting.
[00:29:06] And a criminal comes in and the criminal has done horrible, horrible things. You know this. The jury knows this. The judge does this. If this is a good judge, does the good judge look at the criminal who has done the horrible things and say, you seem like you are a nice person now.
[00:29:26] You seem like you're repentant and you wish that you hadn't done that. And because I am a good judge, even though you have done horrible, horrible things before, even though you have done those things, I am a good judge, so I'm going to let you off.
[00:29:46] Is that a good judge?
[00:29:49] Not at all.
[00:29:51] God is good.
[00:29:53] And because he is good, he does not look at evil and sin and say, I'm just going to be nice about this and I'll just let it go this time. You get a pass.
[00:30:04] Because God is just a just judge. Specifically, he stands for justice. Now, the criminal who's in the room listening to the judge, if the judge starts off and says, I am a good judge, the criminal might be thinking, oh, good, I think this is gonna go well for me.
[00:30:21] But the judge then would rightfully follow up with saying this, because I am a good judge. You are sentenced to what? Jail?
[00:30:29] Because I am good. Punishment has to come. Justice has to be served. This is what we see of God as well.
[00:30:39] Now, how does that apply to us as followers of Jesus? Today, we realize this. This is the Savior portion on the outline that you're writing in.
[00:30:47] If you would like to write this down, you can. As we consider God being a good and just judge, we realize that it is Jesus and Jesus alone, who gave us the opportunity to not experience the full weight of God's judgment.
[00:31:01] Jesus took it for us. Jesus saved us from God's just judgment. God is a just judge. And he says this. The wages of sin is what? Death. Death. Because God is just and because God is good, he doesn't just say, you know what, but you seem like a nice person, so you don't have to die.
[00:31:18] He says, no, death still has to happen because I am just. Just as we see in the book of Nahum, there is consequences for your actions. What do we see here in chapter 5, verses 6 through 10 of Romans? It really unpacks this for us. You can read this verse on the screen for you.
[00:31:37] For here's what it says. For while we were weak at the right time, Christ died for the what?
[00:31:43] Ungodly?
[00:31:45] That's you and I. He died for us. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. Since therefore, we have now been justified, not because of our work, but because of the death of Jesus Christ in our place, having now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of who?
[00:32:16] So even in the Gospel message, we cannot abandon the wrath of God that is still true and key in the presentation of the Gospel to us and to the people around us. Because if we abandon the character of God as one who is just and one who judges rightly, there now is no need for Jesus. If we abandon that, there is no Reason for the cross.
[00:32:36] If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Because God is just. Someone had to die. Jesus died in our place so that we didn't have to experience the just judgment of God.
[00:32:55] And because of that, we also not just didn't have to experience the judgment of God. We now can experience peace with God. Amen.
[00:33:04] We don't have to go before God trembling and going, I hope he's going to like me today. I hope I've done enough good things today for him to accept me and hear my prayer. Now because of what Jesus has done, he makes peace possible with this God. That we said is, as chapter one lays out for us, a God who.
[00:33:21] Look what it says in verse two. It says God is jealous and avenging wrathful. How do we have peace with a God like that? Because of who?
[00:33:29] Jesus Christ.
[00:33:31] Jesus Christ.
[00:33:33] Nahum, chapter 1, verse 15 uses this phrase, a phrase that, you know, I think it's in a song as well. And the book of Romans echoes it. Now, Nahum says this phrase. He says that the feet of those who bring good news is beautiful. And what he's talking about is the people who might come running, the messenger who comes running to tell me that Nineveh and Assyria is going to fall. That's good news. That is beautiful feet, right? Someone with beautiful feet because they're coming with really, really good news. Now here's what Paul does in Romans. Paul uses the same kind of imagery and says, yes, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach what good news? In Nahum, we're talking about good news because God is destroying evil.
[00:34:20] Now in Romans, we're talking about something different. We're talking about someone coming with good news because God has made peace possible.
[00:34:28] God has made peace possible.
[00:34:30] And that's what we see in Romans 10:15. How are they to preach unless someone, unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news? Jesus took the wrath of God. This is where we see Jesus come to life in the Book of Nahum.
[00:34:46] Let's look at the application and then we're going to close today. We're going to spend a couple more minutes on this perhaps than usual.
[00:34:52] I want you to zoom back a little bit from your Bibles. Don't close them, just zoom out a little bit and think about the timeline that we've talked about so far. I said earlier at the Beginning that Nahum is like book two or the second, the sequel to what's the first part of that story?
[00:35:09] Jonah. Right. And Jonah was about 100, 150 years or so before Nahum. He goes to Nineveh, he preaches, they repent, and they actually live in this repentance state for a time.
[00:35:23] But something happens. They start to backslide, don't they?
[00:35:28] They start to backslide. They start to shift away from what they know has been preached within a few generations, really. They start going back to the ways that they were before, being evil, unjust, torturous type of people.
[00:35:42] The question that I want us to consider here today, very personally is how does that happen?
[00:35:49] How does that happen?
[00:35:50] Because you and I here today, you've been, maybe you're here right now. You're thinking, all right, I'm in a place where I'm in a good relationship with God. But I know there's been places in my life where I kind of stepped back, where I kind of backslid. You know what I'm talking about, right? We've kind of like, I was in this place with God, my relationship with his people, but I've since distanced myself for one reason or another. And maybe that's. Maybe not publicly, but personally with you and God, I. How does that happen? And more pointedly, how can we intentionally aim ourselves in a direction to keep that from happening?
[00:36:23] I want to just give you three things to be aware of.
[00:36:27] Now, I say this very clearly to say it's not that if you're going to be like Nineveh or the Ninevites, that when you backslide, God's going to unpack all of his wrath on you. You're followers of Jesus, covered by the blood of Jesus. But it is important for us to pay attention to our own relationship with God. And. And what do we need to do to help stay in that kind of union that God wants? Here's three things that you can be aware of to help you stay and me stay.
[00:36:51] Walking with God the way that we should. And these are reflected in the book of Nahum. Firstly, you can write this out. Firstly, you can write this down. Beware of busyness.
[00:36:58] Beware of busyness. Nahum shows a God who is never hurried or distracted. He acts with perfect timing and total control.
[00:37:09] In contrast to much of our lives where busyness has become the way we do things. It's almost a statement of pride. How are you doing these days? Oh, I'm so busy.
[00:37:21] It's like a thing where.
[00:37:23] Oh, good. Because if you Said, you know what? I'm just taking things in stride, taking things slowly. People are going to be like, what is wrong with you? Taking things slowly.
[00:37:34] Busyness can keep us from. Nahum 1:7 says this to find our refuge in the Lord. Busyness can keep us from that, from resting in the stronghold of our life.
[00:37:45] When we are running around here and there, it can be so easy that we just forget that. And the Gospel invites us in Matthew 11 to run to Jesus, all you who are weak and heavy laden, because I will give you what rest.
[00:37:59] And for some reason, when we're really, really busy, we look for something else to do to give us rest. And the something else that he's calling us to do is find him and trust in Him. Pause, push pause on the calendar. The second thing that you can write in is beware of cultural creep.
[00:38:18] And not to say that the culture is creepy. That's not where that's going there.
[00:38:22] Beware of how the culture is creeping in. Nineveh's culture was marked by cruelty, arrogance, sexual exploitation and celebration of power. We see this in chapter three, verses one through four and more. Even Judah lived not far away from the dominance of the Assyrian Empire. And they were regularly tempted to say, should we do things their way?
[00:38:46] And we even see some years later, for Judah, they thought the way that they were going to be safe was by having strong military army around them. We've seen that in previous months as we've journeyed through some of the prophets. But God says this. You are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. So beware. Romans, chapter 12, verse 1, 1 and 2. To beware of the things going on in the world and not let it creep into your life. The things that we said, oh, that's terrible. After a while we could be like, okay, well, it's not so bad. And we're. Well, that's just normal part of the world now. And. Okay, well, I don't do it as often.
[00:39:23] If you look back in your life, you used to think something was terrible, and now it's kind of a part of your life. It doesn't happen in an instant. Compromise.
[00:39:30] Compromise happens. What?
[00:39:32] Slowly.
[00:39:34] Cultural creep happens slowly. I never would do that. Okay. I won't usually do that. I sometimes do that. Okay, sometimes I don't do that. And I feel like I'm now stuck always doing that.
[00:39:46] It slowly creeps in. We compromise with the things around us, and this often happens in a vacuum when we isolate ourselves from everyone else. Cultural creep often happens in a vacuum. And this is one reason why staying in healthy community can be so valuable and particularly healthy community that's willing to call you out or call out when they see the culture creeping into your life. Let's look at the third and last item here on your outline and then we'll close Beware of empty wells. And this is a term that we see in scripture, particularly like Jeremiah 2 references. It doesn't seem we struggle to kind of picture what that means for us because we don't dig into the ground to get our water as they would have.
[00:40:30] We can image this in many other ways though, where we might find things to do that we think is going to satisfy us. And we need to friends beware of the things that we think are are going to meet the needs that we have as a majority and we tack on God. And here's the thing, it's not a problem to say my identity is also tied to my I'm a dad or I'm a pastor or I'm a friend or I'm a neighbor. But here's the question, what's the majority made up as the majority? And the majority should be from what we see here in God's Word, it's this. The majority of my identity is tied to my relationship with God.
[00:41:09] Because when everything else crumbles, and it very well might, the majority of my identity is tied to my relationship with him. And so I'm going to be okay. It doesn't mean that this is not going to. It's going to be hard when I lose them. Right. My identity shouldn't be tied as a parent, but I don't want to lose my kids.
[00:41:25] Majority of my identity is tied to God. What is the Gospel response here? It's this. Jesus says, I'm the living water, take refuge in me. I want to satisfy the the things that you're longing for.
[00:41:37] So in conclusion to this whole book, we see a few things. One, God is good. Amen.
[00:41:42] God is faithful.
[00:41:44] And God sent Jesus so you and I could experience the regular goodness and mercy of God over and over and over again. Let's pray.
[00:41:53] Thank you Lord, for your great kindness towards us.
[00:41:57] As Romans says, it's your kindness that leads us to repentance.
[00:42:03] We see even this book, it's not to instill in us fear and so we're scaring other people into a relationship with you. But as you say, it's your kindness that is meant to lead us to you.
[00:42:16] So thank you for your kindness and in the many ways that you are kind Lord, I pray that we would have eyes to see that kindness and continue to run back to you.
[00:42:25] That we perhaps even as the closing of this was, that we would beware of the things that are drawing us away from you.
[00:42:32] And we thank you for your abundant mercy and grace found in the person of Jesus Christ.
[00:42:38] Thank you that he took the wrath that was due us so that we could experience a right relationship with you to be called sons and daughters of the King.
[00:42:47] We thank you and praise you for that. It is not through us that any of these things occur, but it's through you alone. In Jesus name, amen.
