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Sermon on Nahum. Uh, you probably know nothing about the prophet Nahum. You probably learn more by reading Nahum chapter 1, verse 1, than you could even possibly recall on Nahum. Nobody knows about Nahum. Nobody reads Nahum. Even when you read it, because you're reading through your Bible plan, you hurry up and get through it because you don't understand it. But right here in the beginning, it says he's preaching an oracle to a certain city, and the city is Nineveh. And some of you do know something about Nineveh because who is the prophet that is normally associated with preaching to Nineveh? What's his name? Yeah, we preached about him just a couple of weeks ago. And so you know something about Nineveh. And where is Nineveh? Well, you remember that after King Solomon died, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. And Nineveh is to the east of Israel and Judah. So when you say Nineveh, you're not just talking about the city Nineveh, although that is in view. You're talking about an entire nation, an entire kingdom of Assyria, which was a dominant world power at the time. Now Nineveh is located near Mosul in modern day Iraq. You might have known some people who've been there, or you might have seen it in the news. The Assyrians, the Ninevites, were known to be brutal, to be violent. When they conquered people, they did horrible things to the children, horrible things to the women, horrible things to the men. These were brutal, brutal, horrible people, but they were very powerful, and therefore they were very scary to unconquered nations in the region. And Jonah did preach to the city of Nineveh. Now I'm gonna do a little history with you. You guys stay with me, alright? Jonah preached in the 800s BC to Nineveh. And you remember when Jonah preached, the people repented, they believed in God, and God had mercy on them. And in fact, Jonah was irritated about that. Well, then the Assyrians in 722, like 100 years after Jonah preached, they came in and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and did all of those horrible things to the northern kingdom of Israel. But they let the southern kingdom of Judah be like a vassal state. They had to pay tribute. Well, Nahum is preaching in the 600s after Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. And soon after Nahum prophesies, the kingdom of Assyria was taken over by the Babylonians and the Medes. But anyhow, Nahum's message is meant to instruct and to encourage faithful exiles from the northern kingdom of Israel who have escaped to the still present southern kingdom of Judah. The faithful get to overhear what God is saying to the Ninevehes so that they will know that God is just not sitting around doing nothing about all the evil in the world. And you may have thought, I think God is sitting around doing nothing about the evil in the world. But the book of Nahum is to tell you that God's justice never fails. And what about what Assyria has done to God's people in the northern kingdom of Israel? God is coming for the Ninevehes. God is coming for the Assyrians. And one more thing from verse one. The name Nahum actually means comforter. But if you read the book of Nahum, it's comfort to God's people, but it's judgment on the Ninevehes and the Assyrians. So back to our text. Nahum chapter one, back to verse one. Here's what the word of God says: an oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkash. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it 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, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness. Skip down to verse 12. Now God is speaking directly to the people that are left of it, what is left of Israel. Verse 12. Thus says the Lord, though they, the Assyrians and Nineveh, are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, because God judged them, I will afflict you no more. And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart. Then in verse 14, God starts speaking directly to the Ninevehes again. The Lord has given commandment about you. No more shall your name be perpetuated from the house of your gods. I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile. And then finally, in verse 15, he's back speaking to Israel. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace. Keep your feasts, O Judah. Fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off. And this is the word of God. And all of God's people say, Amen. We received God's word at family church. Hey, throughout the Bible, you're going to see that God will give you what you want. God will give you what you want. You get to choose. If you want to rebel against God and then receive the judgment of God, you can choose that and God will give it to you. But if you want to turn from your sins and turn to the Lord and receive Him by faith and believe in Him, you can have the mercy of God. You choose the judgment of God or the mercy of God. God will give you what you want. You want to live a life full of violence and cheating and lying and depravity, you can. God has given you a free will for you to be able to do that. And you can do that, but you can only do that for some limited amount of time because God is taking notes on you. And God may be patient with you in your sin, but God is not passive with you in your sin. Just because God is being patient does not mean that God is being passive. God will give you a chance to repent so you can have mercy, but God will not be mocked. Be sure the Bible says, your sins will find you out. And if you read the book of Nahum, if you read it for yourself, and there are certain verses in Nahum and certain parts of it I won't even read in this room because the imagery is so violent and so jarring and so shocking, it would not be appropriate to read it in front of everyone who is in the room right now. But the point is that Nahum's describing the anger and the wrath of God against sin and sinners. And I guess the point of Nahum is that God is not just going to let unjust people be successful forever. God is not oblivious to the suffering of his people. And in Nahum, we're taught that God is particularly paying attention to the people who cause suffering for God's people because God has the last word over evil and his justice never fails. Now, I already said that Nahum is kind of like a sequel to the book of Jonah. Remember, Nahum is preaching a few generations after Jonah preached. Remember, in Jonah, uh we see that God's compassion is actually much greater than Jonah thought God's compassion should be. So if you think you can match God's compassion for compassion, you can't. God's mercy and compassion is so much greater than you and I probably think it should be. And yet in the book of Nahum, you see that God's judgment is probably more aggressive and more devastating than our judgment would be. And that's why I can't read you all of those shocking verses. But in Nahum chapter one, we already read a bunch of it. You know how it says the Lord is, the Lord is, the Lord is, the Lord is because this book is telling us how God is. Let me just highlight a few things for you. Verse 2 and 3. The Lord is jealous, avenging, wrathful. He takes vengeance on his adversaries. How many of you guys ever prayed a prayer like that? Oh Lord, I love you so much. Thank you for being our God. And I'm just so glad that you're so wrathful and take so much vengeance on your adversary. I mean, you don't pray like that. You pray, oh God, you know, have mercy and help me and this kind of thing. But when you read the Bible, you see God does have a dimension of mercy and compassion and love, but God has a dimension of vengeance and wrath against his adversaries as well. Look what he says in verse 3. The Lord is slow to anger, great in power. He does not clear the guilty. That's why if you're the kind of person who thinks, I'll just come to church some and I've got a whole section of my life, and I'm just gonna sin and sin and sin and sin, and I know I shouldn't be doing that, but I'll balance out the scales when I come to church, and I'm sure God understands that. Hey, I'm a grown man or I'm a grown woman, and nobody's perfect, and God's just gonna sort of be okay with this area of my life. When you read the book of Nahum, you can see God does not clear the guilty. God is taking notes, God is watching. And you and I should not think we're making private deals with God about our sins because God's very serious about sin. Look what he says in verse 5. God's very powerful. He says the mountains quake before him. Look in verse 7, though, it says that God is good. God is good. So how can he be good and have all of this vengeance? God is good because God is good because he invites anyone who wants to to turn from their sins and to turn to him, and they can find refuge in God. You don't need refuge from God, you need refuge in God. Because God's mercy is wider and deeper, and his compassion is greater than you could ever imagine. Some of you in this room have been through some things that are so horrific. Some of them because of your own choices, and things have fallen apart, and people would think no one could ever put this back together again. But the mercy of God and the compassion of God and the refuge of God has been there for you. And miracle after miracle after miracle, you're here in this room right now. You're here in this room because of the mercy of God and the compassion of God on you. That's who He is. He found refuge in God. And if you're here this morning, you might be sitting up, hey, balcony people, you guys still up there? You guys good? Our summer balcony people, you are the best. And we also have uh we got people that are new to family church, and people, some of you are Christians, and some of you are not Christians yet, and you're thinking about it. Hey, listen, man, if you are in a situation where you cannot do for yourself what needs to be done, I want you to know that God can do for you what you cannot do for yourself. And I want to invite you, I want to urge you, stop running to every person on every podcast, stop running to every Instagram expert, and run and find refuge in God because God's mercy and compassion and love is there for you. He wants you. You've got to find your refuge in God. So God spends the rest of the book of Nahum after chapter one, chapter only three chapters. Chapter two and three are all bad news for Assyria. You just read it like chapter one. Oh, God, you know, he's mad, but he's good. He's gonna take vengeance, but you can find refuge in him. And then chapter two and three, God's like, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this, and it is brutal. So this sermon by Nahum is really hard for the remnant of Israel to believe after everything Assyria has done to the northern kingdom of Israel. Because at this point, Assyria is ascendant. At this point, Assyria appears invulnerable, but God's gonna do something about that. Say, well, okay, okay, but like what's God actually going to do? All right, well, look at chapter 1, verse 14. He says, I'm gonna wipe them out so that they have no descendants. There's gonna be nobody to perpetuate their name. You know what I love about Family Church? We've got a bunch of these children up here who are going to live to perpetuate the name of God long after we're not living anymore. We're gonna have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from these families who are going to be alive and speaking the name of Jesus and living out the name of God and living out the gospel and and and carrying on the work of this church long after we're gone. Because there's another generation. But he says to the Assyrians, I'm gonna cut you off. There's gonna be nobody to perpetuate your name. Look what he says in verse chapter one. He says, I'm gonna tear your gods down. I'm gonna go into your temples, I'm gonna tear down your idols. But then in verse 15, he said, A time's coming when everyone who finds refuge in God will hear the good news of God's victory over their enemies, and they'll worship God together and celebrate together God's victory over their enemies. You're gonna have your feast, Judah. You're gonna be able to get this thing back together. So, what are we gonna learn? If you're gonna take some notes, just three ideas. Number one, on your notes, we can learn, number one, you should trust that God is always in charge. You should trust that God is always in charge. Even when it looks like the bad guys are winning and it looks like God isn't doing anything about it, you can know as a Christian who believes the Bible, you can trust that God is always in charge and his justice never fails. Nahum chapter 1, verse 3 quotes from Exodus chapter 34. Nahum chapter 1, verse 3, it says, God does not let the guilty go unpunished, and he will by no means clear the guilty. That's a quote from Exodus chapter 34. Moses said that. When things in the world go sideways, and you think God has lost his mojo in the world, I assure you that God will by no means clear the guilty. Things in the world will go sideways, but God is always in charge. And some of you, look, guys, I know that some of you are sitting in here right now in the middle of situations that you cannot control. There are things happening in your life. You're just not fully in control. You can't control the choices of your children once they get to a certain age. For some of you, it's your cancer. It's the health situation of your spouse. For some of you, it's your work. Your work is a mess. And you don't know how it's gonna come back together. For some of you, it's your depression. You are wrestling with your depression. You're trying to be joyful, you're trying to do the right thing, but that depression, that dark cloud, it goes away, but it comes back, and you can't really control all of that. And you may be in a situation where there are people actively undermining you or actively trying to mess you up. And you know who they are. And you're asking God, God, when are you gonna do something? When are you gonna vindicate me? When are you gonna heal me? When are you gonna bring my prodigal back home? When are you gonna put my marriage back together? When are you gonna give me a husband? When are you gonna give me a wife? God, when are you gonna do something out here? And I wish I could answer those questions for you. And if God did what I told him to do, hey, we'd fix all of it right now. But God doesn't work for me, I work for him. God didn't, I didn't make God, God made me. And sometimes we have to submit to the goodness of God, take refuge in him, and recognize that he is always in charge. But what do we do when we're faced with difficulty we can't overcome? Number two, on your notes. Run to God as your refuge. Run to God as your refuge. As believers, we're not seeking refuge from God, we're seeking refuge in God. We're not going to be judged for our sins. We've turned from our sins, we've turned to Christ, who's been crucified and raised from the dead for us. We received Jesus by faith for ourselves. All of our sins are forgiven. We don't face the judgment of God. Jesus is taking the judgment of God on Himself in our place. So we're not running from God, we're running to God. We're not trying to find refuge from the judgment of God, we're finding refuge in the mercy of God. And I want you to know if you ever feel like God's against you, read the book of Nahum. If you're a believer in God and you've received Jesus by faith, you're a Christian and God is not against you, God is for you. God is not your adversary, God is your friend and your father. There's a lady who goes to our church. I had a conversation with her recently about her husband, and her husband doesn't come to church. She comes by herself. And she brings her kids. And she loves her husband. And she knows that if her husband would just give his life to Jesus, it would change everything for their family. So I'm praying for that guy. But this lady, a dear sister in Christ, cannot save her husband. She can't make choices for him. She can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. So what can she do? She's got to run to God as her refuge. She's got to trust that God is in charge. Pastor Derek told you this week how we went to kids' camp. Now we have two sessions of the kids' camp. Hundreds and hundreds of kids. It was unbelievable. I was sitting outside the camp chapel on Thursday night, and one of our volunteers, another mom, was telling me that she really wanted her little boy to make a decision to put his trust in Christ. It's a similar situation to the other lady. The boy's dad is not a Christian and actually doesn't want the boy to become a Christian. But the mom is a Christian and she does want the boy to become a Christian. It's a tough situation. What can she do? She can pray and she can run and find refuge in God. That's what she must do. And by the way, her son accepted Christ on Friday night at camp with his mom. That was pretty cool. Last little story from camp. I love this. There's a kid named Ryder who's being raised by his grandma, Connie, and they've been coming to family church for the last three or four years. And Ryder's in the fourth grade. He goes to the King's Academy. And at kids' camp, Ryder was listening to the sermons and he was talking to his group leader in our follow-up sessions. And Ryder felt God speak into his heart. So on his way home from camp, he ends up sitting next to Jose, who's one of our college age interns. And he and Jose start having this awesome conversation. And Ryder tells Jose, I'm ready to put my faith in Jesus. So when they got back to the church building, right here in this room, he waited until everyone left. He got grandma Connie and Jose and Pastor Zach and Miss Lauren. And right here on the front row in this room, yesterday, Ryder put his faith in Jesus Christ and received Jesus by faith. And now Ryder's a believer in Jesus. And why am I telling you this? Because moms, single moms, dads, single dads, I'm telling you, you've got to run and find refuge in God. And God can do for you and for your children what you cannot do for yourself and what you cannot do for them. And you've got to believe that. You've got to believe that the message of Nahum tells us that. And that's why at Family Church, we want kids at family church to believe that God is for them and that God is there for them. We always say to our kids in the kids' ministry, hey, we love you, but, and the kids will repeat back, God loves you more. And why do we tell them that? Because we want them to know that even as little children, when things are difficult, they can run to God as their refuge. And one of the problems in Nineveh is that the people who repented and believed when Jonah was preaching, they did not pass that faith on to the next generation. And so two generations later, God is calling down fire from heaven on those people because they didn't pass their faith to the next generation. And that's what we do. We're teaching people to run to God because he is our refuge. And even though things can be difficult in this world, one day Jesus is coming back, and when he does, he's going to make all things right. But what do we do while we're waiting for Jesus to come back? Number three, on your notes. Keep declaring the good news of the gospel. Keep declaring the good news of the gospel. You've got to keep telling yourself and your spouse and your kids and your grandkids and your coworkers and your neighbors and your friends, everybody you can, that Jesus is there, that Jesus has been crucified and raised from the dead. And because of Jesus, anybody can turn from their sins and run to God as their refuge. And that's why Nahum chapter 1. Verse 15 says, The feet of him who brings good news are beautiful. Now I know some of you guys are super proud of your feet. Some of you ladies spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month getting your feet so that when you wear sandals in South Florida, you feel proud of it. I'm glad. Some of you guys, if you're proud of your feet, don't talk to me about that. That makes me feel weird about you. But the Bible talks about beautiful feet in multiple places. Right here in Nahum, it talks about it. And Nahum is actually quoting from Isaiah chapter 52, verse 7, where the prophet Isaiah says, coming over the mountains are the feet of the one who's bringing us the good news, and those feet are beautiful to us. And St. Paul picks up the same idea in Romans chapter 10. He says, When someone tells you about Jesus, wherever they've been, wherever they've had to walk, wherever they had to come from to get to you, so they can tell you about Jesus, their feet are beautiful. It's not talking about their physical feet with their toes and their toenails. It's talking about what God has done to get that person in front of you so they can tell you about the good news of God. And the messenger, you say, Well, why are you talking about them coming over mountains and the messengers coming over the mountains? He's talking about, like, let's picture, let's picture the army. Your sons and your husbands are away in the battle, fighting a battle for the very survival of our families and of our town. And the ones who are left behind are in the town, and we're sitting there waiting to find out what happened in the battle. Because if we lose, we're gonna get overrun by the enemy and they're gonna mistreat us terribly. And here comes a messenger coming from the battle. He's dusty, he's dirty, he's bloody, and he comes over the mountain and he comes down the path, and he comes into the town. And we're waiting what happened in the battle. Everything hangs in the balance right now. What happened in the battle? And he says, We won. We defeated the enemy. We routed him. We're free, we're safe. We're gonna get to live for another generation. That is the feet of the one who brings the gospel. Christ has been crucified and raised from the dead. We have won. The mercy of God is yours if you will run to him as your refuge. That's why his feet are so beautiful. And you might be thinking, that's a bunch of Old Testament. I don't know about the Assyrians and the Ninevehes and the Northern Kingdom and the South. I can't even keep all this stuff straight. Aren't we Christians? 2,600 years ago in the Middle East, does this really matter right now? How does this even speak to the gospel of Jesus? Because I listened to you read those verses. It didn't say Jesus one single time. I'm glad you asked. I'm not going to read everything in Nahum chapter 2 and chapter 3, but in Nahum chapter 2 and chapter 3, there's all these specifics that God is going to do to the Assyrians for what they've done to his people. And God says in two different places, I am against you. To the Assyrians. You've rebelled against me, you've rejected me. That means that I am against you. And I do just want you to know God loves you. And I say God is for you. And if you're a Christian, that's certainly true. But if you are rejecting God and you are rebelling against God and you refuse to find refuge in God, at some point God will be against you too, just as he was against the Assyrians. And in chapter 2 and chapter 3, I can't read it all because it's too brutal, but let me just say it this way In Nahum's Sermon against the Assyrians, he says that those who are being judged by God will be stripped naked in public. And they'll be forced to do a public walk of shame as part of how God judges them. He says their bodies will be pierced because of what they've done against God. He says they will die for their sins and their crimes against God's people. And he says it in very vivid terms. But if you keep reading the Bible and get to the gospels, and here's what you find. Jesus is stripped naked in public. And Jesus does his own walk of shame with his cross on his back. And Jesus has his body pierced. And Jesus dies not for his own sins, but for the sins of the world. And so who is judged? For Christians? Christ has been judged for us. So God is not against us, God is for us. If you're a believer in Christ, have you turned from your sins? Have you turned to Christ? Have you received Jesus by faith for yourself? Because if you have, then God is for you and you can find refuge in God. But if you have never turned from your sins and received Jesus by faith, at some point you're gonna meet the same fate as this series. I mean, that's the choice. We've all sinned. You can run to God and find refuge because Christ has taken the judgment of God for you, or you can die in your sins, and you can take the judgment of God for yourself. Receive the mercy of God because Christ has been judged for you, or reject the mercy of God and receive the judgment of God yourself. But you should repent, you should believe, you should receive the mercy of God, you should remember, Christian, the mercy of God, the great love of God. You should return to God, you should come back to God, you should lean into the mercies and the beauty of God and to help you remember how merciful and how loving God is. Every Sunday at Family Church, we take the Lord's Supper, which we're going to do right now. Because when we take the Lord's Supper, we eat the bread, remembering that Christ's body has been broken for us. We drink the cup, remembering that Christ's blood has been shed for us. And we as believers don't have to endure the judgment of God because Christ has done it for us, because he loves us. Now, at Family Church, we always tell you that the Lord's Supper is for Christians. If you're here today and you're not a Christian yet, you should not take the Lord's Supper. It's not for you. And at Family Church, we believe and we teach it's better for you to take the Lord's Supper after you've been baptized as a believer by a merchant, like we saw in the videos today, and after you become a part of a neighborhood church. Some of you here this morning say, Well, I'm a Christian, I've been baptized, but this isn't my church. It's okay. If you're a baptized believer and you would take the Lord's Supper at your church, take it with us this morning as part of the extended family of Jesus that goes around the world. But right now, let's bow our heads, let's confess our sins to the Lord. Let's remember how much God loves us. Let's look if you're in a situation, run and run to the refuge of God right now and and and let's contemplate who we are in Christ. And in just a minute, we'll all eat and drink the Lord's Supper together.