SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Take your Bible with me this morning and make your way to the Old Testament prophet of Naum, otherwise known as Nahum.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a very small book in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So don't feel at all embarrassed if you need to make your way to the front of your Bible and the table of contents to find the page.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Nahum is only maybe just a couple of pages long in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know or aren't familiar with those Old Testament prophets, it's very easy to miss.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take us on a theological journey for a few weeks this month.
SPEAKER_00: In technical terms, this journey will be a theology, that is a study of God, by recognizing seismology.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those who are not geologists or seismologists, that means earthquakes.
SPEAKER_00: A theology of earthquakes.
SPEAKER_00: Our scientific word seismology comes from two Greek words psio, which means to shake or to quake, which then forms the noun form seismos.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible has quite a bit to say about earthquakes.
SPEAKER_00: There are many times when that word appears in both the Old and New Testaments.
SPEAKER_00: There's much to glean from those passages about following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible doesn't merely speak about the ground shaking.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, when the ground shakes in the Bible, it almost always has something to say about God.
SPEAKER_00: So our path is to know God through what the scriptures say about the earth quaking.
SPEAKER_00: And as we know him more fully, we can follow him more faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: So as we begin to ponder that thought, would you bow in prayer with me as we go before the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we ask that you would speak to us through your word.
SPEAKER_00: As Jeff prayed a moment ago, we we find ourselves at all kinds of different places where maybe the ground underneath us feels as though it's shaking.
SPEAKER_00: For some people, that might be literally it, various places in the world.
SPEAKER_00: But most of us feel at times as though our steps are uncertain, our future is uncertain.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know which way is up sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: So I pray that by your Spirit, you would use your word to guide us, to direct us, and to solidify our hope in you.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So think with me about when the earthquakes.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have experienced an earthquake.
SPEAKER_00: How many have experienced an earthquake?
SPEAKER_00: Good, more than I thought.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: You know then the sound of the rumbling.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's been described to me as a storm, sometimes as thunder, as a rumbling, as a train running by.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you felt the movement of the ground under your feet.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard the sound of objects falling, crashing, maybe in your home.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've even seen videos of earthquakes when you haven't participated in them, as if you actively choose to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen the ground shifting, you've seen it moving, you've seen streets and sidewalks buckling, buildings collapsing under the shaking of the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as you ponder those senses and those memories and those images, what would you say is the most stable part of the earth in an earthquake?
SPEAKER_00: The scientist tells us it's the bedrock.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even think about that, so thank you, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what was in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: In my mind was mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've seen rock slides on mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, I've not been in the middle of one, but I've I've witnessed them.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen them slide down the sides of mountains.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen big chunks of rock just fall off the sides of mountains.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen massive chunks just break off and fall.
SPEAKER_00: But in my mind, in an earthquake, a mountain remains virtually unmoved.
SPEAKER_00: It's there before and after.
SPEAKER_00: It's visible.
SPEAKER_00: It may not be exactly the same, it may be slightly changed.
SPEAKER_00: But think of something like mountains or bedrock or something like that that in your mind is virtually unmovable when the ground shakes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, whatever that might be, what does it imply if that unmovable element, in this case mountains, what does it imply if those things themselves quake and shake and even heave?
SPEAKER_00: That question lies beneath the chapter of an Old Testament prophet that I want to consider for a few moments this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And that's Nahum chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bible open or your device there, I'm going to read the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_00: It's short, it's 15 verses, if you'd like to follow along with me.
SPEAKER_00: Says an oracle concerning Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: This is the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is a jealous and avenging God.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is avenging and wrathful.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is slow to anger and great in power, and Yahweh will by no means clear the guilty.
SPEAKER_00: His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds of the dust of his and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
SPEAKER_00: He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, he dries up all the rivers.
SPEAKER_00: Bashan and Carmel wither, and the bloom of Lebanon withers.
SPEAKER_00: The mountains quake before him, the hills melts, the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.
SPEAKER_00: Who can stand before his indignation?
SPEAKER_00: Who can endure the heat of his anger?
SPEAKER_00: His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: He knows those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: What do you plot against Yahweh?
SPEAKER_00: He will make a complete end.
SPEAKER_00: Trouble will not rise up a second time, for they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink, they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
SPEAKER_00: From you came one who plotted evil against Yahweh, a worthless counselor.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says Yahweh, though they are at full strength, and many, they will be cut down and pass away.
SPEAKER_00: Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more, and now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh has given commandment about you.
SPEAKER_00: No more shall your name be perpetuated.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your feasts, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you.
SPEAKER_00: He is utterly cut off.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: When I planned this sermon series, I chose this text without recognizing that today was a day when we gather together to celebrate the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Lord in his providence could arrange a text like this with that kind of a day.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you see that as we go along.
SPEAKER_00: Because it starts out very dark, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Very heavy.
SPEAKER_00: But it ends with good news, the celebration of good news.
SPEAKER_00: The first sentence of the prophet's book helps orient our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Between 612 and 600 BC, I'm sorry, 612 and 660 BC, a man named Nahum received new revelation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that word oracle means.
SPEAKER_00: It's new divine revelation from God directed against Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian war machine that terrorized the Middle East for several centuries, three to four centuries.
SPEAKER_00: Nahum's name is similar to a Hebrew word that means comfort.
SPEAKER_00: And so to some Hebrew scholars, they speculate that that short word from God was intended to comfort God's people about his sovereignty over their dreaded enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: You can take comfort.
SPEAKER_00: God's in charge of this.
SPEAKER_00: But that's speculation.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't reveal why this divine revelation was given to this man through Israel, but spoken to a pagan people.
SPEAKER_00: It is clear, however, that God intended to deliver a direct and damning message of judgment against Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember who that was?
SPEAKER_00: Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Our good friend Jonah, who spent some time in the belly of a fish.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah preached in Nineveh, and that city repented, scripture says, and did away with their idolatry, and in some form or fashion trusted in God.
SPEAKER_00: But that was about a hundred years before Nahum.
SPEAKER_00: By the time of Nahum, they have gone back as though in time, but in reality they've just gone back to trusting in their idols, to their sinful, idolatrous ways.
SPEAKER_00: And so now, through Nahum, God has announced that he would do to the Assyrians what they had done to others.
SPEAKER_00: God was about to go on a rampage against the Assyrians and their capital city, and he would do that through an up-and-coming, powerful group of people from around the ancient city of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this book is about.
SPEAKER_00: You can read the rest of it this afternoon before coming back for a budget meeting.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this book is about.
SPEAKER_00: And while this first chapter sets the stage for God's later statements, it has far more to say about God than it does about the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mini theology textbook that teaches us about our God.
SPEAKER_00: We see the covenant name of God, Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I read that purposefully here.
SPEAKER_00: We see that covenant name in our English translations nine times in this one chapter.
SPEAKER_00: God is highlighting who he is.
SPEAKER_00: He's highlighting who he wants his people to know him as.
SPEAKER_00: He's highlighting what he wants his enemies to see him as.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's revelation in this first chapter is foundational for every Christian's view, for our theology of God.
SPEAKER_00: And on the one hand, it's very, very simple, but as often is true in Scripture, something that is very simple has immense depth.
SPEAKER_00: This first chapter tells us that our God Himself is immense.
SPEAKER_00: And he is far more powerful and fearful than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And he is good.
SPEAKER_00: He's good and he's ready to save those who trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: These are realities that we need to internalize so that they impact our worldview and our lives as disciples of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a common problem among modern churches and Christians is that we fail to draw near to God.
SPEAKER_00: We imagine him, we we perceive him, we think of him, we even worship him as though he's far off and distant.
SPEAKER_00: And so he feels not close, he feels small, almost manageable, and even in the worst cases, ignorable.
SPEAKER_00: But this chapter of Scripture does the opposite, it draws us near to God so that we see his immensity and our smallness.
SPEAKER_00: We see and feel his power and we begin to fear him.
SPEAKER_00: But we also sense the immensity of his kindness and his compassion and his protectiveness for his people.
SPEAKER_00: Notice then what God says about himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is not what the prophet said.
SPEAKER_00: We have to remember, God is revealing this to Nahum, and Nahum is recording it for God's people and for the Ninevites.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's revelation of himself.
SPEAKER_00: And as he does so, we see what that means for his people and for his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, in verses 2 and 3, we see that God's character is righteous and dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is a jealous and avenging God.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is avenging and wrathful.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is slow to anger and great in power, and Yahweh will by no means clear the guilty.
SPEAKER_00: So on the one hand, we see a sense of God's holiness here, his righteousness that sets, establishes, and maintains a standard of what is right and what is wrong that is grounded in himself.
SPEAKER_00: But that also means that if you are not on the side of holiness, if you find yourself in sin, if you are a sinner, if you are a Ninevehite who has turned away from God and grounded yourself in idolatry, God is a dangerous God.
SPEAKER_00: He avenges violations of his being.
SPEAKER_00: He avenges violations of his character.
SPEAKER_00: He avenges violations of his word.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a group of people that God intended to destroy a century earlier.
SPEAKER_00: They turned in repentance to him, and yet now they've turned again, they've repented of their repentance and are now back in their sin.
SPEAKER_00: And God is telling them, I've stored up my wrath for you.
SPEAKER_00: But he is slow to anger.
SPEAKER_00: That's a sense of his patience and his righteousness, tempering, if you will, his vengeance.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly vengeful because he is perfectly righteous.
SPEAKER_00: God never acts in vengeance in a way that is sinful, unlike human beings.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a new revelation, but it's a reminder of God's essence that God declared to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 34.
SPEAKER_00: He said of himself, I am Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's character, my friends, regardless of our relationship to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is who he is before his enemies and before his children.
SPEAKER_00: He is just and he is right.
SPEAKER_00: And he will avenge all wrongdoing because it is a violation of his being, of his character, and of his word.
SPEAKER_00: This is vital to remember when you are tempted to think that God is not dealing with sin or dealing with wrongdoing or not treating you or other people or situations righteously.
SPEAKER_00: You may have a sense of what's right, of what's just that you feel is being violated, and you need to remember that if wrong has been done, God feels more violated than you do.
SPEAKER_00: Because any wrong, any sin, any injustice is first and foremost a violation of the character, the being, and the word of God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: He will avenge at the right time and in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: And so because God is just and righteous and dangerous, you can rest in him that he will do what is right at the right time.
SPEAKER_00: This was what Abraham trusted in when God told him, I'm going to go down and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham's bargaining with God.
SPEAKER_00: What if there's this many people down there that are righteous?
SPEAKER_00: Will you destroy it?
SPEAKER_00: No, I won't do it for that.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham says, Won't the judge of all the earth do what is right?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: He will do what is right.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to remember that God, who does what is right, is a dangerous God.
SPEAKER_00: As we move on into the middle of verse 3, we see that God's being is immense and fearful.
SPEAKER_00: His way, that is his road, the places that he travels, is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
SPEAKER_00: He rebukes the sea and makes it dry.
SPEAKER_00: He dries up all the rivers.
SPEAKER_00: Bashan and Carmel wither, the bloom of Lebanon withers.
SPEAKER_00: The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.
SPEAKER_00: Tornadoes, hurricanes, and the clouds above us seem vast and daunting compared to our stature.
SPEAKER_00: Who are we to stand before a hurricane or before a tornado?
SPEAKER_00: They're beyond our control.
SPEAKER_00: But God reminds us that He is so immense and so powerful that the elemental parts of this natural world are mere vehicles of God's movements and the displays of his presence by comparison.
SPEAKER_00: We're encouraged here to imagine the natural elements of our world that are beyond our control, that we cannot harness, and yet will come along and destroy anything in their path, and to feel ourselves powerless before them.
SPEAKER_00: And then to recognize that's nothing to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a display of his presence.
SPEAKER_00: That's just where he walks, that's where he treads.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he goes for a run on top of them.
SPEAKER_00: The foundational elements of this world, including what we need to live: rivers, water, seas, God speaks and they vanish.
SPEAKER_00: The natural beauty and the pride of regional treasures perish with God's displeasure.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon are.
SPEAKER_00: These were what we might say prized national parks.
SPEAKER_00: They're gone.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the most stable elements of the earth, the stability upon which we rely for daily life, instantly destabilize at the mere presence of our God.
SPEAKER_00: The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth heaves before him, even the world and all who dwell in it.
SPEAKER_00: Who can stand before his indignation?
SPEAKER_00: Who can endure?
SPEAKER_00: It's a fair question, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If you properly understand your God, you will arrive at that question.
SPEAKER_00: If you truly know the immensity and the righteousness and the holiness and the danger your God presents to you, you will eventually arrive at the question of who can stand before Him?
SPEAKER_00: The implied answer is, yeah, nobody.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing.
SPEAKER_00: A proper theology, that is, a correct knowledge of God, generates a fitting fear of the mighty God that leads to an honest view of God's holy vengeance.
SPEAKER_00: This is who God is, regardless of our relationship to Him.
SPEAKER_00: This is who God is before His enemies and His children.
SPEAKER_00: Your God is righteous and dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: Your God is immense and fearful.
SPEAKER_00: He is not someone to be trifled with.
SPEAKER_00: Modern Christianity tends to forget that God is not a toy or a pet.
SPEAKER_00: Calling him the man upstairs or the big guy up above is not just demeaning and profane, but it presents the wrong idea that God is manageable and always safe.
SPEAKER_00: But we're reminded here that the mountains and the hills quake when God approaches.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even have to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's his mere presence.
SPEAKER_00: The inanimate creation fears him more than living creatures.
SPEAKER_00: The earth heaves before him.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, we would do well in our walk with Christ to know him as the disciples did on the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee when the Lord stilled the storm with mere words.
SPEAKER_00: It says they were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked, Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: Shiver and fear before him, for he is righteous, he is dangerous, he is immense, and he is fearful.
SPEAKER_00: Now this God would be terrible and torturous if we stopped there.
SPEAKER_00: But notice what follows in verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: God is good.
SPEAKER_00: And in his goodness he displays that he is relational.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is good.
SPEAKER_00: He is a stronghold in the day of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: He knows those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: When do you plot against Yahweh?
SPEAKER_00: He will make a complete end.
SPEAKER_00: Trouble will not rise up a second time.
SPEAKER_00: There are four definitive statements here in these verses, verses seven to nine.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is a definitive statement of reality.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is this God, who we've already defined as righteous and dangerous, as immense and fearful, is at the very same time the essence of goodness.
SPEAKER_00: He does not merely do good or accomplish good, he is good.
SPEAKER_00: He defines goodness.
SPEAKER_00: God's attributes or characteristics are sometimes called perfections.
SPEAKER_00: They're called perfections because nothing is lacking in God.
SPEAKER_00: God is not mostly good.
SPEAKER_00: God is not partially good.
SPEAKER_00: God is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, not even a minuscule lacking in his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: He is so good, he is so perfectly good that the goodness of anything else is defined by its comparison to God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you a little bit of perspective here.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime we question God's ways with us, we question his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: You have a rough morning, you have a rough day, rough week.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you got a surprising bill that you just don't know how you're going to pay, or a diagnosis, or news that was just unexpected, and what is God doing to me?
SPEAKER_00: At its core, we're questioning God's goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Is he truly perfectly good?
SPEAKER_00: And we've already seen that God is jealous of his perfections.
SPEAKER_00: He is jealous of his goodness in a righteous way.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a definitive statement of reality.
SPEAKER_00: God is good.
SPEAKER_00: Second definitive statement is one of application.
SPEAKER_00: This God is the essence of protection.
SPEAKER_00: His goodness here is qualified in terms of protection.
SPEAKER_00: He is a stronghold in the day of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Now if God is a God of perfections with nothing lacking, do you think this is a weak stronghold?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Are there cracks in the wall of this stronghold?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Can this stronghold be broken down?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Can this stronghold somehow in some way diminish God's goodness?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is good.
SPEAKER_00: He is a stronghold in the day of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a statement of reality, a statement of application, and then a definitive statement of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He knows those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: This God, this God who is righteous and dangerous, who is immense and fearful, who is good and relational, he knows.
SPEAKER_00: That's an intimate relationship, an intimate awareness of and relationship with those who run to him for protection because they trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that he doesn't say that about his enemies in the next verse.
SPEAKER_00: The enemies are going to come to a complete end.
SPEAKER_00: But God knows.
SPEAKER_00: He knows those who run to him as their stronghold.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth definitive statement is a statement of annihilation of those who oppose him.
SPEAKER_00: And he does this with apocalyptic language.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, but with an overflowing flood.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think God needs to say something more than once, you better listen.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, verse 8, he will make a complete end of the adversaries.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if God is a perfect God, if his characteristics and his attributes are perfections, not lacking anything, do you think anything is lacking when God says he's going to make a complete end?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in case you doubt that, he says it again in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Twice.
SPEAKER_00: He will make a complete and utter end.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever God's opponents plot against him is doomed to fail.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, friends, you don't want to be on the wrong side of this God.
SPEAKER_00: He is righteous and holy.
SPEAKER_00: He is dangerous and to be feared.
SPEAKER_00: He is immense and powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And he's good and relational.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you want to be in a right relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Notice, though, that God is righteous and dangerous and immense and fearful and good all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: These are perfections that coexist equally and perfectly simultaneously.
SPEAKER_00: God is all at the same time perfectly dangerous and perfectly good.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly immense and perfectly knowledgeable of those who run to him.
SPEAKER_00: He is to be feared.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's not safe.
SPEAKER_00: But he's to be trusted because he's perfectly good.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have read the Chronicles of Narnia?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a shame.
SPEAKER_00: All of you need to read the Chronicles of Narnia.
SPEAKER_00: When the children in C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe met Aslan and Narnia for the first time, C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote, People who have not been in Narnia, in case you don't know, that's an imaginary land, people who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: To illustrate that, he narrates the encounter between the children and the beavers who teach them about the great lion Aslan, a character in the story who represents Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, said Susan, I thought he was a man.
SPEAKER_00: Is is he is he quite safe?
SPEAKER_00: I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.
SPEAKER_00: That you will, dear, and make no mistake, said Mrs.
SPEAKER_00: Beaver.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.
SPEAKER_00: Then he isn't safe, said Lucy.
SPEAKER_00: Safe?
SPEAKER_00: said Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Beaver.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you hear what Mrs.
SPEAKER_00: Beaver tells you?
SPEAKER_00: Who said anything about safe?
SPEAKER_00: Of course he isn't safe.
SPEAKER_00: But he's good.
SPEAKER_00: He's the king, I tell you.
SPEAKER_00: God is good and he's relational.
SPEAKER_00: But because he's dangerous and powerful and to be feared, a right relationship is vital.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in verses ten through fourteen, where we see the result of being on the wrong side.
SPEAKER_00: God's enemies are foolish and weak.
SPEAKER_00: They're like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink.
SPEAKER_00: They're consumed like stubble, fully dried.
SPEAKER_00: They're pathetic and powerless.
SPEAKER_00: What good are thorns that are all entangled together?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: What good are drunkards as they drink?
SPEAKER_00: Not much good.
SPEAKER_00: If something is just consumed like stubble fully dried, what good is that?
SPEAKER_00: It's pathetic and powerless.
SPEAKER_00: If you oppose God, that's what you are.
SPEAKER_00: From you came one who plotted evil against Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: What does God think of someone who plots evil against him?
SPEAKER_00: He thinks they're a worthless counselor.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says Yahweh, though they are at full strength in many, they will be cut down and pass away.
SPEAKER_00: Then he turns to Israel and he says, Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.
SPEAKER_00: I will break his yoke from off of you and will burst your bonds apart.
SPEAKER_00: Then back to Nineveh, Yahweh has given commandment about you.
SPEAKER_00: No more shall your name be perpetuated.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know for about 2,000 years?
SPEAKER_00: Not 2,000, yeah, about 2,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knew where Nineveh even was.
SPEAKER_00: That's how utterly destructive God's power can be.
SPEAKER_00: So not only are they pathetic and powerless, they're foolish and finished.
SPEAKER_00: But notice when this description of God's enemies enters into Nahum's vision, it's only after the revelation of God's greatness.
SPEAKER_00: This is significant for our perspective on life.
SPEAKER_00: Our view of things in this world can only be a correct view of reality when we see it in light of God's character and being.
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, our view of right and wrong is only correct when it is informed and formed by God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is the proper standard of what is right and what is wrong, because he is the essence of perfect righteousness and justice.
SPEAKER_00: Beware then when you accept willingly and take in the world's point of view on what is right and wrong, acceptable or unacceptable.
SPEAKER_00: Because the world's view is not likely to be informed by God, but by personal desire, by what makes you feel good.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, let your mind be transformed and renewed by God's revelation, not by what the creation asserts.
SPEAKER_00: And when we take that down to a more personal level, it looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: Fear rises up within us when our circumstances feel more immense than God.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: When the circumstances in which you find yourself feel bigger than God, that's when you start to fear.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety increases when difficulties obscure our view of God's power and righteousness and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you shouldn't trust your feelings until you work them through what God says is true.
SPEAKER_00: The proper course then is to infuse our hearts and minds with God's revelation of Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Let Him be your guide, let Him be your standard.
SPEAKER_00: And He can be your standard because while He is dangerous and to be feared, and He is immense, He is also good.
SPEAKER_00: And His goodness here in this first chapter of Nahum is seen in the distribution and proclamation of good news of hope and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your feasts, so Judah, fulfill your vows.
SPEAKER_00: For never again shall the worthless pass through you.
SPEAKER_00: He is utterly cut off.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember the context here.
SPEAKER_00: This is about Judah and Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrians had already taken the ten northern tribes of the Jewish people captive, carting them off to foreign lands and replacing them with other peoples.
SPEAKER_00: All that's left is tiny little Judah, likely fearful and anxious, struggling to trust God, wondering what the news from the mountaintops is going to report.
SPEAKER_00: Are they going to report that the Assyrian armies are on their way?
SPEAKER_00: Just over the next rise, around the next corner?
SPEAKER_00: They're a day away.
SPEAKER_00: What are they going to hear?
SPEAKER_00: Their world is shaking in turmoil.
SPEAKER_00: But God says, behold, on the mountains, even right this minute, the mountains that previously were shaking at God's presence are now resounding with God's proclamation of good news.
SPEAKER_00: The good news.
SPEAKER_00: This is the evangel.
SPEAKER_00: Greek word Ewangelion.
SPEAKER_00: It's a proclamation of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, this is salvation news.
SPEAKER_00: They would be rescued from their Assyrian enemies because the Assyrians were God's enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what God said in verse 8, he will pursue his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: By this point in time, the Assyrians were not merely Israel's enemies, they were God's enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And God is proclaiming good news of peace, of rescue, of salvation from the mountaintops.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to worry about the watchmen on the hills proclaiming that the Assyrians are coming because they're going to be proclaiming that there is now good news of peace God has rescued.
SPEAKER_00: The same phrasing is found in Isaiah 52, verse 7, in a similar context.
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrians are oppressors, and God said, Therefore, my people shall know my name.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, in that day they shall know that it is I who speak.
SPEAKER_00: How beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who announces good news of happiness, who publishes, proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of hope and restoration was connected here to removing an enemy's power.
SPEAKER_00: God said the good news was grounded in his greatness, in his power, and his immensity.
SPEAKER_00: He is bigger than your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one to be feared.
SPEAKER_00: He is the truly dangerous one.
SPEAKER_00: Yet he is good and he knows those who trust him as their refuge.
SPEAKER_00: This was Israel's story of good news.
SPEAKER_00: God was coming to rescue them from their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, you have this story too if you trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because the New Testament completes this picture for us in the book of Romans and chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 10, the Apostle Paul asserts the salvation that comes through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And he does this by just kind of randomly, it seems, pulling out quotations from his Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He starts in verse 8 of Romans chapter 10 by pulling from Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 14, saying, The word is near you, it is in your mouth, and it is in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That is the word of faith that we proclaim.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Then pulling from Isaiah 28, verse 16, he says, For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
SPEAKER_00: For the scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
SPEAKER_00: Then in verse thirteen he pulls from Joel chapter two, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse fourteen and fifteen he pulls from Nehemiah 1 and Isaiah 52.
SPEAKER_00: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
SPEAKER_00: For as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, Romans 10 tells us two important truths.
SPEAKER_00: It tells us that the immense and dangerous and fearful and good, the righteous and the vengeful God who rescues those who trust in him has come to his people to rescue them, and his name is Jesus the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And he has come proclaiming the good news of peace and salvation for those who trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: That good news in Romans chapter 10 is not the rescue from earthly enemies who can kill the body.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's the rescue from the wrath of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one from whom we must be rescued.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the one who rescues us from himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is dangerous because he is righteous and jealous.
SPEAKER_00: But in his goodness, he satisfied the righteousness of God by bearing the wrath of God for our sin himself.
SPEAKER_00: The Lion of Judah became the lamb who was slain.
SPEAKER_00: In our Savior, the vengeance and wrath of God find satisfaction in his death for sin and redemption of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And in our Savior, we see the wrath of God poured out on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if all we see of Jesus is his kindness and his compassion and his meekness for the lost and the hurting who need refuge, if that's all we see, we miss that God is also very dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is perfectly holy and perfectly just.
SPEAKER_00: Never forget that the mountains quake before God.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about it, you would not want a loving and kind God who could not avenge sin, evil, and wrongdoing.
SPEAKER_00: You would not want that kind of a God.
SPEAKER_00: You want a God who is to be feared and who is jealous for his people.
SPEAKER_00: You want a God before whom even the mountains melt and quake, whom you can run to as a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: You want a dangerous God who is to be feared above all gods.
SPEAKER_00: You want a God who is to be feared and who is jealous for his people.
SPEAKER_00: You want a God before whom everything quakes.
SPEAKER_00: But God is only a saving God if He is righteous and good.
SPEAKER_00: And He is.
SPEAKER_00: And what God did in taking on human form and dying on the cross to satisfy the holy wrath of an avenging God is the most powerful, righteous, kind, and beautiful display of that.
SPEAKER_00: So the first lesson of the theology of quaking is that God is so immense, so powerful, righteous, and dangerous that even the mountains shake in fear.
SPEAKER_00: May our view of God be so enlarged that we find him bigger and bigger each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: A dangerous God, yes, but a good God who rescues us himself.
SPEAKER_00: In the second book of the Narnian Chronicles, C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's Prince Caspian story, we read about Lucy's first encounter with Aslan since the first story.
SPEAKER_00: The lion says, Welcome, child.
SPEAKER_00: Aslan, said Lucy, you're bigger.
SPEAKER_00: That's because you're older, little one, answered he.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you are.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: But each year you grow, you'll find me bigger.
SPEAKER_00: May it be our prayer that we grow and grow, and our God grows and grows, and then you will know that your God is greater.
SPEAKER_00: Even when the mountains quake.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you as your people.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, humbly acknowledging that maybe too often our view of you is too small.
SPEAKER_00: We confess that.
SPEAKER_00: And we we confess too that we think we can control our world, our circumstances, and our lives.
SPEAKER_00: When what you are really looking for is for us to trust you with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you have demonstrated for us that you are wholly trustworthy, and that you've done so by fulfilling your promise of good news and of peace with God.
SPEAKER_00: By entering this world to take on the human form so that you might die to bear the wrath of God against our sin.
SPEAKER_00: May you draw our hearts to trust in you alone for our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And may we make much of you.
SPEAKER_00: May we make much of your greatness, your holiness, and your righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That would take it upon yourself to show us your goodness to us.
SPEAKER_00: Turn our hearts towards you, we ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.