Persevere Because God Will Destroy All Your Enemies

Nahum 1:1-15

Introduction to the Old Testament Book of Nahum

Transcript

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. What
do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end. 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. From you came one who plotted
evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. Thus says the Lord, though they
are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. 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. 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. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace. Keep your feast, so Judah, fulfill your vows, for never
again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off. Let's pray
together. Lord God, we are grateful to be here together under the authority of
your word and as we come to hear from you, we thank you that these are your
words and we ask for your Holy Spirit's help in helping us both to understand
and to apply and to draw near to Christ. So we pray that you would help us be
good hearers and that you would make our hearts good fertile ground for your
word this morning. Amen. Okay, so as I said this morning, we're beginning a
short three-week sermon series through the prophetic Old Testament book of
Nahum. And as we get started, I thought I would ask for a quick show of hands.
How many of you in your life can recall being in a church and hearing a sermon
from the book of Nahum? So I kind of figured we would be in uncharted territory.
And you might be wondering as we get started, why? Why Nahum? What is it even
about? If you've read through the book, then you'll see that the complete focus
of Nahum is about how God is going to judge Assyria or Nineveh, which is the
capital city of the nation of Assyria. So you could wonder with good reason,
what does that have to do with me today? And that might start to explain why you
have not heard much preaching or teaching from the book of Nahum. So in March,
right before Easter, we preached through the book of Jonah and Nahum is the
sequel to the book of Jonah. It's historically speaking, what happens next? The
events of Jonah happen in the first half of the eighth century BC, let's say
around 770 BC. And as you may recall, God shows great, amazing mercy to the
nation of Nineveh when they repent after the preaching of the stubborn,
reluctant, proud prophet Jonah. So quick timeline, the Assyrians are the first
to be the first to be the first to be the Assyrians were famous, renowned in the
ancient world for their violence and their conquest. We talked about this in the
Jonah series. You can even today go to the British Museum in London and see
exhibits depicting the violence and brutality of the Assyrians of this time. In
about 770 BC, Jonah came with his message of judgment, his message of God's
impending judgment, and the Assyrians repented. Now, during this time, God's
people were divided into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the
south. But by 722 BC, so 40, 50 years later, Assyria invades Israel and takes
the northern kingdom away into exile. You can read about that in 2 Kings 17 when
the Israelites are carried off into exile. Then in 664 BC, so another 60 years
or so, the Assyrians go into Egypt and destroy Thebes, which was the capital of
the nation of Egypt at that time. Now we get to Nahum, 7th century BC, after
both these invasions of Israel and Egypt. Now it's around 640 BC. Assyria at
this point is a dominant world power. It's over 100 plus years after Jonah. Now
Nahum is prophesying God's judgment on Nineveh, the center of power and violence
in Assyria. There was mercy in Jonah, and now you get the sense there are not
going to be any more second chances. So you might wonder, what happened? What
about all the mercy, all the repentance, all the sackcloth and ashes and
mourning? And the cows and everyone turning to God in Jonah? Wasn't everyone
turning towards God? What happened? They were. But this is the general drift,
the general course of mankind. You do not have to go back to the 8th century BC
to recognize we as nations, as individuals, drift away from God. We drift. And
here comes Nahum, the prophet, coming with this oracle, meaning this prophetic
utterance about the future, speaking about the judgment that was to come to the
nation. And here's the main idea for us today. The main idea for us, you will
see as we work through this, the profound application that Nahum has to our
lives as God's people today. The main idea for us is persevere because God will
destroy all your enemies. Persevere because God will destroy all your enemies.
We're going to break this into three parts. First, the comfort of God's
judgment. Second, the goodness of God's judgment. And third, the victory of
God's judgment. Let's look at verse one, the comfort of God's judgment. Verse
one begins, an oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum of El
Kash. So the oracle, this prophetic proclamation, is about Nineveh, the capital
of Assyria. An oracle is a prophecy. It's a look into the future. It's a message
about how Nineveh is going to be wiped out. In that sense, the audience for
Nahum's message is the Ninevites. But the message is coming from a Hebrew
prophet, probably from Judah, probably from the Southern Kingdom. So the idea is
that the judgment oracle is being given, it's aimed at the Ninevites, but the
people of Judah are kind of eavesdropping. They're listening in as well. They
get to hear it. And Nahum's name means comfort. Names in the Bible have real
meaning. They're there for a reason. And we don't really have a biography of
Nahum beyond this verse. We don't know really a whole lot about his life. But we
know that Nahum would have observed the growth and dominance of the Assyrian
empire. He would have known the atrocities that they've committed, and he would
have seen their empire grow after they ransacked Israel in 722. They were
building an empire that was at least partly on the backs of Israelite slavery
and money. To give you an idea of the brutality of the Assyrians, I want to read
you a selection from an Assyrian engraving celebrating their military
accomplishments. This was from an Assyrian stone engraving written by one of
their kings. And when translated, it says this, Many captives from among them I
burned with fire, and many I captured alive. From some I cut off their hands and
their fingers, and from others I cut off their noses and their ears. In the eyes
of many men I put out. I made one heap of the living and another of the heads,
and I bound their heads to vines round about the city, their young men in the
fields of the earth. Their young men and maidens I burned in the fire. Those
were the sort of things that the Assyrians were known for. Then, back in his
home country, Nahum lived during the reign of Manasseh, the king of Judah. And
whether you want to talk about idol worship or child sacrifice or cult
practices, Manasseh is described in 2 Kings as the worst and most wicked king
that Judah ever had. So we can be sure, whether it was at home or abroad, Nahum
had observed and experienced horrendous things. And when you witness terrible
things or whether you experience them directly and personally yourself, those
memories stick with you. And you're forced to ask yourself, you're forced to
wonder, is this ever going to be made right? Are there ever going to be
consequences for the evildoers? What's going to be the end game of all this
evil? But Nahum's name means comfort. So what exactly is supposed to be
comforting about this message? Well, it's comforting to God's people. They are
the ones listening in on this prophetic message, and now they're hearing about a
future judgment that's coming for their enemies. So let's look at the second
part, the goodness of God's judgment. Look at verses 2 through 8. 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. Bayshon 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. Okay, who is this that God is so
opposed to? We're hearing about this vengeance and anger. Where's that being
directed? Well, we said the whole focus of the book of Nahum is how God is going
to destroy the foreign nation of Assyria, whose capital city is Nineveh. And
we've already heard about the atrocities of this nation, but even so, the idea
that God is jealous, avenging, wrathful, and so on, is that God is going to
destroy the nation and make us uncomfortable. You'll notice the repetition of
the phrase, the Lord is in this passage. The Lord is described as jealous and
avenging, avenging and wrathful, taking vengeance, keeping wrath for his
enemies, slow to anger, and great in power. And those are qualities that make us
uneasy because we do not see them perfectly balanced in our own lives or in the
people around us. Jealousy, for example, can have a negative connotation, but it
also means that you guard something vigilantly and refuse to let it have any
rivals. God's love is not vague in general. It's specific. And by definition,
that means there are things that God righteously hates and opposes. You would
never say, I love my wife, but there are also five or six other women that I
really love as well. A jealous love is specific. You would never say, my two
favorite football teams are the Bills and the Bills. You would be an idiot,
right? You would never say, I love my kids so much. I don't even care what they
do or who they associate with. A jealous love hates anything opposed to what it
loves. It is never indifferent. And when the Lord is jealous, it's not selfish.
It's in regard to his own glory and his own honor and it's in regard to his own
love. And it's very easy for us in our minds to domesticate God. We can make him
in our image. We can emphasize the characteristics about him that we like or are
comfortable with. It's one of the ways that Nahum helps us because we start to
get a full and comprehensive picture of God's love for us. The Bible, the whole
Bible is God's self-revelation and we need the whole picture to truly know God.
If we do not have a whole picture of what God is like, we start to make him in
our image and emphasize the things that make sense to us or that we prefer. And
God is not a gentle grandfather in the sky. He is a true love. He is a true
love. He is not a gentle grandfather in the sky. In Nahum, he's avenging and
wrathful. Now the text says that the Lord keeps wrath. In other words, his anger
is not impulsive. We saw this in the book of Jonah that the Lord shows great
patience. That is why we do not always or immediately see the wicked judged. And
it does not always happen on the timetable that we think would be best, but his
wrath is kept. In other words, it is stored up. It is preserved for those who
refuse to repent. The Lord is patient. He's slow to anger. He's not flying off
the handle. His anger is not self-serving or hasty like ours so often is. But
that does not mean that the Lord is apathetic or complacent or injurious. And he
does not clear the guilty. He's infinite in power. He's sovereign and majestic
over all of creation. Verses the second half of three through six describe a
theophany, like the appearance of God. And it says his way is in whirlwind and
storm, the clouds of 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. That reference to rebuking the sea and
drying it up, it's a reference to God's power over creation and the crossing of
the Red Sea and the drying up of the Jordan as Israel went into the promised
land. Those geographic places, they're unfamiliar to us. Bashan, Carmel,
Lebanon, they're places that symbolize greenery, fertility and beauty, and they
all wither. They all wilt before the power of God. And Nahum continues and says,
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. It's
a rhetorical question. The answer is no one. No one can stand. No one can stand
before God's anger. The Lord is avenging and jealous and wrathful. He's slow to
anger and is this is echoing the language from Exodus 34 that says he will by no
means clear the guilty. Do not think that he will. And. Verse seven says he is
good. So we think, how can he be good? How can he be jealous, avenging, wrathful
and good? We wonder how all those things can be true because we don't know
anyone that we would describe as jealous, avenging, wrathful and good. But it is
good news for us that God is avenging and wrathful. And here's what I mean by
that. As Christians, we are told not to take vengeance in our own hands, but to
leave that up to God. And yet we experience injustice, sometimes in small ways,
sometimes in large ways, all the time. Even if it's in small ways, it can still
be infuriating. Sometimes we want to get revenge. You might even fantasize about
getting vengeance or getting even in some way. But often the nature of our
experience is we feel helpless. We feel powerless to do anything about the
situation where we're taken to heaven. About the situation where we're taken
advantage of. Someone steals your parking spot or cuts you in line as though you
weren't even there. Maybe you play on a team and the coach gives special
treatment to someone for some reason that doesn't seem fair at all. This past
week, someone stole my credit card and I realized I had a recurring payment to a
hotel in Greece. We experience injustice on these small but still very
frustrating levels, and it seems like there are never any consequences for the
perpetrators. I'm the one on the phone with the bank. I'm the one changing my
payments. What's happening to this guy? But what if we start thinking about
injustice on a larger or more significant level? There's the injustice of
bullying and constant verbal bullying. Constant verbal belittlement. There's the
misuse of power by one individual over against another. There are more systemic
misuses of power where whole people groups are treated wrongly. You can look at
racial injustice. You can look at someone who's wrongfully detained or
incarcerated. You can think about the injustice of physical or sexual abuse when
someone uses power to manipulate another person against their will. And you can
look at your own experience or you can look more broadly at the news and see
that powerful people seem to be skating away with no consequence. And that can
be infuriating. That can feel helpless. But this is why it is so good that we do
not worship a God who sits on a cloud and strokes his long white beard and
wishes us all the best, but is actually powerless to do anything. What if none
of the injustice in our world was ever going to be made right? Would that be
good or would that be a good God? See, we often associate the goodness of God
with the positive circumstances in our lives. So it's a sunny day and things are
going well and my prayer was answered and I recovered from my sickness and God
is good. And that is not wrong. It's just not the only way that God's goodness
is expressed. Here in the text, we see God's goodness expressed in his perfectly
righteous judgment of his enemies. The Lord is good, our text tells us in verse
seven. He is 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 his
adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness. And where do we see the
goodness of God demonstrated most clearly? It's in the cross of Christ where
Jesus became the stand-in, the substitute for our sins, and the evil and
wickedness and injustice of this world was here. And at the cross, Jesus became
a refuge, which is the word used here in verse eight, a refuge for all who turn
to him in faith. In his resurrection, we see that Jesus overcomes the power of
sin and death. The resurrection indicates his victory and it points us forward
to the day when he will eradicate all of his enemies. And those who look to the
cross, they will be the ones who will be the ones who will look to the cross and
turn to God in faith will find refuge from God's judgment. God in his mercy has
created a means of refuge from his righteous judgment. But God will make a
complete end of his enemies, those who oppose him here on earth, along with sin
and Satan and death. So we see the goodness of God's judgment. We see the
comfort of God's judgment, the goodness of God's judgment. And then finally, we
see the victory of God's judgment. Look at verses nine through 15 with me. The
victory of God's judgment. What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a
complete end. 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. From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless
counselor. Thus says the Lord, though they are at full strength in many, they
will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you
no more. And I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.
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. Behold upon the mountains, the
feet of him who bring good news, who publishes peace. Keep your feast. So Judah
fulfill your vows for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is
utterly cut off. So once again, in verse nine, we hear that God is going to make
a complete end of his enemies. It will be once and for all. They will not rise
up a second time. In verse 10, Nahum compares the Ninevites attempts to fight
back. What that will look like in the future. He compares them to drunkards. In
other words, they will be slow and incapacitated and dimwitted as they try to
defend themselves. They will be consumed. Verse 10 says, they will be consumed.
They will be consumed. Verse 10 says like stubble, like little scraps of grain
that light quickly on fire and then immediately burn up and vanish. Their
destruction will be quick and immediate. They will go up in smoke almost
instantaneously. Verse 11 says from you came one who plotted evil against the
Lord, a worthless counselor. That phrase worthless counselor can be translated
sons of Belial. It refers to a kind of a demonic thing opposing God. It gets
used elsewhere in the Old Testament. It's used to describe people who are
despicable or who are depraved, people who are scoundrels. The one who took
counsel of the Lord could probably does refer to King Sennacherib, the Assyrian
king who taunts God directly, taunts the God of the Hebrews directly and sets
himself up against the Lord. You can read about that in second Kings 18. But
it's poetic language about an event that's going to happen in the very near
future. They have been scheming against God, taunting God and his people. And
now the Lord says, I'm going to make a complete end of you. Verse 12 and 13
says, Thus says the Lord, though they are at full strength in many, they will be
cut down and pass away. At this time, 640 or so B.C., the idea that Assyria
would be brought to nothing would seem laughable. They were a dominant world
power. Then the Lord's words shift back to his people in Judah, and he says,
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. God's judgment on evil is
very good news for those who have trusted him in faith because he'll put an end
to evil and injustice. And there is a reason why you cannot book a flight to
Nineveh today or travel to Assyria. It doesn't exist. Just like Nahum
prophesied, the Assyrian empire that seems so strong in the mid 600s was
overthrown just a handful of years later when the Babylonians invaded. 612 B.C.,
city, nation, destroyed, vanished from history. Verse 13, The Lord has given a
command 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. So as the chapter concludes, you might wonder, you can
wonder now, OK, OK, I know more about Nahum than I used to. What's the what's
the practical application, though, for us today? We have future hope that God
will crush our enemies and deal justly with evil. Anything for now? Nahum
concludes with these words of comfort to God. And here's where the application
comes as we conclude. Verse 14, sorry, verse 15. Behold upon the mountains the
feet of him who bring good news, who publishes peace. You know how sometimes you
can probably think of a time in your life where you were just waiting and
waiting for some type of peace? You can probably think of a time in your life
where you were just waiting and waiting for some type of news. Could be a health
diagnosis, could be someone that you were concerned about, could be a child that
you were just waiting and waiting and waiting, hoping for good news. Could be an
email or text message or phone call. But you were just waiting and hoping. This
is the seventh century B.C. before cell phones, before the Internet, before
planes, cars, trains, horse transportation. If you needed to get a message
somewhere, you relied most often on a human messenger traveling on foot. That's
why Nahum is talking about the feet of him who bring good news. And think about
this. Imagine if you were a faithful Israelite and your people had been
victimized and abused by the Assyrians. Then you are waiting for a message about
the outcome of the battle. And you see a messenger running and you can tell by
the way that he's running that he has something good to say. Imagine the joy
that would come to the people when they hear that messenger proclaim Nineveh is
done. It's gone. But that proclamation is more than historic good news. It's
more than something for us to just sort of visualize with our imagination about
how cool that would have been 2700 years ago. Nahum makes a direct reference to
Isaiah 52, where Isaiah proclaims salvation. That is to come through Jesus. Tom
read Isaiah 53 earlier. So Isaiah 52 immediately precedes this prophecy of the
suffering servant. And Isaiah 52 verse seven says this, how beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of him who bring good news, who publishes peace, who
brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your
God reigns. And as Christians today, we rejoice in the future hope of justice
and we rejoice that our God reigns in his resurrection. Jesus has accomplished
victory over all his enemies and over all oppressors, and we will see that and
celebrate that as his redeemed people. Isaiah said our God reigns and Nahum
reminds people using Isaiah's language that evil is not going to last forever.
And as God's people, we look forward to the complete consummation of his
victory. We see that foretold in the book of Revelation. Revelation 19 says
this, then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the
roar of many waters, like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out
hallelujah for the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns. So Nahum concludes by
telling these people, here's what's going to happen in the future. And then he
says, keep your feasts, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the
worthless pass through you. He's utterly cut off. In light of God's coming
victory, Nahum encourages God's people, keep your feasts and fulfill your vows.
The feasts were to remember what God had done in the past, to celebrate and
commemorate what God had done in the past. The vows were symbols of consecration
to God. And what that means is essentially persevere in faithfulness, commitment
and consecration. Look forward to what God is going to do. His justice is good
and he will eliminate all of his enemies. We live as Christians today in light
of that victory. So persevere in faithfulness, knowing one day God will destroy
all of your enemies. Let's pray.