Woe And Wow - [Nahum 3:1-7]

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Well, as you know, we're going through the book of Nahum in the Bible and I love the book of Nahum.
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Not everybody loves this book though. Some say it's monotonous, judgment all the time.
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God takes his oppressed people and judges the nations that oppress him over and over and over.
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I mean, it's so redundant after all. One man said, why would a pastor ever dedicate a series of sermons to Nahum only to make his congregation listen to him repeat week after week that God will judge the wicked nations.
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It's almost like why would a pastor ever preach song of Solomon or Nahum from the pulpit? Well, I can think of lots of reasons.
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Why don't you take your Bible and turn to the book of Nahum pretty much in the middle of your Bible. You can use your table of contents.
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That's fine. One of my favorite pastors, I looked at his Bible once and he had tabs on his
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Bible for the books of the Bible to find them easier. And I thought that has given me license if I ever want tabs.
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It's not a sign of immaturity. It's just a sign. That's all. In the book of Nahum, God's reputation is at stake.
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That's one of the reasons why I love Nahum. God is holy. God is to be honored.
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And God will make sure that sin is punished. I like Nahum because from the very beginning, you have to look at the world through the lens of God and his transcendent majesty.
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That is to say, we walk by faith and not by sight. We see things and we analyze things.
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But Nahum forces you to look through everything, including judgment, through the lens of God's righteousness and God's sovereignty.
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When I read the book of Nahum, I say to myself, those sins are so gross and they deserve punishment.
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I don't want to do those sins. I want to hate my own sin because if the Lord Jesus died for such sins,
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I don't want to revel in them. Maybe I could ask it this way. Is God well -pleased with you?
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Is God well -pleased with you? Remember the shepherds and the angels in Luke chapter 2.
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It says, and suddenly there was an angel with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts praising
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God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is well -pleased.
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Are you well -pleasing to God? And the answer is we realize how we fall short of God's glory.
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We transgress God's law. How can we be pleasing to him, especially when he demands perfection and righteousness, because that's who he is.
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When I read the book of Nahum, I think the only way I can be well -pleasing to God is the person and work of the
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Lord Jesus. Nahum makes me think, you know what, I am so glad I have a savior. I have sins to pay for.
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I don't have to pay for them. God will mete out his justice. We see that in the book of Nahum.
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And every sin will be judged either on you in hell forever or on the
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Lord Jesus at Calvary. So when I read judgment books like this, prophets, minor prophets, the judgment of God, I don't say to myself over and over and over, it's only judgment.
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I think over and over and over, how could I stand before his indignation? Who could stand and take the wrath of God forever?
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And we think of the Lord Jesus for those three hours at Calvary when it was dark and it was as if the torments of hell were condensed into three hours and then just thrown onto Jesus as he bears our sin.
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I love Nahum because any time there's a discussion of sin and judgment, I think, oh, I'm so thankful for a friend of sinners.
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B .B. Warfield said, there is nothing in us or done by us at any stage of our earthly development because of which we are acceptable to God.
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We must always be accepted for Christ's sake or we cannot ever be accepted at all.
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This is not true only of us when we believe, it's also true after we have believed.
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It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing.
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And so when I come to the book of Nahum, we take a good long look at the judgment of God and that leads us straight to Calvary and leads us to be thankful that for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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Okay, just a little background information with Nineveh and Nahum and the Assyrians. Israel has been oppressed by Assyrians for a long time.
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This book is talking about the lower part of Israel, what we'll call Judah, and they're the ones who are in the thicket now.
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They're oppressed by this capital city called Nineveh. Remember Jonah went to Nineveh?
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When you compare Jonah and Nahum, it's kind of interesting because Jonah the disobedient prophet, Nahum the obedient prophet.
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Jonah preaches repentance and they do. Nineveh repents. Nahum is talking about the rebellion of Nineveh because that repentance was short -lived.
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It only lasted 100, 150 years and these Ninevites are cruel.
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They are gruesome. They are wicked people and history talks about this as well. These Ninevites loved to punish, loved to judge.
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They were wicked. They were awful and what do God's people need when they're so oppressed? They need a message of comfort and the name
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Nineveh means God is my comfort. God cares. God knows.
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God is going to deal with the enemies. Does God care? Is God indifferent? Does He know my persecution? Nahum answers that question.
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So here's what we're going to do this morning. Nahum 3, 1 to 7 and the outline is simple.
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Verse 1 is the woe, W -O -E, and verses 2 through 7 is the wow,
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W -O -W, and that's really what's going to happen. I mean if you've read this ahead of time, you will know there's a woe and there's wow.
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I could say it this way, I dare any of you to fall asleep during the woe and the wow section.
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I mean it is just vivid. You feel like you're there. You can smell the battle. You can taste the battle. You can see the dust.
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You can hear what's going on. Nahum is saying, you know what, you are oppressed now but in the future and it will happen within 50 years, history tells us,
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Nineveh will be judged. So chapter 1 was kind of like the prelude. You hear the rumblings of the battle.
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Chapter 2 and 3, the battles ensuing. For Nahum's readers, it would be in the future but it will be true.
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And so of course, like last week, I talked about thinking about the Lord Jesus' return. We're going through things now but we know
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He's going to come back and that should give us comfort. Verse 1, the woe versus 2 through 7, the wow.
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And before we even get into the text any further or at all, I want to read you a couple things from the history panels about how wicked the
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Assyrians were. I've learned a new word this week and it's called an Assyriologist.
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You have to be careful when you say Assyriologist because then my phone says waiting, right?
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Assyriologist, that's happened before. One of the kings of Assyria said in this history book, but only
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Ashurbanipal, that was the name of this king, put vindictiveness on display. Only he slashed the face of a dead enemy, desecrated tombs of the dead he had not been able to punish when living.
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One inscription reads of Ashurbanipal, he said, I pierced his cheeks with a sharp edged spear, my personal weapon, by laying the very hands on him which
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I had received to conquer opposition against me. I put the ring into his jaw, placed a dog collar around his neck and made him guard the bar of the east gate of Nineveh.
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So I'm going to take the kings and I'm going to put dog collars on them and I'm going to besmirch their reputation. I will desecrate everything holy about them.
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And these are God's people now that they're doing this too. No wonder chapter 2, I am against you,
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God said. No wonder chapter 3, I'm against you. Of course, because when you touch the apple of God's eye, his people,
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God is going to respond. Shall not the judge of the earth do right?
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Genesis chapter 18, verse 1, the woe, W -O -E.
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I was talking to a young man after the service and I said, with horses you say woe, but this isn't that kind of woe.
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This is something you never want to hear from God. Woe, doom, impending disaster.
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That's what the word woe is. Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder, no end to the prey.
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It's not as if God said, I'm just going to judge you and you don't deserve it, but I'll do it anyway. You're like some father who spanks the kid in anticipation of what they might do, but they haven't done anything yet.
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They murder, they lie, they break the commandments of God that are written on their heart and creation.
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There's greed everywhere you go. There's blood in this city. Did you know the
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Assyrians, they would cut heads off, they would cut feet off, ears off, noses off, they gouged eyes out, they lopped heads off, they would impale bodies and they would peel the skin off of living people.
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And this is a bloody city and they're doing that to God's people. Do you think God will intervene? These were not only bloody people, but liars.
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You can read 2 Kings 18 and how the king of Assyria lied to Hezekiah by saying, come and make peace with me.
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Everything will be fine. We're going to do everything just right for you. And then he afflicted him instead.
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Lying, lying, lying, not only bloodshed and lying, but there's all kinds of greed. And you can just see the things that they would heap up, the plunder in verse 9 of chapter 2 over and over and over.
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This is a woe to the persecutors of God's people. Now, when
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I read this, I think, oh, that's good. Thanks. This is a sermon for today. What about woe?
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Did you know that woe is not only for the Old Testament prophets? All prophets of God pronounce woe.
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Who's the ultimate prophet of God? Who's the ultimate Nahum of God, the comforter of God? Who's not just priest, who's not just king, but who is the ultimate prophet?
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Did he, the Lord Jesus, pronounce any woes? Let's find out. Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 11.
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I want you to get the full weight of a woe so that you say to yourself, you know what? I never want to be on the receiving end of that.
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I'm not persecuting God's people, but could I ever receive a woe pronouncement from God, impending doom?
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Be careful. Run for your lives. It's over. What's the opposite of woe, by the way? Blessing, curse, blessing, woe, and to use the old language, wheel, w -e -a -l.
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God the Son gives blessings, of course, Sermon on the Mount. But does Jesus love incarnate ever say like Nahum, woe to you?
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I mean, woe to none of us is bad, but there are other woes that you never want to be on the receiving end of, especially from the prophet of all prophets.
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Matthew 11, verse 20. We look at two sections of woe here in Matthew. So we see the relevance of judgment, sin, forgiveness, and trusting in the
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Lord Jesus. I love this passage. Matthew 11, 20, look for the words woe and repentance.
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Then he began to announce the cities, Matthew 11, where most of his mighty works had been done.
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Right? So Jesus heals the servant of the centurion. He takes care of Peter's mother -in -law, heals her.
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He heals paralytics. He raises little girls from the dead, cast out demons.
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And he did these things in some of these cities where most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent.
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So he denounces them. They're not thinking rightly about their sin. There's something about sin where you have to say,
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I am a sinner. I deserve judgment. Romans chapter three, verse 19 says, when the law is preached against us, it's, it's, it's use is like a mirror so we can see ourselves so that we see our need of a savior.
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So the law shows us, you know what? I'm undone. If the God of the universe exists and he does, and I stand before him in judgment and I will,
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I I'm undone because I haven't perfectly obeyed. I haven't had good attitudes, motives. I didn't think rightly about my sin.
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I wasn't burdened by my sin. I didn't think rightly. I didn't repent. Verse 21.
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Here it is. Woe to you, Corazon. This is from Jesus. Woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works done and you had been done in tire inside and those
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Gentile wicked cities, I could go to Vegas and Amsterdam and do those miracles.
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You know what they would do? They would have repented. They would have been burdened by their sin long ago and visible to fruit of repentance, sackcloth and ashes.
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And when Jesus says, I tell you are verily are truly or amen. Amen. You better listen.
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Verse 22. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for tire and side in those wicked
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Gentile cities than for you and you, Capernaum.
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Will you be exalted to heaven? That's where Jesus's hometown was. Essentially, as he was older, that's where he lived and did his miracles.
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You will be brought down to Hades for the mighty works done in you had been done in of all places. What's the most wicked city you could ever think of?
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Its name evokes wickedness. Sodom. It would remain to this day.
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But I tell you, there it is again by Jesus. That'll be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.
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Jesus says how terrible it would be, how awful it will be if you see the works of Jesus and don't say,
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I think rightly about my sin. And by the way, is that practical for us today? Is it practical for you?
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I don't want anybody here who's not trusting in Jesus to go. You know what? I know Jesus.
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He healed. He was compassionate. He was a good teacher. He walked on water. He stilled the seas.
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He lived a perfect life of God's good pleasure. He died on the cross. He was raised from the dead. He said he's coming back.
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And you know what? That's good for other people. I'll do that later. That's not really up my alley. Friend, I have a word for you.
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Here's the word. Whoa. The word woe comes and says, you know what?
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There's judgment. You have to think, you know what? If Jesus does all that, what he says is backed up by his miracles.
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They must be true. They're authentic. Therefore, I better believe what he says. And he didn't just come to die on the cross as a good example, although that was a wonderful example of love.
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He dies on the cross as a sin bearer because my sin, your sin deserves hell.
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And therefore, Jesus dies in our place. And so Jesus is saying, I did all these miracles and these people should have been saying,
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I'm sinful. I feel the weight. I feel the burden. My conscience convicts me.
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I know it's wrong. And how terrible it would be. That's what the word woe is. How terrible it would be if I'm judged.
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Jesus says woe to those people who will not repent when they know who Jesus is. Could anybody be saved?
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Look at verse 25. You get a little insight into Jesus praying to the father.
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How'd you like to hear Jesus pray? Well, here it is right here. Can you imagine? I thank you, father,
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Lord of heaven and earth. He chooses who goes to this place, heaven, because he's the
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Lord of it. That you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, father, for such was your gracious will.
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By the way, he praises God that sometimes God conceals the truth about salvation.
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And sometimes he reveals the truth at God's good pleasure. You're like, I don't like this whole sovereignty thing.
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Well, as Spurgeon said, I don't blame you. Nobody really does. God's utter sovereignty until they submit to the truth and go, you know what?
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Here, Jesus even praises the father for concealing and revealing. What's he say? All things have been handed over to me by my father.
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That means all things. No one knows the son except the father. No one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.
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Jesus praises the father in this prayer for revealing matters of salvation to some and concealing others.
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God's Lord, he can reveal, not reveal. He can conceal, not conceal. He is free to do whatever he pleases.
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And Jesus trusts him and praises him for that. And then now we come to the passage that you all know and love, rightfully so.
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Some people weren't burdened by their sin, those in Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, but other people were burdened.
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Verse 28, Jesus said, we've seen his sovereignty. Now we see the responsibility to respond by faith.
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Verse 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.
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That is, when you recognize how tired you are of your own sin, how weary you are of your own sin, how burdened down, it just makes you almost shrink the weight of it all.
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You're squatting weights and it's 400 pounds and you're just going down, down, down you go and you just feel the weight of your sin on your shoulder.
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What does Jesus say? Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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Isn't that amazing? So you know what? Jesus comes along and he does these miracles to back up who he is, so the people might rest in him and trust in him.
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When you feel the burden of your sin and you say, you know what? I need a savior. I need someone to bear my sin.
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I don't want to bear it. The woe here is, if you are not a
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Christian and you feel no burden of your sin, no impending doom, no judgment, my word for you today is, woe!
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Doom is coming for you. Say, well, how important it is for prophets to say doom?
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Very important, because that's exactly what Jesus does. Because when you know there's doom coming, that makes you have to say, you know what?
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I need to be right with God. I need to make sure everything's in order. How do I do that? Well, it's based on God's good pleasure,
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Jesus said. And so God's good pleasure has a response and that is, come to me.
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Do you notice what the text says? Does it say work? Does it say come and work?
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Come and do this. Come and be baptized. Come and work extra hard. What does the text say? Come. If it said come and do anything else, it'd be more of a burden.
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There's a woe that goes out to people who say anything even less than, you know what?
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Come by faith alone. Not come and do religion, but just simply come.
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Which leads me to one more passage before Nahum and that's Matthew 23. This is a doozy, as we would say in Nebraska, but I learned it after the first service that doozy comes from a
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Polish word that means big. This is big. Remember doozy? That's a doozy, right? Anybody say that anymore?
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Some say doozy? Okay, good. Thank you. It's not just Nebraska. Matthew 23, the
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Lord Jesus with seven woes. I mean, it's one thing to go, you know what?
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There's a woe coming to people who won't rest in Jesus. And if you haven't rested in Jesus by faith, you must.
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Are there any other woes that might be applicable for today? Because we don't live really, you know, around Nineveh or we're not enslaved to some city or something like that in country.
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I want to make sure everyone here is trusting in the Lord Jesus. But I also want to make sure that we understand salvation rightly and full of grace alone.
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Verse 1 through 36 in Matthew 23 has seven woes to scribes and Pharisees.
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Let's just read a little bit and you're going to be able to understand what goes on and why
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Jesus would say no. These are the leaders. These are the religious leaders. And verse four, it says, they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, laying them on the people's shoulders, and they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
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So the Pharisees, they come along and they say, we're the leaders. And by the way, this is what you have to do in order to be pleasing to God.
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The ESV Study Bible has a note in it for this verse that maybe is my favorite note in all the
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ESV Study Bible. And it's a wonderful Bible for notes. Listen what the ESV Study Bible says about Matthew 23, verse 4.
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Heavy burdens describe the extra biblical tradition of the rabbis that was a pillar of the Pharisee branch of Judaism.
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It was intended as means of making the Old Testament relevant to new life situations, but its massive obligations had become burdensome and oppressive.
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Hey, we've got the Old Testament, Exodus 21. We just read it. It's got all these things. How does that apply to my life today?
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I need to make it applicable today. I need kind of like five points on the PowerPoint to say, this is what God says.
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And then now these are the other extra new laws you should do. How can
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I make it relevant? These leaders said, basically, it's God's grace plus what you do.
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That's how you stand before God. And what does Jesus do? Verse 13. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.
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You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You slam the door right in their face for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
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Think about it. Okay. I'm the pastor of the church. What's my main responsibility?
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My main privilege, my main job is to make sure you go away from God, to make sure you don't trust the
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Bible, to make sure you think, you know what, this is all just like a fellowship group that's tax free. And you can have some friends because you're not really friendly yourself.
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And we can all get together. That's the only hypothetical, by the way. My responsibility, of course, by the power of the
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Holy Spirit is to lead you to who God is through the scriptures, to proclaim them, to tell you these people do the opposite.
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These are leaders and they take you away from God and his truth. And Jesus says to that, whoa, verse 15.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You travel across sea and land. I mean, sincerity means nothing.
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Evangelism means nothing. If you're not talking about the object of faith, Jesus, and we becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself.
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This is the Lord Jesus talking. How would you like to be on the receiving end of that? Woe to you, blind guides.
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Verse 16. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Verse 23, tithing mint and dill and cumin and neglected weightier matters of the law.
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Verse 25, you clean the outside of the cup and the plate inside full of greed and self -indulgence. You get for that a woe.
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Verse 27, woe to you, your whitewashed tombs outwardly appear beautiful, but full of dead people's bones on the inside.
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And the final seventh woe is found in verse 29. You build the tombs of the prophets, decorate the monuments, and then these are all people you've killed anyway.
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Are woes applicable today? Well, I'm not like oppressed by people.
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And so that doesn't seem to be applicable. But what about this? I think there's a good lesson to be learned here with Matthew 23 and these
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Pharisees. Make sure you don't undo the free offer of the
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Gospel that Jesus gave in Matthew 11. Matthew 11, come unto me.
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You don't have to work. You can find rest. There's no heavy burdens for you. Why? Because to come to God, you have to perfectly obey.
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And I, Jesus, perfectly obey in your place. So there's nothing you can do or bring or anything else because it's all tainted by sin anyway.
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So you come freely. Come and enjoy this salvation. It's like water without price.
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You don't even have to buy it. I've done it all. Jesus paid it all. Salvation is all done.
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The response is not what these Pharisees did. Never ever, learn a lesson from these
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Pharisees. Never ever tell unbelievers what they have to do in order to be saved.
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You have to do these things in order to be saved. That's Pharisaical. That would deserve a woe from God.
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When the Lord Jesus lives the life, dies the death, is raised from the dead, he ascends, he's seated in the heaven and he's praying.
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And he says, here's how you are right with me. You trust me. You believe.
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It's knowledge, ascent, and trust. Yeah, but I want to do something.
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I know it's built into our system, but it's torqued. There's nothing we do ever to somehow say
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I'm right before God. So if somebody says you have to stop sinning in order to come to Jesus, that's wrong.
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God justifies the ungodly. It's the just for the unjust. There will be fruits.
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There will be a changed life. But you come to Jesus by something called faith alone.
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Is that true? Because faith is trusting in the object. There's nothing I do. I just say it's true.
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I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell. But Jesus, this God man who performs miracles and authenticated his work by raising himself from the dead, he said, you trust in me.
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You believe in me. And the first thing the Pharisees want to do is here's all these extra rules. That deserves a woe.
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The law of God for the unbeliever is a mirror. I need a savior because I see my blemishes, my sins.
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And the law of God after we're Christians is meant to guide us and direct us. But we don't obey it to say children of God.
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Woes come from Jesus when you add works to the gospel and woes come from Jesus and you don't trust him by faith alone.
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So now let's go back to name. I wanted to make sure you understand that the woes are not just from Old Testament prophets, but they're from the ultimate prophet, the
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Lord Jesus. And we want to make sure we're trusting in him by faith alone so we don't hear the woe. And we're not trying to put burdens on people in order to come to Jesus.
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After they come to Jesus, there'll be all kinds of fruit. But that is not the call of salvation. The call of salvation is believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Now we come to the wow.
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There's a woe verse one and now there's a wow two to seven. I'm going to read two to seven and I guarantee you you're going to say in your mind wow the crack of the whip, the rumble of the wheel, galloping horse, bounding chariot, horseman charging, flashing sword, glittering spear, host of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end.
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They stumble over the bodies and for all the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings and peoples with her charms.
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Behold, I'm against you declares the Lord of hosts. I will lift up your skirts over your face. I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.
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I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.
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All who look at you will shrink from you and say wasted is Nineveh. Who will grieve for her?
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Where shall I seek comforters for you? Now if you go back to chapter three verse two, prophesied fall of Nineveh and here's what it's going to look like.
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It did happen. This is going to be in the future for the readers of this book, the original readers.
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And now we read it and we realize it happened. God will judge. Does God care for his people that are oppressed? Is there a comfort? Yes. And now you hear the language.
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You see the exclamation points. You see the short little blurb sentences, fast paced, vivid.
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It's like you're there. Crack of the whip. I mean, I can just hear it.
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The chariots need to be driven on, the horsemen need to be driven on, and those whips are snapping.
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The rumble of the wheel, galloping horse, bounding chariot. I think, of course, of Ben -Hur.
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Remember the chariot scene and everything else. And you can just imagine that you're there. There are horsemen charging, swords flash, spears glitter.
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And by the way, there's hosts of slain, heaps of corpses. By the way, there are so many dead bodies, it's hard to fight because you trip over them.
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Look at the text. They stumble over the bodies. Here's this military invasion and there's gleaming and there's glittering and there's tripping and there's stumbling because the judgment of God, it is enough.
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And God says, I'm against you. And here comes the judgment of God against all unrepentant sinners, especially those that oppress the people of God.
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And Nineveh loved to call themselves the city of the dead with all their magics and sorceries and calling up the dead for help.
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Dead, dead, dead. There's no end to the dead, just like in chapter two, verse nine, there's no end to the treasure.
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And by the way, the chariot language, it's got alliteration. That means in Hebrew, the first letter is the same.
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So it just sounds like what it is. These chariots are just on their way in. Can't you see them sent by God?
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It's almost like the snakes in the wilderness sent by God to judge Israel.
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And they're grumbling here, sent by God on a divine mission. Will they be victorious?
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They're impeded by all these bodies. The slaughter is so horrible. It reminds me of one of the inscriptions of Assyria about a pestilence.
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I remove the corpses, the king said, of those whom the pestilence had fell, whose leftovers after the dogs and pigs had fed on them were obstructing the streets, filling their places of those who had lost their lives to the terrible famine.
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There's so many corpses. This takes months to do, by the way, this battle dogs and pigs feeding.
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Verse four. And all the countlets, whorings of the prostitute.
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That's what Nineveh is. That's who her cult leader is, Ishtar, graceful and deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings and peoples with her charms.
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By the way, dear dads, as you teach your children the Bible, what I used to do at home with the kids were little and then they got bigger.
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I would just read a chapter, talk about who God is, talk about our sin, talk about the need for a savior.
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And then the next day we talk about the next chapter. And that's really good for lots of reasons. And here's one reason, because then kids ask certain questions and you have to answer them.
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And I'll never forget, as long as I live, I'm reading a passage just like this and the arm goes up by a young man in my family.
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And she's like, you know, I'm like, sometimes I just read the scripture. I don't look up.
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I just keep reading, plow through, everybody be quiet. This particular case,
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I said, yes, Luke. And he said, Daddy, what's a whore? I said, let's close in prayer.
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And there I gave an age appropriate answer. And it was sweet and wonderful. And of course, I remember to this day, what would
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Nineveh do? What's this whole scoop here? Hey, other nations come for pleasure, come for protection.
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I'll give you wives. We'll give you grain. We'll give you land. Come. We love you.
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You'll get something out of it. Just like a whore who says here, come and enjoy yourself.
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But there's a payday. There's a later. And so she Nineveh would seduce all these nations with her whoring charms fueled by satanic cults like the
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Ishtar goddess. But once they came to Nineveh, they were enslaved. They were trapped.
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They were having to pay tribute. They'd have to pay for slavery. And it was over. Look at verse four, who betrays nations with their whorings that were betrayed.
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There is to enslave. Hey, come for pleasure. But like the unsuspecting man in Proverbs five, six and seven, whores aren't what they look like.
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There's a payday for the prostitute. These people were seduced.
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There's a cultism that's involved here with Ishtar, a magic arts tied together, yes, with immorality.
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That's true. But the idea is just figurative language. Here comes the reason for your doom.
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This nation that was run by sex goddesses was going to pay.
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I don't think it's a big jump for me to think about other countries in the world that are run by demonic sex goddesses.
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United Nations defines human trafficking as this, quote, the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability.
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Exploitation shall include at a minimum the exploitation of the prostitution of others or the forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
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The United Nations describes Nineveh.
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And Nineveh, they love to brag. They love to boast.
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One writing in history of the Assyrians said, I carried off 55 ,000 people together with their possessions, wives, sons, daughters and gods.
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Some have calculated that the Assyrians have captured in time 4 .5 million people and enslaved them.
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Is that a city worthy of judgment? Should they be judged or God just goes, well, you know what? A little latitude.
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Maybe it's a syndrome. Maybe it's a disease. Maybe it's some kind of thing that they just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
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Sin will be judged. Verse five, the ominous refrain that's in the book of Nahum, I am against you.
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Of course he is. And it's good for God's people to know that. We don't see judgment happen right away.
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And so we need to rest in God that he will judge. I'm against you.
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And you think you've got a host of a lot of people? You think there's a host of a lot of armies? You think you can marshal up the infantry?
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This declares the Lord of hosts of the innumerable armies. And then he says something that's wild.
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I'll lift up your skirts over your face. I'll make nations look at your nakedness, kingdoms at your shame.
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I'll throw excrement or filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle. Wow. I'd like to have to get up and preach that.
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So what's happening? Some people think, you know what, this is how God deals with these things. I don't want anything to do with God because men, especially, are going to get an idea that God treats this, this sexual area in this way and does this kind of thing.
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I don't want to have anything to do with it. Sanctions human males who just want to take it out on a lady.
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That has nothing to do with anything. It might be okay. You take the queen of Assyria and you take her out to a courtyard and you humiliate her.
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But I think there's something more here. Just like it's not literal prostitution that's being judged.
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It's what they're doing. It's the same thing here. Lifting up your skirts over your face.
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Nakedness shown. Here's what God is saying. I'm going to take the Ishtar cult, the sex
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God. Anytime you would look at a relief back in those days in Assyrian, you know, portraits and there'd be some nude person.
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It would always be an Ishtar. She runs the show. She fuels it. Of course, we know demons behind the scenes and controlling and a cult and the priestesses and the priest and everything else and the worship and the seduction and the control and the consultation of the king to these.
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All this comes together. And God said, I'm going to obliterate the sex called Ishtar with language like this.
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It's just literal language. No, it's figurative language. I'm going to expose Ishtar for who she is.
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A disgrace. She is a disgrace. She's like Jezebel. Ever read about Jezebel?
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Crazy. By the way, who's in charge now? Who's the one that's calling the shots now?
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You have Assyria and our power and our might and Nineveh. She takes over the world. Who's in charge now?
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There is a payday one day and Ishtar is going to be overthrown.
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What has one man called? What great, brilliant literary technique? Sometimes this skirt over and the nakedness to show shame is found elsewhere in scripture.
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Isaiah 47. Strip off your robe and cover your legs, pass through the rivers, pull off your veil, your nakedness shall be uncovered.
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Total shame. Jeremiah 13. I will lift up your skirts over your face and your shame will be seen as it would be done literally.
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The idea figuratively for the nation to shame them. You say, well, this kind of scene, what does it elicit in me?
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Lust? Desire? No. Revulsion. That's what happens. Look at it. All who will look at you will say, boy, that's enticing.
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No, you look at this, you look at this excrement, splattered, naked
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Ishtar God, and you see the real person behind the scenes as it were behind the curtain.
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What do you say? You look at it, you shrink, you tell your kids, cover your eyes. You don't do what
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Nineveh wanted you to do. Praise Nineveh, gloat with Nineveh. Here's what you say when you see
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God judge a nation and expose that nation for what it really is and whom it worships.
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Wasted is Nineveh. I mean, think about it. She had so much.
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The Lord God sends Jonah with a wonderful gift, a message of repentance, and she wastes it.
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It's wasted. Who will grieve for her? Answer? Nobody. Will you?
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I mean, that's gross. Where shall I seek comforters for you? All the goddesses, all the structures of the goddesses.
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The Babylonian Chronicle said, turn the city into a ruin of mound and heap of debris.
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You couldn't find Nineveh on the map for hundreds of years. Desolation, waste, sacked, ransacked.
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Nahum chapter three, verse one, the woe versus two through seven, the wow.
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So I had a couple questions in my mind this week as I approached the passage. Number one, how do you preach this?
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Number two, how do you end the sermon? I'd like you to turn to Romans chapter 12 and we'll end here.
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I want you, Christian, because you know God judges sin and he hasn't forgotten his people that you can take comfort.
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God is just. God is not forgotten. God will judge all injustice. All sin will be dealt with.
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All unrepentant sinners will have their day in court. But God's timetable is different. He does things on his own, but he will do them.
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God knows our situation. He understands. If something goes on with persecution in America, God still knows we can trust in him.
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We can be comforted. The Lord Jesus is going to come back, is he not? Reminds me of that story when a man approached a little league baseball game one afternoon and there was a boy in the dugout and the man said, what's the score?
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18 to nothing. We're behind, said the boy. I bet you're discouraged, the man said.
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Why should I be discouraged? We haven't gotten up to bat yet. We have read in Revelation 19 and second
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Peter chapter three, the Lord's coming back. Judgment for all those second Thessalonians, the judgment for all those who persecute the church.
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So we now, when we look at Romans chapter 12, we don't have to make everything right.
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It's God's job. Dear Christian, rest, relax, enjoy your salvation and enjoy the
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God of your salvation who will take care of every wrong. He's proved it. He's shown us in Nineveh.
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It showed us in Assyria. He showed us in Babylon. So what should we do instead?
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Here's what we should do because we're freed to do it. Chapters one through 11, free grace of God to give you a righteousness that will withstand the righteous judgment of God.
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Earned by Jesus, freely given by faith alone, you receive it. So what do we do?
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Where do we spend our time? This is convicting for me because left to myself,
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I want to make sure America does the right thing. I want to make sure the leaders do the right thing. I want to make sure the media does the right thing.
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I want to make sure the influencers do the right thing. I want to make sure this gets done rightly. There's nothing wrong with the desire for righteousness, but what's the
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Christian response? It's not what we think it is. It has nothing to do with power and might and numbers.
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Look at what it says in chapter 12, verse nine. Because we have renewed minds, because of the mercies of God, it says, let love be genuine.
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What does a Christian do in an oppressed world when they know judgment is coming back because Jesus said he'll return?
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This is the answer. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the
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Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, never turn off Fox News or Newsmax.
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Oh, sorry. Wait a second. Contribute to the needs of the saints and show hospitality. There's no time to make the world right when we can't do it anyway.
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And we're trusting in the Lord. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.
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Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty.
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Associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
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If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all beloved. Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written and we have seen it in the
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Old Testament demonstrated. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the
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Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.
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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Let every person be subject to governing authorities.
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There's no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what
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God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment for rulers are not a tear to good conduct, but to bad.
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Would you have no fear for the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is
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God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God and avenger who carries out wrath of God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
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Therefore, Bethlehem Bible Church, one must be in subjection, not only to God's wrath, but to avoid
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God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing.
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Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed. Revenue to whom revenue is owed.
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Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. And then he says in verse 11, besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed the night is far gone, the days at hand.
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So let us then cast off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly in the daytime, not an orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
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Let's pray. Lord God, we exalt you as the God who never changes, as the
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God who's always righteous and the God who loves sinners.
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Would you protect us from the desire to make everything right?
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Would you protect us from the desire to worry? We're anxious. We don't trust.
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We wonder what's going on. We want to fix everything. So many things we struggle with.
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Lord, we acknowledge today that you're sovereign, you have decreed, you have ordained, you have planned, and you're executing your perfect plan today, and you'll execute that plan every day and help us to walk by faith and not by sight.
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Everything will be taken care of, and we look forward to the Lord Jesus's return. Father, would you grant people today that are sitting here, maybe fooling themselves, maybe trying to fool you, that everything's okay and that they're well -pleasing to you.
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Would you, Father, show them by faith the well -pleasing one, the risen Savior, the Lord Jesus. And Father, for us as Christians, thank you.
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No wrath for us. Thank you. Punishment has been done, and it's been done on Jesus in our place.