The Majesty of God — E.A. Johnston

Recovering a High View of God

I believe, friends, we each would benefit greatly if we maintained a higher view of God in our land today. The main reason why our churches are in such sad shape spiritually is the main fact that we have lowered our view of God in our churches.

We've shrunken God down to our size or smaller and put him on our level. In our pulpit prayers, we speak to God like he is our golf buddy or a pal. Allow me to illustrate this principle with the following story.

I was listening to a seminary-trained pastor as he addressed his congregation, and he made the following remarks. He said, do you know what I'm going to do when I get to heaven, friends? The first thing I'm going to do is walk right up to Jesus and grab his hand and shake his hand for all he's done for me.

I guess that seminary-trained pastor is quite unfamiliar with the passage in the book of Revelation where the apostle John is on the island of Patmos and he encounters the risen Christ, and the text says, and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.

No, that foolish pastor is just going to stroll up to Jesus and pump his hand in the same way he would a deacon in the hallway of his church. Our problem today, friends, is that many have shrunken God down to man's size or smaller.

They put God on a human level. I'll never forget the young worship minister in a church who made the following remark. He said, I just came back from a mission trip to Mexico, and while I was there, I thought, wow, the same guy I'm serving down here in Mexico is the same guy I'm serving back home.

That spiritually immature worship leader called the God of the universe a guy, and I'm afraid that type of mentality is all too familiar in our churches today. Listen, friends, the main reason we treat sin so lightly and indulge it so easily is because we have a low view of sin because we maintain a low view of God.

If we were to elevate our view of God as we would, as we should, automatically then our view of sin would be elevated as well, and we'd see it for what it is, a great evil. The title of my message this morning, friends, is The Majesty of God, and our passage today is found in a book some of us don't read very often.

Reading and Knowing the Book of Nahum

It is the book of Nahum. You can turn in your Bibles now to the book of Nahum. I love reading the Minor Prophets because they contain rich truth for our day, but many today don't bother reading the Minor Prophets much anymore.

How would you feel, friend, if you died and you went to heaven, and there you were walking down the streets of glory, and a man introduced himself to you, and he said, hello, I am Nahum the prophet. How did you like my book?

And you couldn't give him a proper answer because you never bothered to read his book. We must continually be reading all of our Bible all the time, friends. I believe one of the reasons why God used the Chinese evangelist, John Song, in such powerful revivals was the fact that John Song was a man of one book.

He would read 11 chapters of his Bible every day, and he would read those 11 chapters on his knees. I want us to be familiar not only with the Word of God, but with the God of the Word, and one of the best ways for that, friends, is to be deeply familiar with our Bibles.

So we will look at Nahum today and see our great theme of the majesty of God. Before I read us our passage, let me give you some background on the book of Nahum. I'm going to read this from a book I wrote over a decade ago.

It is a Bible survey called Know the Book, where I gave a two-page overview of every book of the Bible. Here now is the background on the book of Nahum taken from my Bible survey. Nahum is a book of judgment.

Nahum’s Judgment on Nineveh

The bloody city of Nineveh had become more wicked than ever since their national repentance, which occurred 100 years earlier under the preaching of Jonah. Its destruction is now imminent, as they had already received a warning under Jonah of reprieve under God, and now they had become the symbol of wickedness once again to the surrounding nations.

Their doom hangs over them as a heavy anvil ready to crush the life from them. The Assyrians learned the hard lesson seen in Nahum 1 .3 that the Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked.

God's wrath, which had been restrained earlier, is now ready to be released in all its fury and fire, as seen in verse 6. His fury is poured out like fire. The wicked Assyrians learned the spiritual lesson that comes to all disobedient nations.

God is not mocked. Verse 3 declares, the Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm. Nineveh is an example to all nations and peoples who think they can defiantly shake their fists in the face of a holy God and get away with it.

God does not always settle his accounts immediately. His time schedule is not ours. The hammer of doom fell on the bloody city 50 years after Nahum's declaration. Whether he lived to see it or not, we do not know.

Yet the fiery prophet knew in his heart that God would answer and destroy the wicked and the righteous would be vindicated. Through this message, the people of Judah would believe that the terrible tyranny which oppressed them would soon be ended.

Nahum's message deals with the character of God and his sovereign rule over mankind. God is a jealous God who hates sin and is a God who visits judicially those who oppose him. This message struck a comforting chord in the discouraged hearts of Israel and revealed to them, although they were presently cruelly oppressed, there would be a coming day of deliverance and justice in God's government.

So as Christians, friends, we should find comfort in the little book of Nahum for it tells us that the righteous will be rewarded, the wicked punished, and the government of God is rock solid and rock steady.

Though the world today openly defies God and mocks Christians, it will stand in judgment for he will not at all acquit the wicked. Now friends that we've had an overview of this little book of Nahum, let us now read our passage this morning from chapter 1.

Nahum 1:1–10: The Majesty of God Revealed

As we study the majesty of God, we will be in verses 1 through 10. The burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the El-Kashite, God is jealous and the Lord revengeth. The Lord revengeth and is furious.

The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry and dryeth up all the rivers. Bashan languisheth and Carmel and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him and the hills melt and the earth is burned at his presence.

Yea, the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him.

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end, affliction shall not rise up the second time, for while they be folded together as thorns and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble, foley dry.

I believe, friends, that this country is going to see a side of God that we are quite unfamiliar with. All we've heard today in our churches is about a love God, a God loves you, God loves you, come to Jesus.

But God is also a God of wrath, God has two sides to him, friends, mercy and justice. And when we behold the true attributes of the Almighty, we see his great majesty, his awesome power as a sovereign ruler.

Now notice the majesty of God through the following aspects of his divine attributes. Number one, divine jealousy. Number two, divine vengeance. Number three, divine justice. And number four, divine indignation.

Divine Jealousy for God’s Holy Name

We see this first attribute of God, divine jealousy in verse two, which declares God is jealous. Our text speaks of God's character of jealousy. He is a jealous God. And when I study the characters in my Bible who God used, they too possess a holy jealousy for God.

In first Kings, we see God questioning Elijah in a cave and Elijah answers him with the following statement, I have been very jealous of the Lord God of hosts. And listen, friends, God is looking for the man, the woman who is jealous for him.

Let us ask, let me ask you, are you jealous for God? Do you defend his holy name? A friend of mine was good friends with Leonard Ravenhill and at dinner one night, I asked him to sum up Leonard Ravenhill for me in one sentence and he replied that Leonard Ravenhill was jealous for God.

And our text in verse two simply declares God is jealous. So our first attribute from our passage is divine jealousy. Now let us see the second aspect of the majesty of God. Number two, divine vengeance.

Divine Vengeance and the Fear of God

Oh, how many pulpits today friends ignore this vital truth about the almighty. He is a God of divine vengeance. But many today don't believe in that kind of God anymore. They say, oh, that was the God of the old Testament.

He's not like that today. But my Bible declares in Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. So we see this attribute of God and divine vengeance in verse two in our text, the Lord revengeth and is furious.

The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. We don't hear much today, friends, about the wrath of God. It's not a politically correct theme. But my Bible declares in Psalms, God is angry with the wicked every day.

If he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready. So this first aspect, friends, of the majesty of God seen through the attribute of divine vengeance is a mighty powerful theme indeed, how it should put the fear of God back into the hearts of this nation if we'd only preach these truths once again, if we'd only maintain a high view of God once again.

When I study historical revivals, I often find that ministers of former days often referred to God as the almighty or the great God. Now we just refer to him as our pal. That's why the church lacks power today, friends, and lacks influence over society.

We have shrunken God down to a level that instills no fear of him. But we must see this attribute of divine vengeance to have a fear of God once again in our land and in our churches. Now see the next attribute of God as seen in number three, divine justice.

Divine Justice and the Necessity of Punishing Sin

We find an apt description of this attribute of God in verse three. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

So we see, friends, this divine aspect of divine justice as seen in the book of Nahum in verse three, the inhabitants of Nineveh on Jonah's day and under Jonah's preaching turned from their wicked ways and repented before God and stayed in the hand of judgment against them.

But 150 years later, God brings a mighty judgment of destruction to that wicked city, which is now unwilling to repent toward God. That generation did not take Nahum's preaching as seriously as the previous generation took Jonah's preaching seriously and did something about it.

But Nahum's audience did not believe in a God who would destroy them. We live in a day, friends, where many in our churches, many pastors in our churches, don't believe in a God of divine justice. They don't believe God will send anybody to hell.

But listen to me, dear friends. God is a God who must punish sin. God brought a flood upon the wicked world in the days of Noah and destroyed them all, save Noah's family. And God rained fire and brimstone out of heaven and destroyed Sodom and cities of the plain, sparing only light in his family, because God is a God who will and must punish sin.

Listen to me, dear ones. The first message of the gospel is this. God must punish sin. Every stroke of that hammer that pounded the nails into the dear savior's flesh was an explanation point. God must punish sin.

And when we understand that aspect of the first message of the gospel, then you can come along with the second message of the gospel, which is a savior from sin. So here in the book of Nahum, we see this attribute which speaks of the majesty of God that is his divine justice.

God has two sides to him, friends, mercy and judgment. Now let us see this last attribute as seen in our passage this morning, which speaks of the majesty of God. And that is number four, divine indignation.

Divine Indignation Against Sin

Look at verse six, who can stand before his indignation and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him. This is a message you will not hear from our modern pulpits today, friends.

It's not a popular message. A few today want to hear about God's fury, God's fierceness, his pouring out his wrath on the wicked. But God is seen in his majesty and might through the divine attribute of indignation against sin.

In Hebrews 10, 27, we see this clearly, but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. Notice the writer of Hebrews calls it fiery indignation. In our verse, Nahum speaks of his fury poured out like fire.

Can you imagine those fireballs as they fell from heaven upon wicked Sodom and Gomorrah? God destroyed those cities of the plains for the great sins. And God today is the same God of yesterday. And God will not let a nation continue to mock him and promote evil like our country does today, friends.

Without his finally taken action through righteous indignation against sin. I can assure you, friends, God will visit a nation for her iniquities and great sins against him. God reigns as a sovereign with all power and majesty and shall not the judge of all the earth do right.

Listen, friends, if the church will not defend his holy name, then the almighty must. God will either pour out his blessings in revival to defend his holy name, or he will pour out his wrath upon mankind to avenge his holy name.

It will either be a defending or avenging to show forth his glory and remind mankind he alone is the sovereign ruler of all. So we've seen the majesty of God this morning through his attributes of divine jealousy, divine justice, divine vengeance, and divine indignation.

Revival Through Reverence, Repentance, and Prayer

It is my prayer that our churches will once again forsake the God of our own hands and turn to the God of our Bibles and elevate our worship and prayer to reflect and maintain a high view of God in all his majesty.

Perhaps if the church herself began to fear God again, then perhaps our nation would once again fear God and turn back to him in humility, repentance, and prayer. Let us pray.