Praise God for His Wrath? (part 1) - [Nahum 1:1-8]

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Marriage: Why Is It Worth Defending? (part 2) - [Ephesians 5:25ff]

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What do you do when you need comfort? Maybe if you look on the internet, you can find a few different ways to deal with fear and what's going on in the world.
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I looked up these things in case you are needing comfort. You can get some scents from lavender to rose, cinnamon to vanilla, delivered through essential oils to stay present in the moment.
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Somebody make a comment? Somebody like that? Okay. If you need comfort, the internet says you could find a childhood object that you treasure like a stuffed animal or an action figure.
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I guess the action figure is for boys, G .I. Joe or something. That might give you comfort.
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Some people say get a reliable book, cozy up to a book that's like an old friend and get comfort that way.
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Some say maybe stretch your body. People are promoting yoga. Others say take a shower, visualize a peaceful image.
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I like this one. I don't really like it but it's just interesting to me. Speak compassionately to yourself.
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At the top of the list maybe practice alternate nostril breathing. I won't tell you how to do that but it has to do with your thumb and your index finger.
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But probably the biggest way to get comfort that I found on the internet, secular people, they say have some comfort food.
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Have some comfort food. But most people say right after you eat the comfort food you're not comforted anymore because after all
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Ben and Jerry's little pint has about 1 ,500 calories or macaroni and cheese with lobster has about 2 ,000 calories and then the opposite effect occurs.
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We as a church could be in for quite a bit of oppression in the next 4 to 40 years.
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What do we do? Where would we find comfort in the midst of a world full of fear and chaos?
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By the way the world is selling fear because it sells magazines, it sells clicks on the internet.
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What do we do? Well let's turn our Bibles to the book of Nahum found in the
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Old Testament. It's okay if you use your table of contents, the book of Nahum and let's find out where real comfort is for God's oppressed people.
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The book of Nahum is about God's people are being oppressed. Where do they go to find comfort?
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How apropos for us, how relevant for us, how wonderful that the word of God is so relevant because God is relevant, sin is relevant, forgiveness is relevant and God's people are always relevant to him.
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And so today we start a new series. When I read through Nahum for the first time years ago
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I thought there's no book like that. And then I thought to myself I better be more mature in the faith and in preaching before I attempt to preach it.
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Today we're going to look at the book of Nahum, probably just the intro to the book and the first few verses.
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But I'm really excited to teach this book because it gives comfort to the oppressed people of God.
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And we're going to need that if politics continue the way they are. Why am
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I going to preach Nahum? I came up with a few reasons. Number one, it's in the Bible and therefore it should be preached to people, right?
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There's no book of the Bible where we should say, no, that's not really good for people to hear. Why are we going to go through Nahum?
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Because I'm not getting any younger and I'd like to preach to the whole council of God, including the book of Nahum.
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Why Nahum? Friends, it is fast -paced. It is like when I was on the motorcycle when
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I was a kid and my dad would say, now when you're starting to ride, don't have it full throttle.
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Don't let it go full bore. Just kind of take some time first. That's not like this book.
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That advice wouldn't go for this book because it just starts off full throttle and down the street you go, as it were.
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Why Nahum? Because I want you to see Nahum in light of all of Revelation, including the resurrected
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Jesus Christ. This is a book for Christians. It's just not in the Old Testament. Maybe the last reason that I want to preach through Nahum is that I want you to know the sequel to Jonah.
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Did you know that Jonah was written and it was written for repentance and restoration of the
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Ninevites, the capital of Assyria? And if you fast forward 100 years after Nineveh has repented, they listen to the message of Jonah.
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100 years or so later, the Ninevites are back to themselves again. They are vicious.
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They are corrupt. And now Nahum is written to give them a message of judgment.
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So this is the sequel to the book of Jonah. Did you know that if you open up the
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Old Testament in the Greek, remember the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, but there's a
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Greek version called the Septuagint, the order of the books of the Bible in the minor prophets, these books that show the prophecies of God, it goes
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Jonah and then guess what the next book is if you read the Septuagint? Nahum. That's exactly right.
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And so it's kind of neat to think what happens from Jonah's message of mercy. Fast forward to Nahum's message of judgment.
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But the main reason I want to preach this book, it's because it can comfort and does comfort
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God's oppressed people. Before we even get too far into the book, chapter one, verse one, an oracle concerning Nineveh.
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There's that corrupt, wicked capital city of Assyria again. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
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Now, the reason why we know it's a book of comfort is for many reasons, but one is, is his name.
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And so if I give you the name Jesus, you'll say, oh, that name means savior. If I give you the name
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Abraham, you'll say, oh, that's father of many nations. The word Peter means rock.
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The word Nahum means comfort. So my name is Michael, but I have a nickname and my nickname is what?
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No, reverend. High Holy Father. No, no, Michael, Mike. It's kind of, it's abbreviated.
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It's contracted. You don't live in Leicester. You live in Leicester. Right. So the full name for Nahum would be
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Nehemiah, Nehemiah. And the contracted version is
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Nahum. And it means comfort. It means Yahweh is my comfort. And that's exactly what we're going to see in this book of judgment for the
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Ninevites. Comfort for the people of God. Matter of fact, you may have been to a city with us by the
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Sea of Galilee where Jesus did a lot of his ministry. And it was the city of what? What's his hometown?
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Jesus's ministry base. Kaper? Nahum. That's where you get that.
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It's a little village or a city of Nahum. So when we see the book of Nahum, you ought to be thinking this is a message of comfort.
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It's not going to seem like it early on, but in fact it is. The city of Nahum, Kapernaum, Nehemiah, Nehemiah and Nahum all are talking about comfort for God's people.
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So here's our plan for this morning. We're going to look at verse one for a little background information. And then we're going to get to the comfort for God's people found in verses two through eight.
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So that's our plan. Verse one, a little background. Verses two through eight, comfort for God's people.
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Okay? We're not going to go through the whole chapter today. This will just be a good running start.
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So let's do the intro first in verse one because I think there's a few things that would be of interest. This is not going to be a seminary class where every little detail is given, but enough to get us going.
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An oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkash.
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And so not very often do we see oracle and vision both there in the
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ESV. Sometimes it's just an oracle, sometimes it's just a vision, but we see both here. An oracle is simply a burden that God has placed on a prophet that he has to give to other people and it's of judgment.
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It's a burden because who wants to stand up and say judgment is coming? That should burden anyone including a prophet of God.
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And so it's an oracle or a burden where prophets are given information by God that there's going to be a disaster coming.
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There's going to be judgment and it's not going to be a natural disaster. It's not going to be a climate disaster. It's going to be from God himself.
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That's why it's called an oracle or a burden. A divine message of judgment and justice given to nations especially who want to go against God.
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It's also called a vision. So we have an oracle or a burden and a vision.
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And so somehow in the process of God that he gives this insight to the prophet so he knows what's going to happen in the future.
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Why is this verse even here? Because this is not a whim, this is not like well maybe this will happen. No, no, this is authority.
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Think New Testament for a second when Paul says I'm an apostle by the will of God and I have this message for you.
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Here he's not coming up with this message. This is a message from God and it's a vision from God to Nahum.
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It's kind of got a double prophecy. Oracle slash burden and vision. Somehow supernaturally he is going to have this information given to him.
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It's like the book of Revelation. Revelation 1. John said that in a loud voice he heard write what you see in the book and send it to the seven churches.
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Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands.
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Nahum is given information about the future and he's here to give that burden for judgment so people of God could listen and understand.
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Where is he from? We don't know much about him. It says Nahum of Elkosh. Elkosh people debate what it means.
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It probably means something about severity and so people say oh that's Nahum's comfort.
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Severity to other people. Could be. Maybe not. We don't know where the city is nor do we need to.
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God's people need this message and it's going to be a doozy if I could say that from Nebraska.
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So now let's go to verses 2 through 8 and let me give you some reasons that you can find comfort in oppressive times.
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Reasons to or maybe what you should do to get comfort in oppressive times. Maybe we'll phrase it that way instead.
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Number one, embrace the whole counsel of God. If you'd like to have comfort in troubled times, number one, embrace the whole counsel of God.
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Comfort is going to be fleeting unless you really trust the word of God. If you say to yourself well
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I'll pick and choose parts of the Bible, you're not going to have any comfort. Are you absolutely positive you believe the
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Bible? You have to believe it all. Listen how this starts. Is this your
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God or is this the God of the Old Testament only? Is this a God you're kind of ashamed of?
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The Lord Yahweh 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.
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The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
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His way is in the whirlwind and storm and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry.
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He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers.
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Mountains quake before Him. Hills melt. The earth heaves before Him and the world and all who dwell in it.
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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.
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The Lord is good, stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in Him.
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But with an overpowering flood, He will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue
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His enemies into darkness. If I looked at your Bibles and I could see that you were making little highlights with yellow, out of those seven verses, which verses would you highlight?
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I know which ones I would highlight. I think, you know what? He's slow to anger, great in power, and verse seven, the
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Lord's good. Why would you just highlight those verses? I mean, to ask the question is to answer it.
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But all these verses speak about who God is. And I think if we really want comfort, speaking big picture, we just have to say, do you know what?
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I can't go on my feelings. I can't go on what I want. I have to say to myself, what is in this book
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I will receive. Yes? And as a congregation, I know you do that very thing. I don't know if you know what
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Sheolahism is. How many people here have heard of Sheolahism? Okay, one has, two has.
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Good. I don't know, Will, I don't know if that's good or not. The person I'm married to and the person I work with, they both know
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Sheolahism. There were some people that were thinking about sociology and how people interact.
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Robert Bella was one of those. And in his book 1985, Habits of the Heart, he talked about a lady that he called
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Sheila Larson. And Sheila Larson was a person who basically says,
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I'll cut and paste all that I want for my religion. And it's not external. It's not like Ten Commandments outside of me.
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It's not God's Word, Revelation. It's what's in my heart, and I'll pick and choose. There are over 200 million people in America.
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And therefore, Robert Bella said, we probably have about 200 million different religions because everybody now picks and chooses what they want.
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And Robert Bella said, with Sheila Larson, unlike colonial New England where there was external truth fixed, the
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Bible, now we'll just say, well, I'll pick and choose what I want. Sheila Larson said,
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I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church.
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My faith has carried me a long way. It's called Sheolahism, just my own little voice.
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It's just try to love yourself, be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess take care of each other.
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I think God would want us to take care of each other. Forget external authority.
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Grab internal meaning. Don Cale said,
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Sheila has a code of ethics, but it's no longer connected to a sacred text or an observing deity.
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It's personal and unpublished. Sheila abides by Sheolahism.
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What kind of religion do you subscribe by? Mycism? Timism? Cindyism? You have to come to the text and you have to say, you know what?
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God is going to give comfort to His people, but it doesn't seem like it.
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It starts off too strangely almost. Jealous, avenging, wrathful.
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I mean, if I wanted comfort, here's what I would want from God. The Assyrians are oppressing me. I'm Judah.
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I'm holding the fort. I'm tired of it. Could you just please tell me it's going to be okay? That's not how this book starts off.
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I am thankful that Bethlehem Bible Church does not fashion a god or cast an idol that is profitable for nothing,
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Isaiah 44. What God says about Himself, we believe, and therefore you have to do that in the midst of this kind of a book or else you can never wrap your hands around it.
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You're going to think to yourself, you know what? That's the God of the Old Testament. That's not my God. I mean, where would you go for comfort if it wasn't the
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Bible? What if I read these words to you from the Bible? Would these words comfort you?
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Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms.
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If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you,
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I will come again and I will take you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I'm going.
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Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him,
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I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known
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Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on, you do know Him and have seen
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Him. Where do you go for comfort? You go to the Scriptures. And so the first thing
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I want to remind you, and it's not really in the text, but it's implicit and it's explicit in the sermon.
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The only way you can get comfort is to sit underneath God's Word. And so you embrace all of it.
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What you like, what you don't like. I know you like these words from 2 Corinthians.
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Do these not give you comfort? Count how many times I say comfort in your mind. Blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
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For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
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If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort. And salvation, if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, with which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
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Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
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How many times did you count comfort? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times.
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If I were to say to you in a difficult time, even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil, for God is with you.
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God is your rod and God's rod and your staff, they will comfort you. Number two, now we'll get into the text.
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How do you get comfort in oppressive times? Embrace the whole counsel of God. Number two, look up.
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Look up to the Lord. Not in, not around, but look up. Of course, it's related to the first one.
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Look up. Eyes off self. Eyes off of oppressors. Eyes off of Fox News. Eyes off of TV.
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I don't care if you watch that, that's up to you. Where is your help going to be found?
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POTUS, SCOTUS, where do you go?
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Before he says you're going to be rescued, he says, this is who God is. Verse 2, do you see how many names there are for God here?
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In verses 2 and 3. Which are the two names? The Lord is jealous and avenging God. There's the second one.
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The Lord and God. Yahweh is avenging. Yahweh takes vengeance. Yahweh is slow to anger.
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Yahweh will by no means leave the guilty cleared. Verse 2 has three times the use of the word
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Lord. Verse 3 has two times the use of the word Lord. Everything in this book makes you say to yourself, or should make it say to yourself,
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I need to see things in a God -centered fashion. I need to walk by faith. And so there's oppressors, there's issues, things going on.
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But the first thing I need to do is have the right view of who God is. Nahum begins with the nature of God.
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Dear Christian, when you need comfort, you need to begin with who God is and His very nature.
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Maybe you want the oppression to stop. That's not a bad thing. But it starts with seeing who
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God is. Everything in chapter 1 is dominated by the name of God and what
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He does and who He is. Now if I were to say to you, do names of God help you?
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If I said to you Elohim, what would you think when the Bible says Elohim for God?
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You say to yourself what? He's powerful and He creates things out of nothing. What if I were to say to you
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El Shaddai? You'd probably start singing a song, I know, but you'd say God is almighty. If I said
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Adonai, you'd say He's in charge. If I said El Elyon, you would say He is the most high.
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Out of all the gods, He's the highest. If I were to say to you El Olam, He's the everlasting
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God. He has no beginning. He has no end. But what if I were to say to you, I know you're suffering.
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I know you're oppressed. Let me tell you about Yahweh. What would you say?
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Would it warm your heart if I said, let me tell you about the divine tetragrammaton? Would that help you?
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Divine, tetra, what's tetra? Two? Three? Four?
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And what's grandma? Now, I know what you're going to say, grandma
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Carla or grandma somebody heavy. No, no, grandma is letter. The four letters of God.
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So I say that to you because, well, I wanted to joke around a little bit to keep your attention, but also when you're reading something about the
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Bible and you come across divine tetragrammaton, you ought to say, oh, I know those four letters.
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Y H W H Yahweh. Remember, no vowels back in those days in the
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Hebrew language. Y H W H. And when you see all capitals in your
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Bible, L O R D, all caps, you should be saying divine tetragrammaton.
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Now, go ahead and just say Yahweh. What do I know about Yahweh? Well, you can keep your finger in Nahum and why don't you just turn to Exodus 3 just briefly because I want to make sure we understand who this
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Yahweh is because he's in chapter 1 verse 2 of Nahum, chapter 1 verse 3, chapter 1 verse 7, and the list goes on and on and on.
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The way to think about oppression is to think about who this God is. Exodus chapter 3 verse 13.
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Remember the whole burning bush that didn't burn incident and the holiness of God. Exodus 3 verse 13.
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We get an insight into the name Yahweh, the divine tetragrammaton. Then Moses said to God, Exodus 3 verse 13,
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If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, The God of your father sent me to you, and they ask,
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What is his name? What shall I say to them? Are names important? If you call me on the phone and say,
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Is Michelle Hefferhorf there? I will do this. Goodbye. Because you don't even know my name.
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My name isn't Michelle, although it looks like it. And my name is not
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Hefferhorf, although that's been my favorite all -time junk mail name, as Steve knows. Is Mike Abernathy there?
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Click. You don't even know my name. And especially back in this ancient world, knowing names, who that person is and what he can do, that was influential.
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What's your name? I need to know your name. They're not going to listen to the name Moses, that's for sure.
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When they ask me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? They don't want to know
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Big Shot God. They want to know quality, character, essence, what this
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God is like. Crazy answer from our perspective, verse 14. But the right answer,
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God said to Moses, You want a name? Here's the name. I am who I am.
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Say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you.
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God has not revealed himself for 400 years. The people need comfort. They need assurance.
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They need to know in their oppression that God is with them. And God said, Here's my name.
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I am. That's interesting, isn't it?
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That's odd, isn't it? S. Lewis Johnson says, We know the root of the term
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Yahweh. We know that it comes from the verb to be. And we are almost certain that it means simply
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I am. That the name I am, or perhaps He is, or perhaps He caused us to be.
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God's name, you see, Yahweh, the root of it is I am. He is. God, what's your name?
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I am who I am. It's almost like He doesn't give a name. He describes who
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He is. I am. I exist.
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You say, I need comfort. And the first thing Nahum does is he said, There's a God who exists. The God that we worship, dear
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Christians, is not some figment of your imagination that you just have to construct to get through as an opiate for the masses.
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God is. He exists. In the midst of the gods of Egypt in Exodus chapter 3 that don't exist, here's a
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God. What's your name? I exist. I am. What if there were no gods?
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I could ask that question. In the middle of the oppression that people go through and maybe Christian persecution that's at our doorstep, what if God didn't exist?
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It was just kind of a novel concept for us. I am who I am, present tense.
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I'm independent. I do what I want. I exist. I'm self -sufficient. No one can do anything to make me change my mind.
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No one can unseat my power. I exist. And by the way,
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I personally exist. When you see Exodus 3, I am who I am, when you see Yahweh, you should be thinking,
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He's a personal God. Did you know they had an Egyptian God named
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Isis? When I was a kid growing up, that was called a cartoon. Right?
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Who grew up watching Isis here? You pagans! I mean, what's worse, bewitched or Isis?
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Isis, this Egyptian God. And here's an inscription on the statue of Isis. I am the thing that is and was and shall be.
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I'm the thing. That's not how God talks. I am. I'm not a thing.
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I'm not an object. I'm not something, well, the God over here needs, you know, dusting off and moved, and I have to move back over here.
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I am. I'm personal. Right from the very beginning, Nahum wants everyone to know that you deal with a personal
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God who cares. I am. And that means if He personally exists, with His covenant name,
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He personally exists, get this, to help you. He's there for you.
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And do we not see that, dear Christian, in the I am who
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I am incarnate, the Lord Jesus? Can you imagine the
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Lord Jesus? Of course, His body had a beginning in the womb of Mary, but He is the eternal
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Son. No beginning, no end, independent, self -sufficient, cannot be approved upon, cannot learn, cannot get worse.
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I am who I am. You see that in the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder He said to the woman at the well,
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I who speak to you am He. I am. Jesus walks on water, and then what happens?
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Do not be afraid. I am. It is I. Truly, truly,
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Jesus said in John chapter 8, before Abraham was, I am. I'm the bread of life,
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Jesus said. I'm the light of the world. I'm the true vine. I'm the resurrection and the life.
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I'm the way, the truth, and the life. When you say to yourself, I'm in a difficult time, the first thing you should be thinking about is, to just drive home a point, is the divine tetragrammaton.
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Jesus the Son is Yahweh the Son. You think about the
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Lord Jesus and how He personally cares for His people. I like it when I read in Ephesians chapter 2, but God being rich in mercy.
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Is there anything else in all the Bible that says God is rich in? You could study that if you'd like, but He's called rich in mercy.
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And the second you begin to see in the book of Nahum, and you can turn back to Nahum if you'd like, that when you're in trouble, it all starts with who
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God is in Scripture, especially in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. He's this covenant -keeping
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God who's rich in mercy. And we think we can't approach Him, we think we can't somehow receive comfort from Him, but His mercy is rich.
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I was reading some quotes from that great book that most of you have purchased or at least read from Dane Ortlund about Tender and Lowly, about the
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Lord Jesus. And I remember he talked about how there are certain friends that you have, that you have for life, but if you offended them to a certain degree, you'd end up losing them.
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Every friendship has a degree of offense that beyond that there can be no repair.
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But that's not the way the Lord Jesus is. No stiff arm from Jesus, no pointing fingers of Jesus at you, it's you're in Christ and you're
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His beloved brother. Number three, how do you get comfort in oppressed times?
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Embrace the whole counsel of God, look up. Number three, these are all kind of related, praise the
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Lord for all of His perfections. Praise the Lord for all of His perfections.
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I don't know if you like songs, but Nahum is a book of songs. A praise song from verse 2 to 8 and then a bunch of taunt songs in chapter 2 verses 2 and 3.
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Taunt woe songs, praise songs. It's got the whole thing covered. I was studying this week certain praise songs that are written by Christians and I was thinking about kind of would you ever play
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Nahum 1 verses 2 to 8 on Caleb. I wonder how popular this would be.
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God is jealous, God is avenging, God is wrathful. I said to Pastor Steve when he was up here to read
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Exodus 15, he came up here saying the last dance with me and I said I dare you to sing Exodus 15 because it is a song.
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And Steve should have said, he's usually quick but not this time, I dare you to sing Nahum 1 verses 2 to 8.
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It's a praise song. Who sings like this? Here's a few songs,
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I won't embarrass the authors. You are my desire, no one else will do because nothing else could take your place to feel the warmth of your embrace.
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That's written about God. Friend of sinners, Lord of truth, I'm falling in love with you.
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Friend of sinners, Lord of truth, I have fallen in love with you. Here's another one.
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You call me child and I'll call you father. Kisses from heaven and joy and laughter. I want to lavish my love on you,
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Jesus. Okay, I'll keep going.
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In the secret, in the quiet place. Not the movie. In the stillness, you are there. In the secret, in the quiet hour,
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I wait only for you because I want to know you more. I want to touch you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more.
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Is that how we talk? Is that how Nahum talks? You didn't want heaven to be without us so Jesus, you brought heaven down with Jesus.
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No, when you take a look again in verses 2, 3, 4 and following,
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Yahweh is jealous, avenging, wrathful, takes vengeance, keeps wrath, slow to anger, great in power, won't clear the guilty, whirlwind, storm, rebuke, seize.
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How do you process all that? So, let me just help you and if you get anything from this sermon,
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I think this would be maybe the most important thing. We say that God has attributes.
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Maybe you've read the Pink Book or the Tozer Book or some other book on the attributes of God and you say love of God, incomprehensibility of God, mercy of God, the faithfulness of God and if you read the
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A .W. Pink Book, which you can get online for free and I suggest you do, 19 chapters on the attributes of God.
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Some people call them perfections of God. Some people call them characteristics of God. But those are all words that we use to try to describe this
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God who exists and we can't get our arms around them so we use language of accommodation. He has attributes,
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He has characteristics, He has perfections. If you understand that that's language of accommodation and if you understand the doctrine of simplicity, you will be helped in understanding
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Nahum 1 and many other judgment passages. The doctrine of simplicity. True or false?
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God is simple. It's hard to answer that because it's almost like is
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He a simpleton? How does that work? God is simple is a theological concept and that means
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God doesn't have a bunch of parts. God doesn't have power.
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God doesn't have mercy. God doesn't have jealousy. God doesn't have wrath.
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No, God is all those things. He's not made of parts because parts would not make
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Him simple. The idea is this, the being of God is identical to His perfections.
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His goodness, His truth are identical to who
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He is. And I hope you go this is beyond me. Great! I'm glad because there are things in Scripture with our fallen brain, with our finite minds, we can't get.
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God is wrath. God doesn't have wrath. God is gracious. He doesn't have grace.
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Simplicity means that the characteristics of God are not certain parts that make up God. We put them all together.
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There's God. In other words, when you read this, God is a jealous
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God. God is slow to anger. You say to yourself, that is who God is.
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And therefore, I have to take Him as He is. I can't just say, well, you know, double the love portion and hold off on the wrath.
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There's no distinction between the essence of God and His attributes like there might be for me. You know,
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I have certain skills or I have certain thoughts and I have certain negative things. Dolezal says, we cannot posit a distinction between God and His attributes the way we might between a creature and its attributes.
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A man, for instance, may be wise, just, and powerful, but he is not identical with the wisdom, justice, and power by which he is such.
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Each of these is a part that contributes some form of being to him, and each is distinctive from the man as a whole.
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He depends upon these qualities to be as He is. Because God is simple, this is not how
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He has His attributes. God does not have wisdom, justice, power, attributes distinct from His being.
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Rather, God just is the wisdom by which He is wise, the justice by which He is righteous, and the power by which
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He is powerful. So when I say to you, God is simple, I just mean
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He is. Now would you turn with me to 1 John chapter 4, and I want to give you a little illustration of this that maybe is my favorite, so that when you see some of these rough things of God in your mind, you just go, yeah, but that's just who
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God is. God, remember when I asked Sinclair Ferguson, what is God doing right now?
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Sinclair Ferguson said to me, God is what? Simultaneously exercising all of His attributes.
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And he could have just said, when I asked, what's God doing right now? He could have said, God is. Because God is wrath,
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God is love. So let's take the two that to me are the most polar opposites in my mind. The love of God, we love that, and the wrath of God, we're not really sure about that.
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I could put it this way. When's the last time you said, God, thank you for your love? I mean, that's a good thing to say.
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When's the last time you said, God, thank you for your wrath? Ever sing songs about it?
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Ever sing songs about the wrath of God? Once in a while. But here, the two polar opposites are in 1
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John 4, 7, and the reason why they can be two things talked about at the same time is because it's who
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God is. This is just who God is. This is my all -time favorite, so I can just wrap my mind around the nature of God.
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He's not like me. He's not full of component parts. He just is. Beloved, 1
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John 4, 7. Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows
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God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God has love.
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Oh, sorry. Is that what it says? Because God is love. That's His nature. That's His character. That's His essence.
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I don't know what other words to use. God is love. How do we know this love?
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In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. You want to know what love looks like?
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That God sent His only Son into the world so that you, dear
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Christians at Bethlehem Bible Church, might live through Him. Would you say, praise
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God for His love? Would you say, behold what manner of love the Father has given to us?
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Wouldn't you say that? Wouldn't you say, the love of God? We sing songs about the love of God.
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Yes, the love of God. That is so wonderful that God would love us and send His Son. That's what really love boils down to.
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And Jesus comes and He says, I didn't come to serve myself, but to seek and save the lost and serve other people.
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Honor the Father, save sinners. That's the love of God. What explains you getting to heaven and your friend not?
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It's the love of God. But here's the interesting thing. Verse 10. Since God is simple,
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He just is. He doesn't have certain things. What do we see in verse 10?
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In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent
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His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, the wrath bearer for our sins.
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Remember what happened at Calvary? Remember the Lord Jesus when He said at Calvary, I think for the first time ever,
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He doesn't call God My Father. He calls God what when He's being judged? My God, My God, why have
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You forsaken Me? On the cross when it turned into nighttime at noon, from noon to three, the wrath of God poured out on the
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Son while the Son, by the way, was being obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
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And now God the Son is our wrath bearer, but yet it's a divine act of love. How can you have love and wrath combined?
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Answer, because that is who God is. He is those things and everything else that the
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Scripture tells us. I would go so far to say, and again with S. Lewis Johnson, there's no possible way to describe love without talking about wrath because that's what happens here.
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Propitiation means wrath. Remember propitiation? The idea was there's the Ark of the
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Covenant, there's this box, and inside the box at different times you had different things, but in this particular illustration, you've got
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Aaron's rod, you've got manna, and you've got what? The Ten Commandments.
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And God looks down and sees those Ten Commandments and how many of you have broken any of the commandments?
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And by the way, the wages of sin is death and He sees the commandment breakers. But there's a special lid on that box.
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Remember the lid on the box? And it's actually called a seat. What kind of seat is it called? The mercy seat.
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Whenever I say mercy seat, I just remember my kids crying out when I would tell them, you know what, you've disobeyed and you're going to have justice.
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And they would cry out, Dad, please give me mercy. Please give me mercy. I can see big crocodile tears in one of my children's eyes.
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I want mercy. But on top of the box is the mercy seat because that is where you take the animal's blood that you sacrificed in your place in the
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Old Testament and put the blood on top of the mercy seat so when God sees the broken commandments,
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His wrath has been assuaged because you break the commandments, you die, an animal died in your place and the blood covers it.
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It's called propitiation. You can't talk about love without talking about propitiation.
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Well, you can, but you would be in error. And you can't talk about propitiation. Why would God the Son be a wrath bearer for me?
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He didn't sin. Answer, because God loves. Right here in 1 John 4, love defined by wrath, wrath defined by love.
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How can that be? Because God is. He doesn't have wrath. He is wrath.
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He doesn't have love. He is love. And so when you come to the book of Nahum, you have to say to yourself,
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I see all these things coming up and you're like, how can they comfort me because God comforts.
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Let's go back to Nahum, please. God's wrath against Nineveh is meant to be a comfort.
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Who God is, is meant to be a comfort. Because if you don't have this set up in your mind, and this will be my last issue that we'll talk about today, what do we do with something like this?
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Nahum 1 verse 2. Yahweh, this covenant -keeping existing God who's there to help me,
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He's jealous. When's the last time you sang praise songs about God's jealousy?
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What do we do? God is jealous. How does that comfort?
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What do you mean He's jealous? I remember what I did when I was a new Christian. I wanted to read the Bible. I thought, you know what?
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I was not a believer and my father died and the pastor, the Lutheran pastor, handed me the Bible and said,
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Mike, you're the oldest son. What would you like me to say from the Bible about your dad? I have no idea what you're talking about.
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But I know how to act around people and I said, I'm just too grieving to know whatever you think is the best.
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But deep down I said to myself, I'm going to know this Bible. Pride, really. I'm never going to be embarrassed again when somebody says, what is this about?
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So I began to study it. I began to read it. And all of a sudden I read in Exodus, God is jealous and His name is jealous.
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What are you going to do with that? What do you mean jealous? Your name is jealous. How do we work through it?
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God is a jealous God. Whose name is jealous, Exodus 34.
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He's going to judge because of His jealousy. He's a consuming fire, Deuteronomy 4.
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He reveals Himself this way at Sinai. What does it mean? That you know what, if Kim goes to work and she talks to another man at the paint counter and I say, you know what,
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I'm jealous. Every time we hear the word jealous, there's an evil connotation many times to the word jealousy.
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But that can't be that in God, can it? God has made a commitment to His people.
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And He has exclusive claim over His people. If you're a Christian, exclusive claim over you.
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And He would like a reciprocal commitment. One writer said,
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He is fiercely, deeply protective in His commitment to His people.
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Rivals, He won't tolerate. Unfaithfulness, He doesn't tolerate. The good sense of the word, even though it's a word of accommodation because how else could we describe who
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God is with our own language. God weds Israel. He weds the church.
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And He has exclusive devotion given to them. And He doesn't want disloyalty.
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He protects His own honor. And that's really the main idea here with the
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Lord is jealous in Nahum 1, verse 2. He is praised. How can I say
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God's jealous? As far as we get today, the Lord is jealous. He will continually seek out
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His own honor. His glory He will not what? Give to another. Therefore, the big picture is simple.
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God has promised to love Israel and Judah. Judah is underneath the burden now of these nasty
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Ninevites. And they look to God who will one day give justice to the people of Nineveh because His honor.
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Here's the good news. It's not if I do enough, God will keep His promises. If I do my things,
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God will love me. By the way, if this is how you think, don't think this anymore. I never want you to think to yourself, you know what?
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I did my devotions this morning. God loves me more. Do you ever think that way? What you should say is,
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I did my devotions today and that's a good thing to do and I think things through now biblically and I can kind of set and that's the right way to start the day.
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It's a good thing. But, you know, what was Word of Life? What do they always say? No devils, no breakfast.
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I had two weird things with Word of Life when I got here. One, I met young people all the time and they tell me they got saved at the
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Super Bowl. Your kids would say, I got saved at the Super Bowl and I thought, this is not really too rich of a church.
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How can you all afford Super Bowl tickets, you know, to the big game? No, Super Bowl was something else.
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And the other thing Word of Life had, no devils, no breakfast. And I was thinking, devils the band is what
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I was thinking. Do you start off every day listening to We Are Devils and whip it? I mean, I have no idea.
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But for the Christian. See now, normally I preach this sermon two times on a
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Sunday, and I would probably leave that part out for the second one that you all get to watch. Or don't watch.
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God loves. And if you're in Christ, He doesn't love you less, He doesn't love you more,
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He loves you like He loves Jesus. And while devotions are good, and Bible study is good, and ministry is good, we don't do all that to garner
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God's favor. There's nothing that people from Judah could do to say, you know what, here's what we have to do to wrangle you to keep your word.
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God, you've said you've kept your word, and you will look bad, God, if you do not restore your people.
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And so we look to you who seeks after your own glory and your own honor, and you'll protect your own glory because you're jealous, and we'll leave it in your hands because you've made your promises, you'll keep your glory, and therefore we'll watch it work.
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It might not be in our time, it might be a hundred years later, it might be in the future, but you are so jealous to keep your glory that you won't give to another.
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We'll just stand back and watch. And if that's for Israel, how about believers in the
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Lord Jesus? Say, will I make it to the end? So many issues that are going to come.
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What if they begin to oppress Christians so much, could I lose my life for the Lord Jesus? What am
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I going to do, take away my money, my taxes? Am I going to be judged at church? Are we going to have to have all this transgender stuff with a possible new administration?
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What shall we do? And the answer for the comfort is, I don't know what we'll do, because I'm going to let
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God do it. I'm going to say, you know what, God is jealous, and I can look through the rest of my life as a
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Christian. God will keep His honor, because He has said to me through His Word, if you trust in the
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Lord Jesus, all your sins are forgiven, He's conquered death, you trust in Him. Simple childlike trust.
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You know about Him, you ascend to that truth, and you trust, and then I will take care of the rest. And I will make sure that there's never any condemnation for you, and you will make it all the way in.
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Because if I don't, my glory will have been given to another. And I will have said to you, you save yourself, versus I save you.
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And you can say to yourself, if you struggle with the doctrine of assurance, what should help me the most is who
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God is. And in particular, as we just try to look through the lens of man's accommodating languages,
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God is jealous. If Jesus died for you, God's jealousy will make sure you get to heaven.
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That's the comfort that Nahum is given so the people of God understand.
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God's jealousy is based on His promise for us, and His love for us, and His concern for us.
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Well, that's just the introduction to the book of Nahum. If you want comfort, it's going to have to be from this book.
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If you want comfort, it's going to have to be not around you or outside of you, but up in the
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Lord Jesus. And you're going to have to say, no matter what the Bible says about God, I will praise
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Him for that because God isn't anything except who
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He is, jealous, loving, and wrathful. So, dear congregation, chapter two is a ways away, but chapter one will be next week,
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Lord willing. Bow with me, please, if you would. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word given by the inspiration of your
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Holy Spirit. And I will, on behalf of the congregation today, praise you.
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We praise you that you're jealous. We praise you that you're avenging. We praise you that you're wrathful.
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We praise you that you're slow to anger. We give thanks that you're great in power. And we are very, very humbled to know that the wrath, and the avenging, and the vengeance will never come to us because Jesus took that in our place.
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And because He did that very thing, we can see with our own eyes in Scripture that you love us.
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Would you help us to think about you properly, no longer of component parts, but that you are.
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I am who I am. The great God of the Israelites is now our great God. And it's