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Nahum 1:2-8
I want to begin the sermon this morning with five statements. I think these are kind of obvious statements, but they're helpful to repeat, I think, as we get into Nahum chapter 1. Statement number 1, this is not your world.
Statement number 2, this world is not about you. Statement number 3, this world is God's world, and it exists solely by His pleasure and for His glory. Fourthly, mankind exists to glorify this infinitely pure, good, and holy God and enjoy Him forever.
Statement number 5, the only way to enjoy this triune God is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. These truths, I hope, will sink into your mind and your heart as we think about the message this morning from Nahum.
Because today we come upon probably one of the most despised doctrines in the eyes of many in the world today. What's sad about this particular doctrine is sometimes even professing Christians will push back on the biblical truth that we examine today in this sermon.
Now hear me out, please, I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you this week. I've prayed for you just before I came up here. I pray that the Lord would give you ears to hear, because when rightly understood for those who love God, this is one of the most important and comforting truths of all the scriptures.
And that is these simple three words. God is sovereign. Nahum chapter 1. Let's stand as we honor the reading of God's word. We begin in verse 2 and for context, we'll go through verse 8. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.
The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His ways, 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. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The blossom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him. The world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire.
The rocks are broken into pieces by him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
Let's pray. Father, I confess to you this morning that most of us, myself included, have not contemplated rightly or well enough or to the full extent of what it means to come before a holy and righteous God.
We pray for your mercy and we pray for your grace and we thank you for our advocate, our mediator, our king, the Lord Jesus. And we come to you in his name today. And we pray that all that we pray and sing and worship and hear in this message today is received in the name of Christ.
For we know that in the name of Jesus, you accept our worship because he has completed all the work. Everywhere that we fall short, every wrong that we have done, every sin that we have committed, every law that we have broken, our Lord Jesus has kept and then he has paid the penalty for in his death and his resurrection.
And we thank you for such a great gospel. And I pray that we understand what it means to gather before you in grace. Give us this day, oh God, ears to hear, a heart to know. Let us understand the text.
Let us understand this doctrine and let us walk away in worship. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, Gunnar quoted from Psalm 145, so I'll go down to verse 9 of Psalm 145 where it says, The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.
This is a wonderful reminder. And this good God reveals his glory in these verses. This is who God is. It doesn't matter what the YouTube guy says. It doesn't matter what the televangelist says. To some extent, it doesn't even matter what the man in the pulpit says.
If it's contradictory, it certainly doesn't matter what the man in the pulpit says. If it's contradictory to what this says, because this is who God is. Behold our God. Now, we want to make sure we remember the context of these verses.
So I'm going to take a moment and just give an overview of these seven verses. I'll read them again quickly. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries, keeps wrath for his enemies.
In English, you can almost hear the rhythm. It's not quite there. But this is Hebrew poetry. It's very rhythmic, flows very beautifully. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. The Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
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. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him. The world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
I'd venture to guess that some of you, the only verses that we knew at one time from the book of Nahum was probably Nahum 1 .7, right? The Lord is good, Nahum 1 .7. Okay, I've got Nahum mastered on to something else.
But we have a big picture here of God. We have a pronouncement of his magnanimity, his righteousness, his jealousy, his justice, his vengeance, his power, etc., etc. And from these flow his judgment now upon the city, or it's going to come in perspective of when this is written, it's going to come upon Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the Assyrian empire.
Let me just make a few comments at the beginning. Look at verse 4. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. We see God's power here. Some see here a reference. Maybe there should be an understanding.
There's an allusion here to both the Red Sea, where God parts the Red Sea and his people come through, and also how he parts the Jordan River and his people go through on dry land into the promised land.
So just keep that in your mind that we don't just see the wrathful power of God, but we're also reminded even these verses, the redemptive power of God. And we'll see more of that next week. And then you have the end of verse 4 there.
What's that about? Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers. These are fruitful areas. These are areas known for their fruitfulness and in and around Israel. And the point being really is that God can make the barren fruitful, but God can also make the fruitful barren.
I'll make a comment here about verse 8. The ESV doesn't translate it perfect. It says, but with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries. That should read something more like he will make a complete end of her place.
There's a feminine pronoun there, her place. So some see that as the pronoun referring to Nineveh. Some see it interesting as maybe referring to the goddess Ishtar, one of Assyria's false gods. And maybe even in verse 4, there's some allusion there to some of the false Assyrian gods.
And so the point would be that God alone is God, and he is going to overthrow all of the false Assyrian gods completely. I'll just make this comment. It's the sermon title today, but only the God of the Bible is sovereign, not these other false gods.
It's also interesting there in verse 8. It says, with an overflowing flood. Look at that in your text. With an overflowing flood. What's interesting about that, we might think, yeah, that's just poetic.
And it's just talking about the flood of God's wrath. And that's certainly true. But also you need to know this. In 612 BC, when Nineveh fell, one of the things that destroyed part of its wall was an actual flood.
And so what you have here in the verse is not just poetic imagery, but even a foretelling of what is actually going to take place. That's just a brief overview there. And in all of that, we see God's power.
Verse 3, the Lord is slow to anger. And then where we left off last time, and great in power. And so as I'm preparing in my little finite brain, I'm like, well, I'll preach on God's patience. He's slow to anger.
Then I'm going to preach on God's power. He's great in power. That's what I thought would be next. But as I begin to just meditate and really set my mind and heart and reflect on the text, I was really led to something that stands behind the power of God.
And that is the sovereignty of God. You understand that in this whole thing I've read, maybe it's just, it's so obvious sometimes that maybe it's like you didn't catch it. But it's so obvious here that the sovereignty of God is woven into this entire text.
How is God going to do all the things that he promises to do if he's not sovereign? Now, I'm going to address that. But before I do, I also wanted you to remember this. The book of Nahum is about Christ.
It's like, come on, preacher. I'm not trying to pull a fast one on you. I'm not trying to pull a Jesus juke on you. I'm just trying to remind us in the preaching of the word of God that this book that we're preaching from, the whole Bible and the book of Nahum, it's Christ's book.
And it's about the Lord Jesus. So if we preach Nahum in such a way that a modern day Jew would say amen, or maybe like a Jehovah's Witness or something would say amen, then we have failed miserably in the way that we're preaching Nahum.
Because ultimately, Nahum is about Christ. I've shown you already, I think, that the destruction of Nineveh is but a foretaste of the wrath that Christ would endure on the cross. But there's a couple other things to mention in the text I read.
So, for example, at the end of verse three, 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. He dries up all the rivers. So what you have there is that the text shows us that this God, the God of Nahum, is very important.
Wrap your mind around this. The God of Nahum, this God, Yahweh, is in control of the winds and the waves. The winds and the waves obey him. They have to bow at the beckoning of his voice. The sea obeys.
He does what he wants with these because they are under his sovereign control. And then you get to the Gospels. And in the Gospels, they have these stories like in Matthew 8. You can look this up later.
Matthew 8, 23 through 27. You have these stories like this. Jesus is asleep in the boat. And all of a sudden, the storm comes up over. And the waves are crashing. And the wind is howling. And the disciples are running around on the boat.
And they're like, what are we going to do? Hey, somebody had the great idea. What if we wake up Jesus? So they run. And they wake up Jesus. They're like, we're going to die! Do something! And what does he do?
He commands the sea to stop. And it stops. He commands the winds to cease. And they cease. And then you have preachers that get up in the pulpit and they say, God is in control of the storms of your life.
That's not what that passage is about. They look at Jesus and they say, what manner of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him. What is the point? The point is, the God of Nahum is in the boat with the disciples.
Jesus is Yahweh. That's the point of the text. Now, there is some application down the road. Obviously, God is in control of the storms of your life. But don't miss that big point. They're saying this man is God.
And that's what we see. Or we can look down in verse 8. Again, but with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness. Now, this is a little bit repetitive, but we see the flood of God's wrath fall upon Nineveh.
You're already ready for this part, right? But we also see in a more important picture of the flood of God's wrath on the cross. God's wrath overflows and falls upon his son. You picture in your mind maybe this great dam that's holding back God's righteous wrath.
And what happens on Calvary is that that dam breaks forth. It is the will of the Lord, Isaiah 53, to crush him. And it floods over Christ. And he dies in the place of sinners as a wrath satisfying sacrifice.
Now, listen to me. He does rise again from the dead. But before he does, how far does God's wrath pursue him? But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
Jesus enters into darkness. He dies. He's laid in a dark tomb. He dies and he's buried. And God pursues his enemies into darkness. It's a reminder for us, beloved, that the wrath of God is truly satisfied.
The work of Christ truly is a complete and sufficient work for those who take refuge in him alone, by faith alone. Because this darkness is also a reminder, isn't it, of hell? The place of, Jesus calls, outer, utter, outer darkness.
A darkness, Exodus alludes to, you know, in the plagues. A darkness to be felt. Nineveh's destruction reminds us that judgment is coming upon those who do not flee for mercy to God in Christ. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
Christ has tasted death for his people, but those who refuse him, those who continue to break God's law without remorse, without restraint, they will taste this darkness themselves when they meet God in final judgment.
There will be no escape. So understand this. Hell is not you escaping from God. Hell is God pursuing his enemies into darkness. And there you will suffer his righteous wrath for all eternity. So here's something that I'm concerned about.
I'm not against this, per se. I'm not against a topical series on the attributes of God. What I'm trying to do here, and we are going to get into an outline, but what I'm trying to do here is show you what's flowing from the text.
I'm not against if we want to do a topical series on the attributes of God, I'm not against that. That's fine. But my point in Nahum is to show us how this flows from the text and then also how we see Christ as the fullness of the scriptures.
All right, so that leads us this morning to contemplate the sovereignty of God. Now in our text, go back, read it again. You don't see the word sovereignty there. Certainly it's not there. It doesn't even explicitly say anywhere, Yahweh is sovereign.
But I think as we read that text, it is quite clear that the sovereignty of God is the foundation for this text. It underpins the entire text. Today I want to preach on this important doctrine. I can't certainly say everything today that I need to say or even would want to say about the sovereignty of God.
But I hope that as we look at this, I give you just a small biblical picture so that we can glory in God, so that we can glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And I will warn us again as we get into the outline that this is a doctrine that does seem to be quite despised in our day.
We're okay that there's a God. All society, right? All politicians. In fact, I don't know of a politician that is an open atheist, right? All politicians, no matter Republican, Democrat, Independent. You say, is there a God?
What will they say? Yes, right? But when it comes to this detail about the sovereignty of God, there's great pushback. Even among some professing Christians. Is God holy? They have to say that. Well, yes, God's holy.
Is God merciful? Yes. Is God gracious? Oh, amen. Absolutely. Is God love? Yes. Is God just? Okay, yes. Is God sovereign? There's pushback. Does God have the right to do with His creation, whatever He pleases?
There's pushback. Does God have right to do with the souls of men, whatever He pleases? There's pushback. They don't like to think of God in this way. Well, I hope to push back on the pushback. I see your pushback and I push back.
So let's dig in this morning. The sovereignty of God, number one, draws our minds and hearts to, number one, awesome aseity. Now, I get it, big words, A-S-E-I-T-Y, awesome aseity. Don't be frustrated with the big word.
I think it's the only big one, okay? Because when we talk about your kids are going back to school, we talk about chemistry. You got to learn big words. For example, what? I don't know. I don't know big chemistry words.
I know theological words. When we talk about biology, you got to use big words, right? Photosynthesis or whatever. When we talk about meteorology, we use big words. Well, don't push back when we talk about big words in theology, right?
When we come upon an infinite God, we should expect that sometimes we'll come upon words that we don't know. So the sovereignty of God draws our minds and hearts to His awesome aseity. What does that mean?
Well, six times in verses one through eight, God's covenant name is used. It's translated a lot early on Jehovah. We say Yahweh. It has to do with the vowel pointings. We can have that discussion later.
But the name is Yahweh, the eternal I am. What does that mean? He is the self-existent one. He is the uncaused one. Now, that's what the term aseity means, that God's existence is not dependent on you or oxygen or blood or anything outside of himself.
It's existent only upon himself. And he's not dependent on anything that is created. He is self-sufficient. You are not. Hold your breath. We could all we could prove it right now, right? We could all say, OK, let's hold our breath.
And we're just not going to breathe. Well, maybe some of you, the best of us in here, you know, would go a few minutes. But eventually we would die. The sovereignty of God reminds us of God's uniqueness.
He is in a category by himself. He alone is sovereign. In fact, in First Timothy 615, Paul says, talks about God as being the blessed and only sovereign. So the Assyrian gods, they are not sovereign. The Assyrian gods, they can't stop this judgment that is coming because they're not gods at all.
They're just, as was pointed out in the catechism reading, they're just fruitless idols. There is only one who is uncaused. Not that he caused himself. That's illogical. There's only one who leaves nothing to chance.
He's eternal, eternally existent. He is dependent on nothing. He's completely independent. He shares his sovereignty with no other. He doesn't share with you. He doesn't share with the church. He doesn't share it with angels.
He doesn't share with anything else. He alone is sovereign. Let me push this a little further. He's not dependent on you for his glory. He's not dependent on Nineveh for his glory. He could have, it's interesting about Nineveh because we see it both ways.
He could have saved the entire city if he wanted to. That's what you see in Jonah. Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but a lot of people, at least in the city, seem to repent or he could have destroyed the whole city by a sovereign justice.
Either way, his glory will not suffer. He is eternally satisfied in himself. He needs nothing. He has perfect fellowship. You've heard before. I think we're above this or we're beyond this. I mean, I'm not trying to be prideful in that, but just listen, you've heard before.
The reason God created us is because he was lonely. That's not true. God's not lonely. We have a triune God, perfect fellowship for all eternity. He has perfect fellowship with himself. He is completely non-dependent on creation.
This is his awesome aseity. He needs nothing else to exist. He is the Lord. He alone is God. Our confession says in chapter two, paragraph one, he is self-existent and infinite in being in perfection.
OK, this is his awesome aseity. This is the God of Nahum. This is the God of the scriptures. This is the God who is awesome and we're called to worship and adore him. A God whose will is not changed by you, a God or anything.
A God whose plans are not frustrated by creation, a God who is independent. The sovereignty of God draws our minds to his awesome aseity. Number two, the sovereignty of God draws our minds to his absolute authority.
Number one, his awesome aseity is unique, self-existent, uncaused, eternal. But secondly, his absolute authority, verse three will begin the second half of verse three, 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. He dries up all the rivers, Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers. Absolute authority. The winds obey him, the waves obey him. We see here prophetic and poetic imagery of God's sovereignty over creation.
And the last point really must lead to this point. God alone is God. We're not God. Creation's not God. Creation is God's. This is God's universe. And therefore, listen to me, beloved. He has the right.
Like I know you're going to agree with this, but we've got to press this all the way. He has the right to rule his creation and he does rule his creation by his sovereign hand. He possesses absolute authority.
There is no such thing. Be careful in the way we talk. There is no such thing as mother nature. His way is in the whirlwind and storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet. The natural world moves according to a supernatural hand.
The word way in our text, his way is in the whirlwind. It's the same as Isaiah 55, 8 and 9, where God says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways. My ways, declares the Lord, for the heavens are higher than the earth.
So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. God's ways are higher than our ways and his way, the text says, is in the whirlwind. The power of a tornado is but a small, small taste of God's infinite power.
And to that, I'll just say this. Isn't it interesting today that people will go and they'll spend lots of money and they'll dig a hole in the ground? They'll build a little tornado shelter and they'll run into the tornado shelter to get out of the way of the little tornado.
And I don't mean to disparage the power of a tornado. I'm just saying it's just a small taste of the power of God. How many will build a tornado shelter to flee the storm, but they won't cast themselves upon the shelter who is Christ from the storm of God's wrath.
The bigger point here, of course, is that all creation bows to the absolute authority of God, his sovereign rule. He says what will happen and it happens. He rebukes the sea and he makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers, Bashan and Carmel wither, the bloom of Lebanon withers.
When God chooses to dry the seas, he may, or the rivers, he may. When he chooses to send a drought, he may. When he chooses to send a flood, he may. When he chooses to make fruitful lands unfruitful, he may.
God directs his creation. He has the sovereign right. He's the ruler of creation. Nothing happens in nature apart from his rule. The planet and its resources and its weather patterns and its fossil fuels, it's all under the divine authority of God.
Some people run around crazy today over so-called global warming. I'm not advocating littering. I'm not saying drink your Coke can and toss it in the ocean. I'm not advocating that. I'm not advocating being a poor steward of the planet.
But I will unapologetically say this. The climate is in God's hands, not ours. He's sovereign over nature. The text also shows us that he's sovereign over nations. You understand that God plants nations and plucks them up.
God is not wringing his hands today over the presidential election of 2024. He plants nations and he plucks them up. He builds nations and he breaks them down because he has absolute authority over the nations.
God uses the nations as he will for his own glory. God turns king's hearts whichever way he will for his own glory. In fact, I think this is quite relevant to our text this morning and the nation of Assyria.
You understand that you have to read this later. But in Isaiah 10, it teaches us that God had used Assyria to be an axe, as it were, in his hand. To be a tool of wrath in his hand. And he uses Assyria to punish his covenantal people.
And then in Nahum, he turns around and punishes Assyria for their sins against his people. But how can God do that? Because he has absolute authority. He has the sovereign right to do with his creation as he will for his glory.
He's sovereign over nature. He's sovereign over nations. Probably everybody's on the same page. But he's also sovereign over individuals. He has absolute authority over every soul to do as he pleases.
Let me speak. I think I can illustrate this first with something that you it's obvious. You can't you can't argue with what I'm about to say. You did not choose to be born. You had no control over that.
You did not choose your parents. You had no control over that. You did not choose the country in which you were born. You had zero control over that. You did not choose. You were born sometime in the late 20th.
And then some of you in here in the early 21st century. You had no control over any of that. Well, who had control over that? Was it just random chance? No, I'm telling you today that God had control over that.
You are here even this morning in this place for a purpose. Now, you agree with that. God is also sovereign, not just over our circumstances, but also sovereign over the salvation of individuals. I'll go to you.
Go ahead and turn to Romans nine. I'll just I was trying to think what I want to say about this text. I'll say that early on in my Christian walk, I didn't even know this was in the Bible. I mean, if you would have told me that I would have known Romans nine, if you would have told me, like, is Romans nine in the Bible?
I would have said, well, sure. Yeah. And if you just said, what's Romans nine about? I have no idea. I didn't hear. We didn't talk about this in Sunday school. A few years ago, I looked at a Lifeway curriculum.
We had a couple of classes going through the book of Romans, and they were using Lifeway. And I thought, well, this is interesting. I wonder what this I wonder what this study has to say about Romans nine.
So I flipped through and it went Romans one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, eleven, twelve. Wait a second. Am I reading that right? No, I went back. I checked. I checked like maybe it's just this book.
Nope. Wasn't that look? No, they skipped it. Well, I'm saying that's foolish. I want you to hear what but I know why they skipped it because it's controversial. This shouldn't be controversial. Romans nine, verse six.
The word of God is true, though every man be a liar. Romans nine, verse six. But it is not as though the word of God is failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that is not the children of the flesh or the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said about this time next year.
I will return and Sarah will have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.
She was told the older will serve the younger. As is written, Jacob, I loved, but he saw I hated. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose, I've raised you up that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? But who are you, old man, to answer back to God?
What will what is molded say to its molder? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
What if God, designed to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.
Now, I just don't have time in this sermon to exposit all of that text, but I'll make some comments. Comment number one, some people will read this text. I heard the late, great Adrian Rogers preach this text, hungry for what he would say, and he he missed it.
I love the brother and I'm grateful. I believe we'll see him in heaven. But some people read this text and they preach and they say, this isn't dealing with individuals. This is dealing with nations. Now, I disagree with that.
But let me just expose the logic of that, expose the poor logic of that argument. You say it's not dealing with individuals. It's dealing with nations, which I'm disagreeing with. It's dealing with individuals.
But you say to me, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's dealing with nations, not individuals. I say to you, then, what are nations composed of? Nations are not just geopolitical entities that don't have what?
People. Nations are composed of individuals. So you've moved the text from just being about individual persons to being about a bunch of individual persons. And you've not gotten out of the issue that you may have with the text.
But secondly, I'll mention this. The very objections that Paul answers are the very objections that people raise when they hear what the Bible has to say about God's sovereignty over the individual, not merely nations.
You're saying to me that God arbitrarily chooses one person to have mercy on and another person to pass over. No, I'm not saying he does so arbitrarily. I'm saying he does so sovereignly. He chooses to have mercy on one and he chooses to display justice on another.
That's not fair. Aha. Now you get the sense of the text because Paul addresses that. Verse 14. What shall we say then? That's not fair. Paul says, stop. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part?
By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So it depends not on human will exertion, but on God who has mercy. Or down in verse 19.
You will say to me then, well, why does he still find fault? If that's true, if he sovereignly chooses to save one and he sovereignly chooses to pass over another and display his justice, who can resist his will?
Aha, you found yourself into Paul's argument. Verse 19. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? And I'm just waiting. All right, Paul, give us the logical explanation.
Make it all work in our minds. Make our hearts understand it all. Help us here. Instead, he says this. You've entered into a realm that you don't belong. Who are you? Who are you to stroll up into the courts of a holy God and demand explanations that your brain has a hard time wrapping around?
I'll just read it how he says it, because the Quatro version is not as good as what Paul says. But who are you, O man? Verse 20. To answer back to God. Well, what is molded, say to its molder, why have you made me like this?
So I'm going back to Nahum. But what I'm saying here is, if you've heard all of this, God has, and I mean it when I say it, absolute authority. Over all. He has absolute authority in the universe today.
Over everything. Over nature. Over nations. Over individuals. Over angels. Over demons. Over humanity. Over particles of dust. Over unknown galaxies. Over things about the human body that we haven't figured out yet in science.
He is creator of all. He's Lord of all. And Christ is King. Christ is King. That's not just a cute slogan that we have painted here above the pulpit. It's a testimony to his sovereign rule over everything.
The nation's rage. The people's plot in vain. He sits in the heavens and laughs. The Lord holds him in derision. That sounds harsh. No, that's Psalm 2. God is sovereign. That brings to our mind awesome aseity, absolute authority.
Thirdly, God's sovereignty draws our minds and hearts to his accomplishing ability. Accomplishing ability. So verse 3 says back in Nahum, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. Now, God's omnipotence deserves its own sermon that will be the plan for next week.
But for this week, under this heading, I want to share with you some scripture references to this point. And the point I'm making is accomplishing ability is this. So hear me. I chose these words strategically.
God is able to accomplish all that he desires. He accomplishes all that he pleases to accomplish. So it's not just that God can do all that he wants. It's that he does do all that he wants. He has accomplishing ability.
He doesn't have just what we might think of potential power. But it's certainly true. We could think through that. But also he accomplishes all that he desires to accomplish. I'm going to go through some verses quickly.
We don't have time to just stay on them. But my encouragement to you is write them down. Look up their context later. So there's so much more. By the way, this is just a small sample. I had more even this morning or I guess last night I was marking out some because I'm just like we got to we can't preach all morning.
So I marked out a few. So I think now I'm down to like eight verses. So let me just share with them with you. Psalm 115, 3. So write them down. You look at them later. Psalm 115, 3. Our God is in the heavens.
He does all that he pleases. Proverbs 16, 33. Proverbs 16, 33. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Proverbs 21, 1. 21, 1. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord.
He turns it wherever he will. I'll just make a comment in those two verses. God is sovereign over dice. God is sovereign over kings, little things, big things, accomplishing ability. Daniel 4, verse 35.
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done?
Job 42, verse 2. Job says, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours. I'll repeat for emphasis. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. Amos 3, 6. The second half of that verse. Amos 3, 6.
Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? Isaiah 46, 9 and 10. Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.
And then I'll give you one New Testament verse, Ephesians 1, 11. In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things, repeating for emphasis, who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
So listen to me. I'm saying that the sovereignty of God means he has accomplishing ability, meaning he does accomplish whatever he ultimately pleases to accomplish. Should he desire to have every soul in heaven?
He could have done that. Should he have desire to send every soul to hell? He could have done that. And should he choose to pour out his grace upon some to passing over others and to show his justice?
He can do that. He does do that. It is his sovereign right. It's his sovereign prerogative. All that God desires to accomplish, he accomplishes. He has the ability to accomplish and he has the will to accomplish.
And he does accomplish. The men are going through a Bible study book right now by Brian Borgman. It's on the book of Ecclesiastes. I'll give you a quote from that book. Brian Borgman says the Bible is not shy in declaring God's sovereignty over everything.
Consider the imagery of our text. The second half of verse three, his way is in the whirlwind and storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet. The clouds, a great army comes and they stir up a little dust cloud, right?
Or you're on a hot summer day and the boys are playing baseball and they're running the bases and you got a little dust cloud stirs up. What is the imagery of God here? The imagery of God is the clouds.
He just stopped and looked at the clouds. It was just like those are huge. Those are massive. Look at the sky. The clouds are the dust of his feet. Verse five, the mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.
God is vastly bigger than any army and the greatest things in the natural world, the mountains should get out west and look at the Rockies. I remember a few years ago, the first time I got to take Steph out there, I grew up, you know, kind of going out west rodeo and stuff.
That was great. We're taking her out there and she saw the Rocky Mountains. I think it was for the first time, at least in person. It takes your breath away. Why? These are amazing. God made that. I said the mountains quake before him.
The Rocky Mountains quake before him. Mount Everest quakes before him. It melts before him. Okay, so what's Nineveh gonna do? God has accomplishing ability. What is Nineveh gonna do? Their little wall is going to keep God from destroying them.
No. Nahum 2 .13, just look at that real quick. God says, behold, I'm against you, declares the Lord of hosts. This is a terrifying thing for the people of Nineveh, a terrifying thing for the Assyrians.
When God sets his face against a nation or a people or an individual, this is a terrible thing. There's nothing that you can do to stay his hand. He has accomplishing ability. Nothing can thwart God's holy purposes.
This is who God is. Fourthly, awesome aseity, absolute authority, accomplishing ability. And fourthly, the sovereignty of God brings our minds to all encompassing activity. All encompassing activity. We see this throughout the text.
Who can stand before his indignation, verse six, who can endure the heat of his anger, his wrath is poured out like fire, the rocks are broken into pieces by him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
He knows those who take refuge in him and on and on and on. The point is that God is active in the world today. Colossians one says that Christ. Holds all things together in in him. All things hold together.
In him, all things. God holds the universe together. But not in such a way that he's merely the sustainer. So. Let me address this, because even in Christian. Circles. There are people who see God as a watchmaker.
So God winds up the world and he's all wise and all the stuff that he does and all the natural laws and stuff like that. He winds up the world and he lets it go. And now he just sits back and kind of watches things.
He's the great watchmaker or some say he knows what's going to happen. Of course, he know. Of course, God knows who's going to be saved. Of course, God knows who's going to be president. Of course, God knows what's going to happen.
But that's it. Or some say he involves himself in creation sometimes. Sometimes there are times that God involves himself in creation. But for the most part, you know, just kind of he set up all these natural laws and such.
And and it just kind of runs on its own. I talked to a pastor. This is a decade ago or more. And I was talking about raindrops falling right where God designed for them to. And specifically where he guides him.
And he was like, no, no, no, no, no. That's because we have this mentality in our mind that everything is kind of running on its own and God is kind of sitting back and watching things run, watching things unfold.
But none of this is biblical. It's not true. The sovereignty of God means all encompassing activity on his part. D. James Kennedy wrote this. According to scripture, God controls everything from the mightiest galaxy to the most infinitesimal atom.
Indeed, our confession says, and this is one of the best statements that explains this outside of scripture, it it breathes the heart of scripture here. Chapter three, paragraph one of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.
From all eternity, God decreed everything that occurs without reference to anything outside himself. He did this by the perfectly wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably. Yet God did this in such a way that he is neither the author of sin nor has fellowship with any in their sin.
This decree does not violate the will of the creature or take away the free working or contingency of secondary causes. On the contrary, these are established by God's decree. In this decree, God's wisdom is displayed in directing all things and his power and faithfulness are demonstrated in accomplishing his decree.
Go look that up and look up the verses that go with it. A shorter statement would be by the theologian Lorraine Botner. He writes, God exerts not merely a general influence, but actually rules in the world which he has created.
So the book of Nahum and the rest of the scripture show us that God is not watching the world and seeing what unfolds, but that he is actively involved in the world today. He is working in every detail, every detail.
The car that pulls out in front of you, the coronavirus, right? The presidential elections, the bullet that whizzed past Donald Trump's ear. Every single thing is under the divine control and providential working of God.
Again, our confession. It's very good here. Chapter five, paragraph one. It's just easier for me to read these instead of all the verses that go with them. So go read this. Go read this and look at the verses.
God, the creator, the good creator of all things in his infinite power and wisdom upholds, directs, arranges and governs all creatures and things from the greatest to the least by his perfectly wise and holy providence to the purpose for which they were created.
He governs according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and unchangeable counsel of his own will. His providence leads to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.
What are you saying, preacher? I'm simply saying this. The activity of God in the world today is all encompassing. From cancer cells to corrupt governments. He is completely sovereign over all. He is meticulously upholding, directing, arranging and governing all of it from the greatest to the least by his perfectly wise and holy providence.
This is all encompassing activity. Behold our God. Yet also we equally firm is true and hold to it. Why this is so good is because he's not the author of sin. He is not the author of sin. I can't make all that work in my brain.
That's fine. Come and adore God with me. He does not have fellowship with those in their sins. And simultaneously, he's in control of it all. I'm going to give you a theological term and a bit of a definition, and I'll show you two examples from scripture I think will help you.
So a theological term to kind of describe this is concurrence. Theologian Louis Burkoff, he says this. The word I just said was concurrence. And there's what Burkoff is talking about it. There's not a single moment that the creature works independently of the will and the power of God.
It is in him that we live and move and have our being at 1728. This divine activity accompanies the action of man at every point. But without robbing man in any way of his freedom, the action remains the free act of man, an act for which he is held responsible.
That's a lot. I understand theological weighty stuff. So let's do this. Let me just give you two biblical examples. The first biblical example, you have the example of Joseph. I pick these. These are two really well-known biblical examples.
Example one, Joseph. Now, we're funny about Joseph. We all we all think that we're Joseph, right? And we're because we feel like everyone's mistreated us. But God's God's going to do something great out of it.
But in the story of Joseph, in Genesis 50, 21, we have that classic statement. What you meant for evil against me. God meant for good. OK, we're all on the same page. We believe that that's in the Bible.
It's clear. So God was acting over in above with, et cetera, all of those things. But I'm going to push that point. I'm going to push that point in Psalm 105, verse 17. It says that God sent Joseph ahead of the famine.
So you need to understand very clearly that the story of Joseph is not just knowing what was going to happen and then figure out some way in order to get Joseph ahead of his family and to be there for the famine and to work all that out for good.
Rather, it's not just God knows it's going to happen. Because by the way, if God just knows it's going to happen and then it just happens, how is God glorified in that? How is God sending Joseph? You didn't send Joseph, God.
It just happened to go that way. You just knew it was going to go that way. And so you just allowed it to go that way. It's not glory to God. It's glory to chance. It's not what the Bible says. God sent Joseph.
That means that God is meticulously working in every detail in this whole story of Joseph and his brothers without violating the will of Joseph's brothers and without being the author of sin. God orchestrates the whole thing, the whole thing to send Joseph to Egypt ahead of the famine.
All of it. God is working in every minute detail. That's how he sends Joseph. Here's another biblical example. Perhaps you've heard of it. Acts chapter 4 verse 27 and 28. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
You've heard of Joseph. You've heard of Jesus. Pilate and Herod and the Gentiles and the religious leaders surrounding Jesus. And what happens? All of a sudden they're like, I don't want to crucify Jesus, but I just feel like I have to.
Something's coming over me and now I'm a robot and I have to just do these things. I don't really want to do these things, but I'm feeling constrained from outside myself. I don't want to crucify you.
Please forgive me, God. I'm just doing what you're making me do. I'm a robot. That's the theological term. Forgive me for big words, but the theological term for that is baloney. It's not what happened.
What'd they do? They did what they wanted to do. Why did they crucify Jesus? They wanted to. They did what they wanted to do. Pilate could have stopped it. Herod could have stopped it. The religious leaders could have stopped it.
The crowds could have stopped it. But instead, they all are guilty together. And yet what is happening? The text says they're doing exactly what God wanted to happen. God had predestined to take place.
Their actions are predestined. Is that what you're saying? That's not what I'm saying. That's what Acts is saying. That's what God is saying. That's what the Bible is teaching, right? And so they do what they want to do.
And they also carry out exactly what God wanted to happen before the foundation of the earth, that Christ would be crucified for sinners. And I'm saying to you this morning that God's sovereignty means all-encompassing activity.
You need more? From God. Not a sparrow. Meaning something trivial and meaningless. When's the last time you drove around and counted how many sparrows died today? You don't care. God does. Luke 12 7. Now think about, I want to pick on Pastor Jacob in this, but I can't if you see my hair.
Luke 12 7 says that the hairs of our heads are numbered. I don't care how many hairs you have on your head. Again, it's easy to count Pastor Jacob's, right? Getting easier to count mine. No one cares how many hairs are on your head.
You don't even care, really. I mean, I care to an extent. I wish there was more than seven. But God does care. A sparrow doesn't die unless God wills it. And a hair don't grow on your bald head unless God wills it.
So we've talked about these big things and we've talked about these little things. And I'm saying that there is all-encompassing activity. We don't serve a God who's watching the world today. Rather, we serve a God actively involved in the world today with all-encompassing activity.
All the circumstances that brought you here this morning. All the circumstances. Big circumstances. Who you were born to. Who your parents were. All those big circumstances. The country. The time period.
All those big things are under the sovereignty of God. And then all the little things. The fact that your heart didn't stop beating in the middle of the night last night. The fact that your brain didn't have an aneurysm.
The fact that your car didn't have flat tires this morning. The fact that you're able to get up and you felt healthy. You weren't sick. You're not dying this morning. You're able to get up and come to church.
All these things. God is actively working in all these things so that you're sitting right here this morning on August the 18th, 2024. My mind is blown. All of these things that have to happen for this group of people to be here and God's in control of it all.
This is His all-encompassing activity. And it's clearly shown to us in the prophecy of Nahum. It's underpinning this text. And it's shown to us throughout Scripture. In fact, if you're going to wrap your mind around this, my counsel to you, you might say, well, who do I need to read?
Who do I need to read to learn more about this stuff? Do I need to read Spurgeon? Calvin? You mentioned Wayne Grudem, Sister Magdalene. Who should I go and read? Hey, I got some guys you should read. You ever heard of a guy named Moses?
You ever heard of a guy named Apostle Paul? You ever heard of a guy named Peter? What about Nahum? What about Jonah? What about Micah? What about Malachi? What about Isaiah? What about Jeremiah? Read those guys.
Get alone with yourself and read those books. Read the Bible. Not just verses. Not just this verse or that verse. Read the Bible. Read the Bible from cover to cover. Do whatever it has to do. Cancel your plans.
Cancel your supper plans. Cancel your birthday parties and say, I'm going to do whatever I got to do to read this book because I want to know this God. That's what we do. Now, this reality we've talked about today is an abject terror to the wicked.
Because the God you don't want to rule is ruling. The God you don't want to be in control is in control. Turn up the music as loud as you can and try to drown him out. But you can't numb your conscience.
And you can't ever completely escape the gnawing feeling that is in your soul. That's why some people are so loud. That's why they're shouting their abortion. Not because they're proud. But we're trying to drown out their conscience.
And you'll give an account one day for your transgressions. Nahum reminds us that account will come. The man will come around to your door and collect the debt that you owe. Nineveh met this judgment in 612 BC.
And I do not know when it will be for you. But I know it will come. And I know that the sovereignty of God should be a terror to those who refuse to repent and trust Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
If you're a Christian, there should be a delight, a comfort, a hope. God has all power, all sovereign prerogative to work as he sees fit. And all he does and all his works are good. He is a personal, compassionate, loving, and gracious God.
He is good. He is good. He is good. He didn't have to send his son into the world to be born of the Virgin Mary, to fulfill all righteousness, to complete the covenant of works, to die in our place under God's wrath, to rise again from the dead on the third day.
This was not an obligation. It was his pleasure. It was his delight to glorify his name. God saves his people not because he has to, but because he wants to. Can you trust a God like that? And God didn't have to choose to save anyone.
He could have sent us all to hell. He could have passed over everyone. We could all have received Nineveh's judgment in 612 BC and be cast off under his eternal judgment forever in hell. That's what we deserve.
But instead, God chose to glorify Christ in redeeming the church chosen before the foundation of the world. Can we not trust a God like this? Spurgeon preached it this way. We cannot be wrong in loving the doctrine of free, unmerited, distinguishing grace when we see it as the brightest jewel in the crown of our covenant God.
Do not be afraid of election and sovereignty. The time has come when our ministers must tell us more about them, or if not, our souls will be so lean and starved that we shall mutiny for the bread of life.
Oh, may God send us more thorough gospelmen who will preach sovereign grace as the glory of the gospel. Spurgeon, listen to the scriptures I say. I think it's very possible that many churches in our land today feel lean and starved because they will not feast themselves upon the wonderful glory and power of the sovereignty of God, of the gracious sovereignty of God and its connection with the gospel.
We want to have felt needs. We want to run around and we want to think about politics. We want to run around and we want to think about, well, we just actually, we don't want to think. I don't want to think about this.
I don't want to think about that. Keep it light. Keep it fluffy. Keep it 15 minutes. Feed my kids some candy and let's get on about our week. Let's get on about the things that we really care about. No, friends, we need the sovereignty of God.
We need this in our churches. We need it in our lives. Whose hands today do you want the universe in? Do you want it in yours? You want the universe in your hands? Listen to me, this isn't original to me.
You can't even control your own toothache. And you want to control galaxies? Come on, man. We don't want that. Whose hands do you want the universe? You want the universe in the hands of the evil, the evil one?
Satan, who is the ancient foe that seeks our ruin? No, you want the universe to be in the random and meaningless hands of just nothing? As God just watches and he's helpless and he wrings his hands and he's just in helpless surrender to your free wills?
Is that what you want? No, what a pathetic and unworthy God that would be. God is in complete control. Whose hands do you want salvation? Whose hands do you want the salvation of your children in? You want to put the salvation of your children in their hands?
My kids, I had to teach them how to use the bathroom, right? Yeah, don't go in your pants. You go here. This is what you do. You want their eternal salvation in their hands? No. John Bunyan said it this way.
I love it. To be saved by grace, suppose that God had taken the salvation of our souls into his own hand and to be sure it is safer in God's hand than ours. That's where you want salvation of the nation's end.
The hands of a sovereign and gracious God. The triune God who is perfectly holy, perfectly wise, perfectly good. Perfectly perfect. He is in precise and scrupulous control of all things. His will cannot be thwarted and all that he has decreed will come to pass.
And I'm telling you this morning, church, this is good. His promises will prevail. His people will endure to the end. The lamb who was slain will receive the full reward for his suffering. The godly will enter into eternal reward.
The wicked will suffer eternal judgment. And God wins because he's sovereign. This is the God we serve. It's a great comfort to know that he's working all things to the glory of his name and the good of his church this fall.
Hey, listen, I believe it with all my heart. Fall is coming, y 'all. It'll just be a couple of months. At least by January. You will be outside and one of those fall crisp winds will kind of float by and you'll look up and there'll be a leaf detached from a tree.
And a leaf will kind of sway back and forth in the wind and it'll eventually fall on the grass and you'll observe it all. And I hope that what will come to your mind is everything that I just saw happened was under the divine, sovereign, meticulous control of our triune God.
It plucked off the leaf at the branch at the exact time it was supposed to. The course it took from the tree to the ground took exactly as long as it was supposed to. The course it followed was the exact course it was supposed to.
And the place and timing of which it landed was exactly as it was supposed to. What a God we serve. I understand. I haven't answered every question I could have. In fact, maybe for some of you, all I did was raise more questions.
But can you believe today that nothing is meaningless? Nothing is meaningless, nothing. It's all under the sovereign care and control of God. Nothing. Your doctor's report, it's not meaningless. What's happening at work, it's not meaningless.
What's happening in our nation is not meaningless. He's working. He's working. He's working for his glory and the good of those who take refuge in him. Can I just ask you this morning, would you come take refuge in a God like this?
Quit trying to be in control of everything. Some of you are anxious. Some of you are cranky. Some of you are grumbling. Because you're not in control. Hey, let it go. You weren't designed to be in control.
Let it go and run to God. Come behold the wonderous mystery. This is the God we worship. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, rest in the Lord Jesus. Come live for this God. But you say, yeah, but you just preached it's all up to God.
Who can resist his will? And I say to you, well, what are you doing? What are you doing talking? If you heard me today, why are you talking irreverently to such a God in that way? Have you no humility?
Have you no fear? Have you no understanding of who this God is? Have you no delight in his sovereign goodness? It is absolutely up to the sovereignty of God to show mercy upon him and show mercy and compassion upon him and show compassion.
But if that sparks arrogance in you, you're acting and going the way of a fool. Don't go that way. Run to God. Let it spark humility. And how about you say something like this? This is not my world. This world is not about me.
This world is God's world. And it exists solely by his sheer pleasure and for his own glory. I exist to glorify the sovereign God and enjoy him forever. And the only way that I may enjoy this triune God forever is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
Won't you believe that today? Won't you rest yourself in such a glorious God, even as we trust him with every moment and seek to live for his glory in this fallen world? God's good. And it's all going to be made right in the end.
Church, I'll close by giving just a word, just one word, one word to summarize our response to the sovereignty of God. One word. Will you leave this place today? Gunnar, come forward. We leave this place today.
With this one word upon your heart and mind, the word is not theology. The word is not even sovereignty. Just one word in response to this preaching we heard today, that word. Is worship. Stand. And let's worship.