Nahum 1 and the Destruction of Enemies

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Christian, relax. Rest. Trust. God will destroy all of His enemies.  

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the
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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is
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Mike Abendroth. I'm your host, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, hopefully.
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And as the years have gone on, the last 11 years, if someone were to ask me, is the show any different?
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I think it's different in two regards. The first regard is that I am less controversial.
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I know that I could get more listeners if I was always talking about book burnings, metaphorically speaking, figuratively speaking, always after Ann Voskamp or Beth Moore or critiquing the latest in evangelicalism.
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That gets more listeners. Partly, the reason I don't do that anymore is
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I don't really have any way to get the information. Since I don't subscribe to Christianity Today, and I just can't keep up with it, and I have other interests now, instead of seeing these errors in folks,
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I mean, I still do it sometimes, right? You look at the Southern Baptist Convention or Southern Seminary or something like that, and critical race theory and social justice issues, that's still,
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I'm not saying I never do it, but I'm now more interested in critiquing things like Daniel Fuller's slash
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John Piper's view of law gospel blending and those type of things. That's kind of one difference.
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The other difference is that I've become more reformed over the years and less dispensational, or I, in my mind,
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Clark wouldn't agree with me, but I, in my mind, I'm reformed now and not dispensational.
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But I, you know, I learn and grow like everyone else, and so that's the good news.
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If you hear me quote Richard Baxter, you can tell that that was an old show. Come with us to Israel, if you like, in February 2022.
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That's only one year off, and by then, I don't know if you're going to need a vaccination card or not, but at least we're planning on going.
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Omaha Bible Church Pastor Pat Ebendroth and myself hopefully will lead that.
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One last thing before we get into the topic today, and that is, you know, it seems like when evangelicalism could not find things to disagree on any longer because we disagree enough about music, and we have style differences with that, and then it's homeschool, public school, private school, and then it's birth control, and then it is gluten -free, and there's all these, you know, celebrate
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Halloween, don't celebrate Halloween, all these issues. Now we have mask, no mask, service, no service, vax, no vax, probably eventually chip, no chip, tattoo, no tattoo,
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I don't mean tattoo that says mom, but the tattoo so you can get food. It is, it's wild, that's for certain.
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I'm looking at the book of Nahum, and it leads me to say, based on what
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I've just been talking about, that there are people that do not like Christianity. There's the world system that personified does not like Christianity.
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Satan does not like Christianity. Some people don't like Christianity. Some religious groups don't like Christianity, and you could probably name some other peoples or entities that do not like Christianity, and the persecution of God's people has been something that is perennial.
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It is regular, it is often. We might not sense or feel or experience it here in the
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United States, but it doesn't take you very long to watch what goes on with the persecution of those outside the
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United States. The Voice of the Martyrs, I remember reading that magazine sometimes, even if you go back to Fox's Book of Martyrs, you'll realize that Christianity is a persecuted group, and I think that's essentially because Jesus said, if you are going to follow me, they're going to persecute you as well.
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The suffering servant has servants who suffer. All those who desire to live godly lives will suffer persecution, and of course, our
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Lord Jesus did that, and we will experience that as well. And it's right around the corner, more so here in America, because this is not as friendly to Christianity as it used to be.
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Just depends on who the latest politicians are, but I think as time goes on, we are seeing it and will see it, the persecution of the
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Church, even when it comes to the First Amendment and the state trying to tell us, we can't meet, or you're going to be fined.
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Who would think that Governor Newsom would be less strict than the governor of New Mexico?
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And anyway, I think Nahum is a good book to help us with all this, and you see the
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God -centered nature of Nahum. Nahum means consolation or comfort. And you watch what happens in chapter 1, verses 2 through 8, we've talked about on this show, the
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Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord. Five times Yahweh is used to remind the people before even
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Nineveh is addressed, to get your eyes on the Lord, and that's a good thing to do in the midst of persecution and troubles and trials, is to keep your focus on the
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Lord, because otherwise you're going to be in a bad place. And whether you're in prosperity or adversity, that is good advice to walk by faith.
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Last time we finished verse 8, it says in verse 7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
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He knows those who take refuge in him. With an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
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The book of Nahum wants you to realize that you can take comfort that the adversaries of God will be dealt with eventually, and to make it even more specific, that the adversaries of God's people will be dealt with by God, either temporarily and eventually, eternally.
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Certainly eternally, but often temporarily as well.
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As well, not temporarily. As will, as well. It says in verse 9, why do you plot against the
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Lord? He will make a complete end, trouble will not rise up a second time. It's pretty foolish to plot against the
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Lord by plotting against his people, right? They can't reach God, so they go after his people, those in Judah, those in Jerusalem.
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Israel has already gotten it, and it's just a matter of time now before those in Jerusalem get it.
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They receive this oracle, this burden from Nahum that's written down, and we see that God is going to make a complete end to the
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Ninevites, her kings, her conquerors, her people, and the nation,
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Assyria. As a matter of fact, you have to be careful when you say Assyria, because then Syria your phone might turn on.
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What God does, he doesn't do partially. He doesn't somehow miss something.
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He'll make a complete end, and trouble will not rise up a second time. I mean, it's one and done with the Lord, and we don't have to worry when it comes to adversaries.
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While this is particular for Nahum, I think it's good for us, whoever the adversaries are, don't be afraid, don't be anxious, don't be biting your fingernails.
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You can trust the Lord, and there's going to be an end for all this, and we'll look at 2 Thessalonians, probably this show or the next show.
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These enemies of God, particularly here, these Ninevites in Nahum, are like entangled thorns.
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They use these entangled thorns for protection, but they're not protected from those entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink, and certainly when drunkards drink too much, it's hard for them to protect themselves.
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If I had to fight Mike Tyson back in 1985, I would rather have him be completely out of his mind drunk, and would stumble even if I just blew on him with air from my mouth.
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They're consumed like stubble, fully dried, and that's what happens. They think they're strong.
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They like to drink. There are victory parties and festive festivals, as the language talks about, and they're going to be consumed, right?
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The thorns just crackle. You can just hear the stubble that's fully dried crackling and being consumed.
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This is what God's going to do. From you came one who plotted against the
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Lord or plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. Thus says the
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Lord, though they are at full strength. Now he's addressing the people in Jerusalem, in Judah.
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Though they're at full strength and many, that's what the Assyrian army is, they will be cut down and pass away.
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Though I, God, have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more using this secondary cause,
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Nineveh, slash Assyria. And now I will break his yoke off of you and will burst your bonds apart.
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So I'm going to release you and you are going to be free and no longer under the oppression of Assyria any longer.
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He's speaking to Judah and now I will break his yoke from you or off of you and burst your bonds apart.
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Most people think this yoke, his yoke, is an Assyrian monarch or maybe a bunch of monarchs.
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And this yoke from these monarchs would be in the form of labor, heavy taxation, and tribute paid to the
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Assyrians. You watch this poetic language as some say of emancipation and you are thankful that the
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Lord will release you finally and redeem you finally. Yokes and shackles and forced to do things that you don't want to do.
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It says in Isaiah 45, as for the Assyrians who since distant days had ruled over the people with the heavy yoke and had brought misery to the people of the land, from the land of Aked I banished their feet and cast off their yoke.
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I misspoke. The cross -reference is Isaiah 45, but that's from the, my quote is from the
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Babylonian Chronicle found in a commentary. We have yoke and burden and bondage and occupation.
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They've been invaded. They're in big trouble. And the Israelites, of course, have already experienced this and now
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Judah's probably sitting there thinking, when will this happen? We'd like to be delivered from this tyranny and we need to be rescued.
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Did God forget his covenant? Will God punish the oppressors? And we know the answers to those two questions.
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Breaking the yoke off often in Assyrian cultures, they use the word yoke to emphasize their power and their rule and their reign and their sovereignty, their suzerainty,
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S -U -Z -E -R -A -I -N -T -Y. You've got the ox and you've got the master and to control that ox, you have a yoke.
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And that's exactly what this Assyrian nation loved to do is put people under the yoke, except now the yoke's changed.
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And if I was a Bible teacher for a quick, easy laugh, I would say to the Assyrians, now the yoke's on you.
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And ultimately we know the people in Jerusalem are having this chastisement from the
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Lord using the Assyrians. Let's see what
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I have here. Isaiah 28, what happened with Israel, right?
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We're talking about Judah now, but Israel, what has happened with them? Therefore says the Lord, God, behold,
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I am the one who was laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation.
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Whoever believes will not be in haste and I will make justice the line and righteousness the plumb line and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and waters will overwhelm the shelter.
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Then your covenant with death will be annulled and your agreement with Sheol will not stand.
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My name is Mike Cabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.
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Do you think it's hard to destroy the Assyrian army? What would you need to destroy the
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Assyrian army at this time? Very, very difficult to do. I think you'd say to yourself, they're powerful, they're strong, they're wicked, very, very difficult to do this.
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And you're going to need the Lord's help to do this very thing. I'll break off his yoke from you.
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And some people think it's Sennacherib. Some people think it's Erishbanipol. It doesn't matter who it is.
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God's oppressors don't last. Verse 14, the Lord has given commandment about you.
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No more shall your name be perpetuated from the house of your gods.
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I will cut off the carved image and the metal image and I will make your grave for you are vile.
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I'm going to make your grave for your vile. It's a pretty scary language. This is the language of, uh -oh, be careful.
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This is the language of, yikes, I'm going to destroy your images. They're going to rely on religious worship of these false gods for protection, guidance.
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Uh -uh, they're done. I'll prepare your grave. That's very difficult.
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Assyria is there with her whole army. She is surrounded by the graves of all her slain who have fallen by the sword.
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Their graves are in the depths of the pit and her army lies around her grave. All who had spread terror in the land of the living are slain, fallen by the sword,
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Ezekiel 32, verses 22 and 23. Later on,
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God uses Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians to dig the grave of the
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Ninevites because they're light, they're worthless, they're insubstantial. They are, in fact, vile.
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That's what the Lord says. And you don't have to rely on your own strength. You rely on who
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God is. It is not by might nor by power but by my spirit says that the Lord God Almighty, Zechariah 4, 6.
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And for us as well. The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
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That's why he says earlier in Hebrews 13, 6. So we say this with confidence.
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We say this with confidence because we can trust in the Lord no matter what goes on. So, Mike Abendroth to the listeners of No Compromise Radio, no matter how bad the government gets,
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I want you to remember, thus saith the Lord. I want you to remember who he is, what he's promised. And when
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God's people are persecuted, he doesn't let it go on forever. There'll be a payday one day.
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There will be an accounting. There will be God to rise to judge the people who are persecuting the apple of God's eye, the bride, the church.
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Here, the Assyrians, their names cut off. They wanted so much to have dynasties and big lions and statues and frescoes.
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I've seen a lot of these things in the British Museum. They love that.
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They love the name. They love the, you know, perpetuating the name and the awesomeness of who they were.
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But it's not going to work. It's not going to do anything because God is going to judge.
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Nineveh is going to be overturned. It is said, if we're dealing with Sennacherib as the leader, that he was slain in the temple of his own idol by his own sons shortly after his return from Judah, when the seed of the holy city was miraculously raised through the instrumentality of an angel.
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That was a common thing that people believed. It was a murder.
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And it's fascinating to see just the lore behind that.
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What do idolaters do, right? They trust in their own strength.
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They trust in their idols. And these Ninevites, no surviving descendants, no heirs.
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Idols are gone. Temples gone. The city's going to be buried. Gods are buried.
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This is a solemn pronouncement, understatement of understatements, as it were.
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God is going to make sure the demise of the Assyrians is complete.
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One writer said, the statue of Ishtar was discovered prostrate and headless amid the ruins of her temple, which had stood at Nineveh for almost 15 centuries.
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No funeral, no memorial service, nothing. You Christian, looking at Nahum 9 through 14 in chapter 1, should say to yourself,
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I could take comfort knowing that God's adversaries will be obliterated.
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They'll be judged. Do you worry about the government? Are you anxious about it?
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Are you thinking, you know what? Congress, President, SCOTUS, Georgia Senators, the
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Senate, it's going away that you don't like. And you think religious freedoms are on their way out.
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You don't have to like it, obviously. You don't have to agree with it. But we don't have to sin, right?
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That's the thing. We don't have to sin by not trusting in the Lord with all our heart. We don't have to lean on our own understanding.
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We don't have to try to just, you know, make our own path straight. No, we acknowledge the Lord. He makes our paths straight.
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They might be at full strength and many. That's what verse 12 says in name one.
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Though they are at full strength and many, though they control the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, though they ignore the first amendment of freedom of religious assembly, though they, you know, fine churches, though they say you can't open the doors, though they say you can have them down to 40 percent, down to 20 percent, will allow you to have 10 people to attend a church service.
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We don't have to worry about who these people are. We know that the Lord, he's our rock, our redeemer.
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And unlike the Ninevites who have these false gods to go worship the false gods and get protection from them, we know the real
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God because he's made himself known to us. Therefore, Christian, don't worry.
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Christian Harris, you don't worry either. I've told you the story that my friend Christian Harris, he listens,
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I think, to most NOCOs. And I try to tell people, Christian, because when I say that, I don't mean everybody.
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I mean, you know, there are unbelievers who listen. If you're not a believer, you need to repent and believe. But if you're a
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Christian, I want to make sure you get addressed that way and you have assurance of salvation, etc. So that I say
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Christian. My friend Christian said that every time I say that, his ears perk up because he thinks
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I'm talking to him directly. And in this particular case, Christian, Christian Harris, I'm speaking to you.
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Now, he doesn't stop here in the first chapter of Nahum about taking comfort, knowing that the adversaries are going to be obliterated.
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But he also says, take comfort in verse 15, because God's provided a way for adversaries to become friends.
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What do I mean by that? It says, Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.
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Keep your feast, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off.
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Now, the point of the passage is, you're in Jerusalem, you're going to get, you're getting persecuted.
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And all of a sudden, you just keep looking for good news. Something good has happened. And the runners come up over the hills and you spot somebody and, you know, he comes and brings good news.
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Nineveh is destroyed, Assyria is destroyed. And now we get to keep our feasts, by the way, that point to the
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Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we get to fulfill our vows and obey. We don't have to worry about them any more.
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But I also want to make sure we understand that there's good news for us. So therefore, I've made this point, take comfort that God has provided a way for adversaries to become friends.
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Because for us, the good news isn't rescued from the enemy. The good news for us is we're rescued from ourselves.
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Yes, rescued from the enemy, Satan, but it's our own doing, right? We are, you know, standing condemned based on our own doing.
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Yes, in addition to Adam's imputed sin, but it's by our own doing. That's really a lot of the focus on scripture, for our own sins will be condemned.
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Anyway, there is good news. Nineveh is going to be judged and now you get to worship in peace.
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And isn't that good when you think just of Christianity, while we might get persecuted, while we might get attacked, while we might be oppressed on every area, we might not get to worship the way we want even now, there's going to be worship and peace again one day.
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Ultimately, of course, in heaven where you think of Revelation 5 and the Lion of Judah standing as if slain.
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This is all part of it. This is all part of God's plan with the Messiah. And certainly there's this messianic element to verse 15, to look forward one day to being able to worship.
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This has nothing to do with let the government do whatever she wants to now. It just is pointing you to, in the middle of a persecution and trial, look to the future.
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There's going to be eventually and ultimately the right kind of worship unimpeded with the
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Lord Jesus. After executing perfect peace, receiving the worship of those who have been redeemed.
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My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.