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He will open your Bibles to Nahum. And once again, if you need to look in your contents to find that, I'm fine with that. A lot of us don't know where that is. It's not a book that everybody reads. Something difficult about preaching is, as those of you that have preached and do preach, is you have to find different ways to say the same thing over and over and over and over and over.
Because the message of the Bible is one thing. Trust in Christ. He is the only way of salvation. That is beginning to Him. So today, I will take the task of doing that in the book of Nahum. I'm going to read the whole book, and I am going to cover the whole book.
And the last time I tried to cover a whole book with more than one chapter, it was an hour and twelve minutes, but I promise you, I will keep it an hour and eleven minutes today. Let's read the Word of God together.
The Oracle of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkishite. A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, and the Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries. He reserves wrath for His enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger, great in power. The Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. In a whirlwind, a storm is His way, and the clouds are the dust beneath His feet. He rebukes the sea, makes it dry.
He dries up the rivers, bashing and carmel, they wither. The blossoms of Lebanon, they wither. Mountains quake because of Him, and the hills dissolve. Indeed, the earth is upheaved by its presence, and the world and all of its inhabitants are in it.
Who can stand before the indignation of God, and who can endure the burning anger of Him? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken up by Him. But the Lord is good and a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him.
But with an overflowing flood, He will make a complete end of its sight, and He will pursue His enemies into darkness. Whatever you devise against the Lord, He will make a complete end of it. Distress will not rise up twice, and like tangled and entwined thorns, and like those who are drunken with their drink, they will be consumed, and as stubble, they will be completely withered.
For you has gone forth, I'm sorry, from you has gone forth, and one who plot against the Lord is evil and a wicked counselor. Thus says the Lord, though they are full in strength, and likewise they are many, even so they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no longer. So now I will break His yoke and His bar from upon you, and I will tear off your shackles. The Lord has issued a command concerning you. Your name will no longer be perpetuated.
I will cut off idol and image in the house of your gods, and I will prepare your grave, for you are contemptible. Behold the mountains, the feet of Him who will bring good news, who announces peace, celebrate your feast, old Judah.
Go ahead and pay your vows, for never again will this wicked one pass through you. He is going to be completely cut off. The one who scatters has come up against you. Man the fortress, watch the road, strengthen your back, summon all of your strength, for the Lord will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, even though devastators have devastated them and destroyed their vineyard branches.
The shields of its mighty men are colored red. The warriors are dressed in scarlet. The chariots are enveloped in flashing steel, and He is prepared to march. The cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly in the streets.
They rush wildly in the squares. Their appearances are like torches. They're dashed to and fro, and lightning flashes. He remembers His nobles. They stumble in the march. They hurry to the wall, and the mantel is set up.
The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace will be dissolved. It is fixed. She is stripped. She is carried away, and her handmaidens are moaning like doves, beating on their breasts, though Nineveh was like a pool of water.
Throughout her days, now they are fleeting. Stop, stop, but no one turns back. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold, for there is no limit to its treasure. Wealth from every kind and every desirable object, but she is emptied.
Yes, she is desolate, and she is going to be laid waste. Hearts are melting, and the knees are knocking, and also anguish is in the whole body, and all their faces are grown pale. Where is the den of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions?
Where are the lion and the lioness and the lion's cub proud, with nothing to disturb them? The lion tore enough for its cubs, killed enough for its lionesses, and killed its lairs with prey, and its dens with torn flesh.
But behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts. I will burn up her chariots like smoke. Sword, we devour the young lions. I will cut off your prey from the land, and no longer will the voice of the messenger be heard.
So woe to the bloody city, completely full of its lies and pillage. Her prey never again departs. The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling wheel, the galloping horses, the bounding chariots, the horsemen charging, flashing swords, the spears gleaming, bodies, mass corpses lying, countless dead bodies.
They stumble over the dead bodies, all because of the many harlotries and the whorings, and the charming one of the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations into her whorings, the families by her sorceries.
But I am against you, declares the Lord, and I will lift up your skirt over your face, and show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your distress. I will throw filth on you, and make you vile, and set you up as a spectacle, and will come upon all those who see you, and will shrink from you, and say, Nineveh is devastated, who will grieve for her?
How will I seek comforters for you? Are you better than Thebes, or Noahmon, which was situated by the waters of the Nile, with water surrounding her, whose ramparts was the sea, whose wall consisted of a sea?
Ethiopia was her might, Egypt too, and it was without limits. Put and Luban were among her helpers, yet she became an exile, and she went off into captivity. Also, her children's heads were dashed at the end of every street.
They cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound with feathers, and you too will become drunk. You will be hidden. You too will search for a refuge from your enemy, and not find it.
All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit, and when shaken, they fall into the eater's mouth. Behold, your warriors are women in the midst, and the gates of your land are open wide to your enemy.
Fire will consume your fire bars. So draw up the water for the siege. Strengthen your fortifications. Go into the clay. Tread the mortar. Take hold of the brick mold. Their fire will consume you, and the sword will cut you down.
I will consume you just like a locust does. So multiply yourself like creeping locust. Multiply yourself like a swarming locust. You have increased your trade more than any of the stars in the sky, and the creeping locust will strip and fly away.
Your guardmen will be like the swarming locust. Your marshals will be like hordes of grasshoppers settling on a stone wall on a cold day, and when the sun rises, it flees, and the place where they are is not known.
Your shepherds are sleeping, O King of Assyria. Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to regather them. There is no relief for your breakdown. Your wound is now incurable.
All who hear about you will clap their hands over you, for on whom has not your evil passed continually. Let's pray. Father God, I need your strength at this moment. I need an extra measure of your strength at this moment.
Father, I understand that's in you and by you, that I live and breathe and have your, but Father, I stand before your people, standing behind your pulpit, and open up your word to proclaim your truth to your sheep.
I pray that you would help me to do it in the power of your spirit, that hearts would be transformed. That, Father, you say when the word is preached, it produces life unto life, or death unto death. And God, today I pray that it would produce life, and Father, I pray that you would be honored in all that's said and done.
In Christ's name, amen. That's a heavy stuff to read, is it not? Nahum was an obscure prophet. If you remember a few weeks ago, and just by the way, if you see me moving all these pages around, I just print the text.
It's easier for me to read here than here. Obscure, we don't know a lot about Nahum, just like we didn't know a lot about Obadiah. But he's in the Bible and he's important. What we do know about him is that he wrote a judgment against the nation of Assyria and the people of Nineveh.
The Assyrian Empire, for over two centuries, saber rattled, berated, and caused nothing but consternation and fear upon the people of Israel, the northern kingdom, and the southern kingdom, Judah. In 722, because of its harlotries and its whorings against God, he used the Assyrian Empire to haul them away into captivity, never to return.
The only thing left was the southern kingdom of Judah, and Assyria continually did its saber rattling. Understand that the Assyrian Empire was one of the most ruthless and brutal empires to ever walk the face of this planet.
If you remember, about two years ago, we did a conference on the sovereignty of God, and mine was in the Old Testament, and I chose to use the sovereignty of God as he uses the wicked to carry out his purposes.
He used the Assyrian Empire to carry out his purposes, to tread down God's people like enemies in mud in the street, to chastise them. And the brutality of the things that they did, it's unfathomable.
They had cleats that had spikes on them for literally stomping the bodies into the ground so that the blood squished up through their shoes. They impaled men on streets alive so that as other people came into the city, they could see the atrocities.
As they went in and conquered other lands, they filleted men alive and put their skins up on walls so that people would be terrified as they came in. As they would besiege cities that had tributaries and rivers, they would use bodies of the corpses of the men that they had slain or their warriors to plug up the rivers so that as that water ran into the city, it began to run red.
And people knowing that destruction was imminent, and so that people couldn't leave the gates of the city, they would take their warriors and behead them at the city gates and stack their heads up like pyramids in front of the gates so they could not leave.
That was the Ninevites. That was the Assyrian Empire, and they were absolutely brutal. This is called The Sequel. And the reason it's called The Sequel is 100 years prior to this very prophecy, the preaching of Jonah went to Nineveh, and he didn't wanna go.
He did not wanna go preach the word of God to the Ninevites. He wanted them destroyed because they were the enemies not just of God, but they were the enemies of Israel. And if I can get to do Jonah, Jonah was a racist.
He wanted those people killed because they were not Jewish. He wanted them treated a different way because they were not Jews, not because they weren't the people of God. He hated them because they were something other than Jewish.
Now God did use him, swallowed him up by a big fish, spit him out on the shore, and then he took off and ran straight to Nineveh. And he gave five words in the Hebrew, 40 days, and then it will be overthrown.
And if you remember what happened to some of those five preaching of those five words in the Hebrew text, a whole city repented from the top down. Well, this is 100 years later. What happened to their repentance?
It dissipated like the morning dew, and they begin to do whatever they wanted. And God said, okay, let me show you what I'm gonna do to apostate nations. And this is what the oracle is. This oracle took place in the 7th century.
We don't know the exact time, but we do have a time frame. If you look back over in chapter three, there was it says it talked about the fall of Thebes or Noah-Man depending on what translation you have.
That was a time when Ashurbanipal, who was the greatest leader of the Assyrian Empire, he had sacked Thebes or Noah-Man in Egypt. That happened in 663, then Ashurbanipal died in 626. So that gives us the time frame in which this oracle was written, because we know that the 663 is when Thebes fell.
So it was in this time frame that this oracle was written. So it had been roughly 100 years after the preaching of Jonah, this condemnation comes. Now, this condemnation to Nineveh is a scathing and fearful thing to hear from God, but understand that was a comfort to the people of God.
So let's walk through it. The oracle of Nineveh, some translations may say burden, and that was definitely a thing. It was a burden to carry the weight of this judgment that God was having Nahum carry.
And it says it was a book. It was a vision that Nahum the Elkashot. We don't know where Elkash was. Some people believe it was just outside Jerusalem. We have no idea. But we do know this, that Nahum was a true prophet, and that he was a prophet of God.
And this is the only time in the Old Testament that this word, Sepharis, used in concerning a prophecy. Every other time it was, whether you use Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea, it was all preaching of the word.
Then someone then recorded those and wrote them down and put them in a scroll. That's not what this is. The Hebrew word there is Sephar, and it was a book, and it was a book written by Nahum to be circulated, which was very odd for that time.
Nahum was a prophet of God that we know no beginning in. We don't know anything about him. This is all we know. And he took this to Nineveh. Now, I'm not much on skipping verses. I'm gonna skip two through eight, and I promise you I'll come back.
So just skip down to verse nine. Here's the prophecy to the king of Assyria and to Ninevites. Whatever you devise against the Lord, he will make a complete end of it. Distress will not rise up twice. The Ninevites continually tried to overrun the people of God.
He said, and Ninevites was saying, whatever you're trying to do against God, you ain't gonna be able to do it. It's not gonna work. And the reason why it's not gonna work is you can go to Psalm chapter two, and it says that the nations rage against God and they make plans to overthrow him.
But what does God do? He sits in the heaven and he laughs. What man thinks he can overthrow God? Nebuchadnezzar learned that very clearly. What God puts his hand to, no man can stop it. God says, through the prophet, this distress that you're going through will not rise up twice.
He says, look, people of God, this thing that continually has happened for you for well over 200 years, when I do it this time, they're never gonna rise up again, like tangled thorns in verse 10. Tangled thorns, and like those who are drunken, they will have, like drunken with their drink, they're gonna be consumed as stubble completely withered.
You take stubble or thorns that are dried and you throw them into a fire, what happens? Burns up. What do you do with the stubble? You're gonna try to make a fire, you take moss and you get it started burning.
What happens to it? It's gone. That's what God said's gonna happen to these people. He says, from you has gone out one who plotted evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. Some translations may say Belial, and that means worthless.
And I think Andy, a number of weeks ago, talked about the worthless man in Proverbs. And sometimes it is translated Belial, as the Hebrews continue to translate worthless, it became a synonym for that of the devil.
Became, and Paul uses that in 2 Corinthians. He says, how can a Christian be joined to God and joined to Belial or the devil? Well, it's impossible. In this case, he's saying, the evil that has come against the Lord has come from that who has counseled that of Satan.
If you know anything about the Assyrian Empire, they were idolaters. Some of them believed they even sought the evil spirits to do what they did. And that is what I believe is taking place here. There was one man, a counselor of Sennacherib, who completely blasphemed God.
And we'll look at it in a few minutes. Blasphemed God continually and said, don't trust in him. But then in verse 12, it says, thus says the Lord, though they are full in strength and likewise many, even so they will be cut off and they will pass away, though I have afflicted you.
At this time that this prophecy is written, the Assyrian Empire is at its peak. They're looking at a city that has walls 100 feet tall, seven miles in circumference. You could run chariots, three abreast on the top, and in some areas, it was well over 100 feet wide.
Had a moat 150 feet wide, 60 feet deep before you got to the rampart. So this city was impregnable under human standards. Who could penetrate it? Thousands of towers with men sitting on there waiting to kill whoever come.
And he's saying here, though they're in full strength, and that is true, I'm gonna cut them off and I'm gonna wipe them out. And he says, this is God speaking, though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no longer.
God was using these men, these wicked men to afflict his people for their disobedience. And God said, there's coming a time when they're not gonna do that anymore. And in verse 13, he says, so now I will break his yoke, the bar from upon you, and I will tear off his shackles.
At that particular time in Judah's history, what was going on is they were having to pay tribute to the king of Assyria so that he wouldn't come in and haul their women and children off into slavery and kill their warriors.
They were taking the coffers of the temple and draining it dry to keep this man from coming in. It says in verse 14 that the Lord has issued a command concerning you, though your name will no longer be perpetuated.
I will cut off the idol, the image, and from the house of your gods, I will prepare your grave, for you are contemptible. Here it is, God saying, okay, here's concerning you. Your name's gonna no longer be perpetuated on the face of the earth.
When I'm done with you, you're gonna be nothingness. And actually, in 612, when the city actually falls, it's not until in the 1840s that they can even find anything left of Nineveh. And they stumbled across it.
It was even said of the time of Alexander the Great, that when he was running through and making the Greek Empire, that when he passed through, the ruins of Nineveh were there. He didn't even know it.
He thought it was a dump, that was a trash heap. He said he's gonna cut off your idol and your image. They trusted in their idolatry, their idols, Ishkar, all those ones that their gods were superior than Yahweh.
He says, I'm gonna cut them off, and I'm gonna make a grave for you because of that, and you are contemptible. Verse 15. Behold, on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace.
Celebrate your feast, old Judah. Go ahead and pay your vow. For never again will the wicked one pass through you. He will be completely cut off. That's the good news. The prophet's now saying, hey, check this out.
God's gonna do away with this man. And this whole nation that's been saber-rattling and took off your ancestors and sisters and brothers in the Northern Kings, I'm gonna do away with them. And Nahum is the one on the mountain on which the good news comes.
The good news is coming in an oracle of doom. And in chapter 2, verse 1, it says, the one who scatters has come up against you. Well, who's the one that scatters? Well, there's two ways of seeing this, ultimately.
If God's the first cause of all things, this is Yahweh, the one who scatters. Who's going to scatter these people? Well, it's going to be God. Well, who's he gonna use to do that? Well, in 612, he used the Babylonians, the Scythians, the Samaritans.
And when the city walls fell, they ran in, and God used those men as instruments of judgment to scatter and slay the Assyrian armies. So the one who scatters has come up against you, meaning God is the one who is coming up against you.
Man the fortress, watch the road, strengthen your back. This is so much of a mockery of what God is telling him. Go ahead, strengthen up, do whatever you can do. Watch the road, strengthen your back. Get some people behind you.
Summon all the strength. It's not gonna work. Why? Because the Lord's fixing to restore the splendor of Jacob. And like the splendor of Israel, even though the devastators have devastated them, they have destroyed their vine.
God says, look, when I scatter them, it's gonna be done. And you'll continually hear that refrain over the next chapter and a half. It says that the shields of his mighty man were colored in red. The warriors were dressed in scarlet.
The chariots were enveloped in flashing steel. When he is prepared to march, the cypress spears are brandished. It says as those things are coming, they could see that these armies were coming and they could see who they were.
They were those that would be wearing scarlet robes. They would have shields that were scarlet and that they were coming. And they would be brandishing their steel. Hey, and as the chariots are coming, they would see in the sunlight the flashing of the swords, the flashing of the wheels.
It says the chariots then will madly in the streets. They will rush wildly in the square. Their appearance will be like torches. They dash to and fro like lightning. He is once again giving what's taking place inside the city of Nineveh.
It's fixing to be overrun as hey, as these chariots are circling like sharks fixing to eat its prey. You're gonna see all of their armor and all of the glory of the incoming army just glistening with all of its power.
He says he remembers his nobles. They stumble in their march. They hurry to the wall. The man to lay is set up as all this happens. The nobles not thinking anything was there. The impregnable city was not going to be able to be taken over.
They ran to the wall. They set up. They run to the wall. They run there. And it says in verse six that the gates of the rivers are opened and the palaces dissolved. If you know anything about history, the Tigris River ran down to where Nineveh was at.
The Kosher River ran under the city. As it ran under the city, that provided fresh water to that city, which means they always had a fresh supply. Well, as the Tigris River would overflow during flooding season, it would fill up the Kosher River.
Then they had all these doors to make these aqueducts to get stuff to funnel around. Well, in 612, under the sovereignty of God, God made it overflow in such a way that the Kosher River could not be contained through all of their aqueducts.
And as the water went up under the bottom of the city, the city just crumbled like it melts. The gates of the river was open and the city fell. Says it right there that the palace dissolved. Some translation may even say melted.
It says it is fixed. She is stripped. She is carried away and her handmaidens are moaning like the sound of doves beating on their breasts. The sorrow for the fall of the city from those within. Though Nineveh was like a pool of water throughout her days, meaning it was calm.
Nobody ever bothered Nineveh. They were terrified of these people. Nobody did anything to Nineveh. It's like a pool. It says now they're fleeing. Stop, stop, and no one turns back. And as the men were coming into the city, they were saying, plunder the silver, plunder the gold, their treasures are limitless, it says.
Well, why would their treasures have been limitless? Understand, remember, 200 years, this empire had ransacked every nation in the world and took everything that they could, gold, silver, jewels, anything, and took them back to Nineveh.
And once they, those cities that they would come to and saber rattle outside like they were doing Jerusalem in 701, they would demand that a tribute be paid. So they were very wealthy. Says the treasure is limitless, wealth from every kind and every desirable object within the city.
And in verse 10 of chapter 2 says, but she is empty. Yes, she will be desolate and laid waste. Hearts are melting and knees are knocking. Look, understand now that this is taking place. Those who were feared are now in fear.
Anguish is in the whole body and their faces are growing pale. They're growing pale because they're dying. Then it goes into verse 11 through 12 and it talks about the lion and the lioness and the lion's cub.
Here it is. You have in this time, it's talking about what a great lion that the Syrian empire had went out to do and how they were preyed on all of those around. They would slay their enemies and they would provide things for all of their up and coming, the lion's den.
They were up and coming warriors. Well, that's no longer. He's saying in verse 12, they've killed enough for their lioness and filled their lairs with the prey and now the dens will be torn to flesh. And here it is again.
Listen to what Yahweh says. Behold, I am against you. You understand when the God of all creation says he's against you, you're damned. You understand that. When God says I am against you, it's over. We have another passage you'd like to go to.
It says, if God before you, who can be against you? Is that right? Well, if God's against you, then who can help you? Nobody. He said, I will burn up her chariots in the smoke. A sword will devour your young lions and I will cut off your prey from the land.
He's saying, hey, look, where you had prey, where you had those that you would go out and you preyed upon, it's over. You're not going to have any of that. And he says, and no longer will there'll be messengers to be heard.
If you want to, we won't have time to read through all this. If you want to read through 2 Kings chapter 18 and 19, you will see what took place. I do want to read 2 Kings chapter 18. I want you to hear what is said.
And he said, this messenger will no longer come again. 2 Kings chapter 18. I'm going to read verse 28 through 33. This is in 701 when they were besieging the city. Hezekiah had stripped the temple clean of its grandeur.
He had even pulled off the gold off the front to give it to him to keep him from coming in. Then Ravishka, which was the messenger for the Assyrian king at this time, would have been Sennacherib. He says this, he stood and he cried out with a loud voice in Judea saying, hear the words of our great king, the king of Assyria.
Thus says the king, do not listen to Hezekiah. Don't let him deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand. Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord. Saying, the Lord will surely deliver us.
This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. And do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace and with me and come out to me. And eat each one of his own vine, each of his own fig tree.
And drink each of the waters of his own sisters until I come and take you away to the land. And to a land like your own. And a land with grain and new wine. And a land of bread and vineyards. And a land of olive trees and honey.
That you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you. Saying, the Lord will deliver us. Hear what he said? Don't listen to the Lord. Don't listen, when Hezekiah says, don't worry about the king of Assyria.
He will not deliver you. Because the Lord will save us. He says, don't you listen to him. And don't you listen to the Lord. Because the Lord cannot save you. And then he continues to go on. And he says, we're fixing to come into Jerusalem.
And your warriors are going to eat dung. And they're going to drink their own urine. That sounds scary. But if you keep reading in that passage. Because of that blasphemous act that Sennacherib had made through that messenger.
That night, God sent a disease out of the outlying of that city. Where they were just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. He sent a disease and killed 185 ,000 of the Assyrians. Don't mess with God's people.
When God says he's going to put his hand to something, no man can stop it. But he says, hey, those messengers like that that came. Never happen again. You're not going to have to worry about those messengers again.
Because I'm going to do completely away with them. And then in chapter 3, we get to this. Woe to the bloody city. Completely full of lies and pillage. Her prey never departs. The reason why it's called the bloody city is they were bloodthirsty.
They didn't care about any life. All they cared about is making their kingdom bigger. And if it meant through the slaying of men, women, boys, girls, infant, cattle, whatever. They were going to do it.
They were going to strip it clean. He said her prey never departs. But he says, listen to this. The noise of the whip. He basically says again what he already said in chapter 2. The noise of the whip.
The noise of the rattling wheel of the chariot. The galloping horses and the bounding chariots. This is what they're going to hear. This is what's going to happen. He says it again. Horsemen are going to charge.
Swords will be flashing. Spears will be gleaming. And at that point, the destruction is over because he says this. They'll be slain and there'll be masses of bodies. Like corpses. Countless dead bodies in the street.
There are going to be so many, it says in verse 3, that they're going to stumble over the dead bodies. And the reason that God's doing this is here it is in verse 4. Because of the whorings and the harlotries that they have committed.
Understand, when they went and they conquered these other lands, they hauled them off into idolatry. And from the perspective of God, you worship something other than Yahweh. You worship something under the New Covenant.
Jesus Christ was the embodiment of Yahweh. You're committing adultery. That's why in Hosea, when he was calling repentance to the people, God looked at his people as they were adulterers. They had violated the covenant with him.
And it was like a married couple, the infidelity and the brokenness. And God says because you hauled these people off into captivity and you had them commit the harlotries of whoring after other gods, I'm going to destroy you.
You were a charming one in verse 4. There was mistress, you had sorceries. It says in verse 4 too, who sells nations by her harlotries. And families by her sorceries. And here it is again in verse 5. Behold, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts.
Now listen to what he says here. He is going to make this city and this nation, he is going to publicly shame them like a brazen prostitute. Look at what he says. He says, I will take you and I'm going to lift up your skirt, I'm going to throw it over your head so that all the nations can see your nakedness.
He says, and the kingdoms are going to be a disgrace. I will overthrow you with filth, I will throw vile on you, and I will set you up and make you as a spectacle because of your harlotries. In verse 7 it says,.
And it will come about that when all see you, they will shrink from you and say, Nineveh has been devastated. I mean, they're going to take a look at this city which was impregnable, unconquerable, and look at it and go, oh my goodness, what has happened?
But it says this. Who's going to grieve over that city? Where will I seek comforters for you? It's a rhetorical. There's not. There's not going to be any grieve over the atrocities. I would say this, so that we can kind of understand what he is saying here.
When ISIS was making its campaign across the Middle Eastern area to set up its caliphate, they were doing barbarous and butcherous things. Is there anybody in here that grieved when they saw ISIS fall?
Raise your hand. No? Why? Because they were barbarous, bloodthirsty, and I stood in this very pulpit and prayed the impeccable psalms over those men that God would dry them up like a noonday slug and smite them from the face of the earth because they were slaying God's people.
And that's what he's saying here. There's not going to be any mourn for you. And then he uses an illustration beginning in verse 8. Are you better than thieves? It was situated by the waters of the Nile.
It was surrounded by water. Ramparts was the sea, whose wall consisted of the sea. Ethiopia was her might, the Egyptian too. Put and Lubin were her helpers. Thieves was considered impregnable at that time.
As your Bonnie Paul goes, lays waste to it like it was nothing. Just went in there and just overthrew it like it's nothing. He's saying, are you better than what you did to those people? I mean, common sense, hearing the oracle of God going, hey, if we were able to conquer something that seemed inconquerable, then that means we're conquerable at some point too.
But that's not how they saw it. They saw themselves as the vicar of Ishkar, which was their God, and that their God was going to continue their campaign because the Assyrians were the only ones that had the true knowledge and they were the only ones that could bring order to the chaos of the world.
He said, when you went to there, you thought that thieves looked like they were impregnable because everywhere around them was something, a rampart or water. But they fell. In verse 10 it says, she became an exile.
You hauled all of them off into captivity. Her children were dashed in pieces. You understand what they did to break the hearts of the people of those cities? They would take the little infants and smash their brains in the street.
And then it says, the end of verse 10, they cast lots for their honorable men, and her great men were bound with fetters. When they went into those cities, they would take the nobles of that city, they would auction them off as slaves to other places, and in other ones, they would even hook fetters into their hands or they would put hooks in their mouths.
I mean, when I say these men were ruthless, Ashurbanipal, when he went and conquered one of the last places he conquered, he took the king, he pierced his jawbone with a hook, put it in there like a dog, put him in his palace, and let him live in a dog cage in his palace for the rest of his days.
They did that to a king of Yahweh. Read what happened to Manasseh in 2 Kings chapter 22, because he would not repent and led the people off into idolatry. God sent his people in there, the Assyrians in there, they put hooks through his nose and drug him off into captivity until God chastised him enough and he cried out and said, Oh God, forgive me, and God restored him.
It says that you too will become drunk and will be hidden. Often in the prophets when it talks about drinking and pouring down a cup or drinking the cup, it is often, most times than not, drinking up the wrath of God, and that's what's going to happen.
You're going to be drunk, and you're going to be drunk with the wrath of God. He says in the end of verse 11, chapter 3, that you too will search for a refuge from enemies, and they won't be able to find it.
Nineveh will not be able to find any refuge from their enemies the same way when the Assyrians ran into these cities and conquered them, there was no refuge for the people. He said all your fortifications are figs on trees that are ripe, and when shaken they will fall into the eater's mouth.
He's saying, hey, here's what you're going to be like when I come. Now you take a fig tree or something that has a fruit on it, and you shake it a little bit and all the fruit falls because it's ripe.
He goes, that's what's going to happen to you. You're ripe for the taking. You just don't even know it. The gates of your land will be opened wide to your enemies. That's exactly what happened when the Cosa River overfilled, the city began to melt, the walls fell, and then that coalition of Samaritans, Babylonians, Scythians, and Medes went in there and laid them waste.
And here it is again, God mocking them again. So go ahead. You know the siege is coming, so draw water for the siege. Go ahead. Strengthen your fortifications. Go ahead, get up on your towers. Make them bigger and stronger.
Go ahead to the clay and tread the mortar. Get the brick mold. In other words, go ahead, build you some ramparts because you know I'm coming, and if you think you're going to be able to stop what I'm fixing to do, go ahead, do it.
And he says in verse 15, the fire is going to consume you and the sword will cut you down, and I will consume you as a locust does. If you know anything about locusts in the Middle East, when they come across those wheat fields, they strip everything clean.
It'll look like something burned it. Nothing left. Verse 16, you have increased your traders more than any of the stars of heaven. Look, they had more malls and emporiums and things in that city than anybody else.
He says, but the creeping locusts will strip that, and they're going to fly away. It says, guardsmen will be like swarming locusts, and your marshals like hordes of grasshoppers that settle on a stone wall on a cold day.
Grasshoppers, locusts, insects like to, on a cold day, they're going to pull up on this wall, but what happens, it says, as soon as the sun comes out and that wall becomes hot, what happens? They're gone.
He goes, that's what's going to happen to you. When the sun comes up, just as those fly away, so are you. He says in verse 18, your shepherds will be sleeping, O king of Israel, your nobles are going to be lying down, and your people are going to be scattered onto the mountains, and there will be no one to gather them.
There is no relief for your breakdown. He says there's no opportunity at this point for you. At the preaching of Jonah, they had the opportunity to repent, did they not? Did they not? Right here, Nahum's oracle, it's done.
He even says right here, your wound at this point is incurable. It's over. The judgment of God is fixing to fall on you, and it's over. There's no turning back. And it says, all who hear about you will clap their hands over you, for of whom has not evil passed continually?
Hey, just as we see justice served on wicked men at times, when Osama bin Laden was killed, who in here was not happy to a certain degree that justice had been served? Really? Remember, I got a phone call that night from my dad.
He said, son, they killed that man. I said, yeah, but it's bittersweet. Justice has been served in this life for us, but that man never again has the opportunity to repent. It says here that when this city falls, and that nation of Assyria would fall, that men would stand aside and clap and applaud that they were dead because of their atrocities.
Nineveh's destruction was imminent. It was going to happen within about 30 years of the time of this oracle of doom, and there was no stopping it. Now, back up to verse 2 of chapter 1. Why do they have an incurable disease?
Why is it that their wound is incurable? And it's this right here. Because God is a jealous God, and he is an offending God. The Lord is a vengeful and he is wrathful. He takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies.
Man, I don't know about y 'all, but those are some scary words. Those are some scary words. It says that God is jealous. I'm going to tell you right now, a man puts his hands on my wife, it's on. I'm jealous of my wife.
My wife's hot. I love her. I'm jealous for her. And there's no debate. She's the prettiest one in this room. And I'm jealous for her. God's jealous for him. He deserves to be worshipped. He deserves to be loved.
He deserves to be honored. He deserves to be served. And if you do not, he says here that there will be vengeance on you. There will be wrath. The city of Nineveh repented and then apostatized. That one generation after the repentance, it did not stay.
And that incited anger in God. Look, it is better for a person to have never heard the Gospel than to hear the Gospel and reject it. You are then held to a higher standard. That whole city was converted a hundred years prior.
It says that the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. That would have been comforting to the time of those at the preaching of Jonah, would it not? They were thankful that God was slow in anger. Why?
Because He showed mercy. But I tell you what, there's coming a day when that mercy that's extended in this life comes to an end. God's mercy is not forever for everyone. If you're here today, you are under the common grace of God, believer and non-believer.
You walk on God's dirt. You breathe God's air. You drink God's water because He has made it that way. And then it says He is great in power. We do not fathom the power of God. Even when we see storms that God just kind of spins up, hurricanes or whatever.
God does that. That's His raw power within His creation to carry out His purposes. He is a powerful God but He is slow to anger. It says, and the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. That's comforting.
That's a just God. If you're here today and you commit sins against God, God's going to punish those sins either on you in a place called hell forever and ever and ever or those that have been placed on the back of the Savior so that God by no means leaves the guilty unpunished.
He punished His Son in your place or you will bear it in your body and in your soul for all of eternity. Look man, I know the wrath of God is not a polite subject. The wrath of God is not a subject that people like to talk about.
We like to hear, oh God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That is a lie. God hates you and He has your destruction prepared if you do not repent. That is the truth. Now you go, well Mike how can God love me and still hate because God ain't like you and me.
The God of all creation can at the same time love you in such a way that He's provided a way of salvation but still hate the very being that you are because you're filled with sin and desire to destroy you.
That's the God of the Bible. And if you don't like it, don't take it up with me. Take it up with every prophet in the Old Testament and take it up with the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in the whirlwind and storm is His way and the clouds of dust are beneath His feet.
I mean think about it. The God of all creation. The clouds are just dust. As He walks around, it's just like you walking in your yard and it kicks up dust and grass. That's God, that's how big He is. He's huge.
It says He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. We know that He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. The children of Israel walked across dry land when He parted the Red Sea. He dried up rivers when they crossed into the promised land when He dried up the Jordan River.
But the same one that did that miraculous deed is the same one that takes boshan and caramel and the blossoms of Lebanon. Those were considered to be a place of plentiful and plush and had never had any type of destruction.
He says God can wither them like that. Mountains quake because of Him and hills dissolve. Indeed, the earth is upheaved at His presence along with the world and all of its inhabitants. That's a powerful God.
Do y 'all believe that it is the God of all creation that causes a tidal wave to come across the land and kill 200 ,000 people? That is the God of the Bible. That's not an accident. Look in the Old Testament time and time again.
God does major acts of judgment such as flooding the whole world and killing everybody but eight people or opening the ground and swallowing men and women alive. That's the God of the Bible. He will not leave the guilty unpunished.
The world's upheaved at His presence. God can speak and the whole world just tremble. Who can stand before His incantation? Verse 6 says. Who? Who can stand before God's wrath? It says it time and time again through the Old Testament.
Who can stand? Who can stand? Who can stand? You can even get to the Book of Revelation and it says Who can stand before God? And John was crying. Who can stand? I'll tell you who can stand. Only those who have been sealed by the power and the blood of Jesus Christ.
Those are the only ones that can stand before God on that day. Who can endure His burning anger? Nobody apart from Christ. And it says in verse 6 that His wrath is poured out like fire. Anybody's ever seen fire poured out before?
Ever seen lead melt in a cup and you pour it out? This looks like molten lava. That's what God's going to do to the unrepentant. It says that rocks are broken up by Him. And then you get to these comforting statements.
The Lord is good. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in Him. Believe that God is good. When things don't feel good, do you still believe that God's good? You better.
Because everything that God does is good and it's holy and it's right and He didn't consult sinful men like me or whatever He wants to do in my life or yours. His desire is to conform us more into the image of His Son.
And sometimes that does not feel good. But with an overflowing flood, He will complete end of this sight and He will pursue His enemies into darkness. Understand when God comes to put judgment on someone, a nation, a people, they can run as fast as they want and there's no hiding.
There's no hiding. So if you want to escape that, you better run into the arms of Christ. Because that's the only escape. I didn't know I was going to preach this passage for sure up until about Wednesday.
Because Psalm 46 is quoted in this very passage right there. Psalm 46 says that the Lord is my refuge and my strength and a very present help in time of trouble. And though the mountains fall into the sea and though the waves roar and the foam and the chaos of life is what He's saying, that God is with us.
And I almost preach that passage. Because wrath of God is not a kind subject to preach about. But it is something that we need to hear. So, if God will do that to a nation, if God will do that to kings and understand that kingdoms come and kingdoms fall.
But the kingdom of Messiah will reign forever. You remember Nebuchadnezzar? He was told about that crazy dream he had. He had the colossus statue and it had the gold and the bronze, the gold head and the bronze plate, the silver arms and the legs and all that stuff.
He's like, man, I don't get it. And there was this little stone that came down and then shattered it. That stone was a stone cut without hands and that was the kingdom of Messiah. Kingdoms will be destroyed.
They'll fall. They'll go away. Presidents and kings will ask you to die for them. But there's only one king that came and died for his people and that's the kingdom of Messiah. And it will rule and reign forever.
So, the application should be very clear. There's only two types of people in this room and in the world. It's ones who will be in the arms of the Savior forever and ever and ever, standing in His presence singing holy, holy, holy, who have had their sins acquitted for, taken away, washed in the blood of the Lamb, standing in a white robe before that great white throne.
Or, those whom one day God will completely and utterly destroy. Those whom God will pour out His justice forever and ever and ever. There is coming a day and I long for that day when Jesus Christ will split that eastern sky and He will make all the wrongs right.
I long for that day. I recently was over at someone's house very close to these people. Loved them to death. And based on the political atmosphere that's going on, woke-ism, all that garbage, whatever.
I don't like it either. And it was like, you know what, I just wish that God would come back today, wipe all them out, and we could go on. She said, Mike, what do you think about that? I said, did you not know I have loved ones that would perish if God came back today?
Do you believe that? If God came back today, you have loved ones that would perish. Never to have the opportunity to be saved again. I do long for the day when Jesus Christ comes. I want you to know that.
But not today, Lord. I have children. I have workers. I think of Eddie and Jeff and Vincent and Seth. I think of Abigail. I think of Stacy. I think of Ireland. I think of Elena. I have children that still would perish.
I said, Lord, please don't come back today. Don't come back today. Maybe tomorrow. But not today. God will pour out His wrath like fire. If you're here today, and there are visitors here, and you do not know Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation, I am in fear for your soul.
I mean that. I wasn't going to say this, but it's something that needs to be said. Everybody knows why I lost a son a few weeks ago. I could care less that my son died. I want you to know that. Everybody's eyes just got big.
Hang on a second. When I say this. I could care less that he had died if he was a believer. He was not. I was fearful for his soul when he took his last breath. And I'm fearful for every person in this room that does not know Jesus Christ as their Savior, that when you take your last breath, there's nobody that can save you.
You understand that? That last... That's it. That is it. And apart from Christ, you go into an outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched, and then on that day, on the shores of the lake of fire, you will say, King of kings and Lord of lords, and you will get that Sparta kick from like 300 when they kicked you into the lake of fire forever.
I am fearful for you because the God of all creation is real. And He will come. And He will come in power. And He will come in glory. And it will be a terrible and awesome day. And I know that Andy's been teaching on the fear of the Lord.
And I'm telling you what, there is a part of that fear of the Lord that is fearful and reverent and respectable and all of that. But if you're here today and you think that's all it's about, if you don't fear God, I'm going to tell you you're stupid.
And if you don't like that, come up and talk to me later. Kids, don't go home and say, hey, you know, Mom said, Mike said, it's kind of called people stupid. I'm not saying that. I'm telling you, if you don't fear knee-knocking trembling of the power and awesomeness and the wrath of God, you're stupid.
You're delusional. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for Nahum. Thank you for a prophet who boldly proclaimed the oracle of doom to a country and to a king that could have smited him to death. Father God, thank you that every time we see the picture of a nation or a kingdom fall into the mighty hand of your wrath, that, Father, that's a picture of the wrath that is to come.
And Father God, we thank you that you made a way of escape. And that way of escape came through the shed blood of your son. And just as you see an eagle shield its chicklets from the fire in a burning fire, you shielded us from the wrath of God through your son.
And Father, for those in this room that do not know you, God, I pray that today you would terrify and melt their heart and their wrath. It says, do not fear those who can hurt the body. But Father, you say fear the one who can cast both body and soul into hell.
Father, we love you. We thank you for the Savior. We thank you for the gift of righteousness that's available for all who believe. And Father, we thank you for this table which you have prepared. We ask now, Father, you would prepare our hearts to take it with a clean heart.
In Christ's name, amen.