Nahum & Divine Assurance

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. 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 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.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. 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 King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Michael Lee Abendroth here. If you want to contact us, you could always write us info at nocompromiseradio .com. Out of all the emails that we have received the last 10, 11 years, I don�t even know when we started the show, 11 years ago, probably the most often, the most asked question or comment is, �Where can I find a Bible-teaching church

And the second one is, �Why are you still in the air I�m just kidding. We try to offer Reformed theology with some laughter. I think I laugh more now as a covenant theologian than I do as a dispensational theologian.

Let�s do a series on that. I need to do a series on dispensationalism and covenant theology. That�s what I need to do. So today, I�m not going to do that, though. I want to talk a little bit more about oppression, not demonic oppression, although remember those days with Bob Larson, demonic possession versus oppression.

Can you be demon-possessed? Can you be oppressed? Could you be depressed? No, I�m talking about oppression today that there are people that persecute God�s people. Satan is real and he uses instruments, just like God would use instruments, secondary means.

So, you have the people of God and they are oppressed and they are persecuted and they go through trials. What�s the solution? So, I�ve been in the book of Nahum and I want to talk about that again today.

God Will Judge the Oppressors

In all honesty, it�s kind of a practice run for my sermon tomorrow. Today is Saturday, December 19th. Are you going to celebrate Christmas? I just read that Boris, the guy in England, the Prime Minister of England, what�s his last name?

Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin said no Christmas circles or something like that, bubbles and no travel outside of the tiers and you can�t have Christmas and everything else. Are people really, are they going to go along with this?

This is crazy. I think by the time this plays, Christmas will be over and I�ll invite anybody to my house that I want to invite to my house and that�s just the way life goes. Well, anyway, I want you to know that eventually, here�s the theme for the day in terms of comfort when it comes to oppression and persecution that�s around the corner.

We have churches now that won�t even meet at all because of COVID. They�ll just do whatever the government says and I think when the government says you can�t meet, you do and if the government says, well, we�d like you to meet a little reduced or something like that, okay, I understand that but just we�re not going to meet anymore.

You want to know why people are getting stir-crazy and having all kinds of mental issues. The church has an obligation to the one another and to evangelism and quite different was the church in the old days when there were plagues and issues.

I think it was the pagans that were the ones running around in fear, not the Christians, but that�s a different sermon for a different day. I want you to know today that when you read Nahum, you will be reminded that God will eventually judge the church�s oppressors.

He�s not inept. That is to say, a delay or slowness or patience from our perspective doesn�t show anything except the character and nature of God. It doesn�t mean that God has fallen off his throne. It doesn�t mean that God is letting people ultimately get away with it.

Every sin will be in fact punished and Nahum, in the middle of all the wrath and vengeance and jealousy in chapter 1 verse 2, he says now in verse 3, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

God will because he�s jealous for his own glory and his people and he won�t give that glory to another. He will restore his people that they might serve him again in the middle of all this chaos that�s going on with the Ninevites oppressing the people of Judah.

If you remember Exodus chapter 34, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, is slow to anger. Similarly, in Numbers 14, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. If you remember that context in Exodus 34 and in Numbers 14, you�ve got issues of the calf when Israel made the calf and the wilderness rebellion.

Those verses were given in those circumstances. The Israelites weren�t believing in God and they weren�t responding properly. Now, in the context of wrong responses when disciplining, you say the Lord is slow to wrath and you think, well, that means he�s anticipating the objections so people won�t say to themselves, well, the people are never going to be judged that are oppressing us.

But also, I want you to see that that�s in light of also the people that are getting oppressed. The people of God, they�re not responding well either. They�re buckling underneath this Ninevite oppression.

And that�s the same thing. And I just want to remind everyone that when we think of God as slow to anger, I don�t think we would like an earthly father who was quick to be angry. That would be wrong. And while we�re getting disciplined, you think about God�s slowness to anger in his discipline of his children.

But here, you also want to see that he�s slow in anger regarding the punishment of the oppressors. The anticipation of the objection is what�s in store here. It�s what is very vivid here. God�s powerful.

God�s going to punish, but he�s slow to anger. And I don�t want you to think while you�re getting oppressed or persecuted that somehow God is inept. God is unable. The text says he is great in power. It�s not that he�s passive.

It�s not that he�s weak. It�s not that he�s sentimental. He is patient. That�s what he is. And he is not going to clear the guilty. There will be an accounting on that day. And for those that have not perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually obeyed, there�s going to be judgment.

And these oppressors are going to be judged because they�re not personally obeying. They�re not entirely obeying. They�re not exactly obeying. They�re not obeying at all. They�re persecuting God�s people.

He will judge the oppressors. So when the church in America begins to be persecuted, we will see eventually that God will use that persecution to purify his church. But he�ll ultimately judge those people.

Nobody�s going to get away with anything. By the way, that�s a good comfort, is it not? No one is going to get away with anything. Maybe on this earth, and you watch those crime shows, and there�s an unsolved crime.

Forty years, somebody�s gotten away with murder, and then there�s no more people around. But God knows. And there will be an accounting on that day. The language of Nahum goes on to say in verse 3, �His way is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

If you want to see the power of God, how could we as frail creatures understand who God is? Well, what�s the most powerful thing that you can think of? Well, for our brains, I guess it would be, since we can�t go up and see a black hole, we say to ourselves, �Earthquakes.

We think of volcanoes and lava. We think of tornadoes and thunderstorms and just the power. It�s not of nature, of course, but in natural things. We have to be thinking to ourselves, well, where else would we see something like that in history?

And of course, in Bible history, the rumblings of Sinai, when God appears and the Shekinah of God is on the top of the mountain, this manifest presence of God, and there are ramifications to the mountain and shaking and quaking and God being seen as, to quote John Calvin, �very terrible.

When God shows up, the world responds, right? The world freaks out. Reminds me of Psalm 18, �The earth reeled and rocked, the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked because he was angry.

Smoke went up from the nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed and heavens came down. He bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet.

He rode on a cherub and flew. He came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darknesses covering his canopy around him. Thick clouds, dark with water, out of the brightness before him, hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.

So we see similarly in Nahum, this very thing. Reminds me of the song by Robert Grant, �O tell of his might, O sing of his grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, his chariots of wrath, the deep thunderclouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

It's from �O worship the king. That's exactly what's going on here. Verse four, �He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither at the bloom of Lebanon withers.

You see with great poetry and parallelism, this language that harkens back, of course, to the Red Sea crossing that makes you think, you know what? You can't stand before the Lord. He is going to be so powerful that the most lush pasturelands, the most beautiful countrysides, the greatest forest in Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon, they're no match for the burning anger of the Lord.

Jeremiah 5, �Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail.

Though they roar, they cannot pass over it. I mean, when you think about the power of God, and again, this is to give you comfort in the middle of all the oppressors, �The mountains quake before him verse five, chapter one.

�The hills melt, the earth heaves before him, and the world and all who dwell in it. The language of God is not pleased. There's the power of God and things just melt, things quake, things shake. When the judge comes into the courtroom, people pay attention, and now when the judge arrives, so to speak, there's going to be issues.

No one's going to be able to dismiss him. And verse six, �No one can stand before him. 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.

You see that metaphor of, you see the image of fire and wrath, and you're going to see that all the way up into the New Testament regarding the eternal nature of hell itself, the lake of fire. And whether it comes to something soft, butter is easy to melt, but rocks, they're hard to melt.

They're shattered here. They're broken into pieces, it says in verse six. This is God's wrath visibly shown, and you ought to say to yourself, when the church is persecuted, there's going to be a response from God because he's jealous.

I like what an old reformer said, �The enemies of the church relied on their power and daringly and immoderately raged against the church. The judgment of God is here set before them that they might understand that a count was to be rendered to him whose presence they were not able to bear.

The character of God, the nature of God, he's going to take care of all these issues. We don't have to run around and seek out accountings. It's all going to be taken care of. Nobody can stand before his indignation.

We're going to have to be delivered. If you jump down to verse eight, the same things talked about here, �But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

Don't worry about your oppressors. Don't worry about the persecutors. Don't worry about people getting away with things. The Lord knows. Yes, he's patient, but he's going to eventually judge. And his adversaries will be obliterated.

His enemies will be overthrown. God here, if you want to think about Nahum in particular, is going to punish the Assyrians. And it might not be in our time, if we were in Judah, but it's going to be in God's time.

And once he speaks, it's going to be done. An overflowing flood. You can just imagine a dried riverbed, a wadi, they would call it, and all of a sudden a flash flood in the power of water. It's interesting in Nahum chapter one, verse eight, it says,.

�But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries. But if you want to just translate the Hebrew, it's a complete end of her place. What do you mean a complete end of her place?

What's her place? That's a good question. And if you ask the question, then you search for the answer. Some people think this is talking about Ishtar, the patron goddess of Nineveh. And the false gods, they're going to be destroyed as well.

He will make a complete end of Ishtar. Assyria had a variety of myths, like people do. People love to come up with myths. And one was called the descent of Ishtar to the underworld. And how she had to travel to the underworld to get her lover.

And so what do you have? Her end is going to be certain. She is not going to be able to deliver her people. God's going to destroy her place with a terrible flood of judgment. He will pursue the enemies into darkness.

Right, into the depths of Hades, as it were. So that's one of the ways we get our comfort, is we realize, you know what? While we suffer and hurt and are oppressed and persecuted, we'll look to the Lord.

And he said there's going to be a divine accounting. And then lastly, what we see is a verse I skipped over in Nahum, chapter one, verse seven. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him.

And that's good because who can stand before him? Who can stand before his indignation and his wrath? You're going to have to take refuge in him. You're going to have to say, you know what? He's a covenant-keeping God.

While he may discipline me, he's never going to forsake me, and judge me eternally like he's going to judge the unrepentant enemies. God is good. Yahweh is good. He's benevolent. And he is abundant in kindness.

Of course, he's awesome. He's powerful. He's jealous. And when you need him, he is right there for you because he's also good. It doesn't say God has goodness. It says God is good. It's the nature of God.

He's good. I just sighed because I looked at a text. Take a break here. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Adjust this microphone. I'm sorry, it's probably making noise. It's on my head here. It's not the typical no-comb one in the studio.

I mean, if you say to yourself in the midst of all this, you know, God's really not good. You know, there's that old phrase, God is good and does good all the time. If you somehow forget that, that God's not going to defend his people, he's not a covenant-keeping God that's powerful.

It's going to be big trouble. And you need to remember that you can't run from God. You're going to have to run to him for refuge because he's a stronghold in the time of trouble. He's a stronghold for life.

He's a refuge in the day of trouble, Jeremiah 16. He's powerful to go after the enemies, that's true. But he knows those that take refuge in him. And this is the language of faith, resting, receiving, trusting.

I believe in him. You don't literally run anywhere. This is a figure of speech. So you say, you know what? I'm going to have to trust in this God and who he is. This is the language of Hebrews chapter six, is it not?

So by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Take refuge in him. Remember, this is right from the Old Testament, fleeing for refuge.

Remember what Jewish people would do if there was a person who committed accidental manslaughter. There were Levitical cities that were set up as asylums where people could go. They were called cities of refuge, right?

And you would have three on each side of the Jordan. And now think about it. The language of Hebrews, as we fast forward a little bit and we think about, we have a city of refuge. It's not a real place.

It's a person. You have a person, not one of the six cities of refuge. You need refuge, you run to the person. And so we love it that when we flee for refuge, even though we're guilty, even though we fought against God, even though we deserve to be executed, we find ourselves running to the Lord because we can.

We have a mediator. You don't want to go before God without a mediator, but you need to have a priest. You need to have a priest who is enabling you to stand before this great King. And we flee from persecution and from God's wrath into God's kindness, because the wrath of God has been assuaged.

Jesus is our eternal refuge and we run to him, do we not? Salvation is secure for you if you've trusted in Christ. We who have taken refuge in Christ, the sinner running from the penalty of sin to Jesus, the high priest who's offered himself a sacrifice, atonement for your sins.

This is trusting in Lord. In the Lord. This is kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. That's Psalm 212. That's wonderful.

How blessed are all those who take refuge in him. Oh, how rewarding the life for those who take refuge in him. Oh, what spiritual prosperity those who take refuge in him have. Psalm 1 starts with a blessing.

Psalm 2 ends with a blessing. The Lord's good, a stronghold for the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. Even when you don't have a Bible time, even though you don't have daily devotions, even though you're struggling with that, you take refuge in him and you're safe.

You're safe. I mean, can you imagine? This is everything against looking to yourself. This is not introspective. This is looking to the Lord and who he is with all his attributes. If you want to be sure of your acceptance with God, you need to be perfect.

That's what you need. Perfection. Well, how can you have that? Because you fled to God for refuge because Jesus is your refuge. The perfect of standard of God's law has been met. And you don't look to your own works for assurance.

You look for the source of assurance, the real source of assurance, and that is Jesus. Yes, but my conscience is after me. I know that's exactly what the conscience does. And so you have to look to God, the son who obeys the law of his father perfectly.

The approach that we have in evangelicalism is way too introspective. Do you see that in A .M. chapter one? I don't see that. I see it as a God-centered focus. Well, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio.

Let's make sure that when it comes to assurance, our default is subjective. And there's something to be said for that in 2 Peter chapter one and other passages. Fruit and evidence. But there's something more to be said for the object of our faith.

Objective assurance in Christ Jesus. Assurance. You can have it, dear Christian. And you need to look up. If we look to ourselves, how can we be saved? Luther said. If we look to the Lord Jesus, we don't know how we could be lost.

What a great truth from Nahum chapter one and Martin Luther. God bless you.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. 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.

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. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.