Nahum 2:7-10: Stripped, Plundered, Emptied, and Desolate

Nahum’s Judgment on Assyria and the Coming Flood of Desolation

Reference to Assyria, stripped, fleeing, plundered, emptied, and desolate. These certainly are words you do not want applied to yourself. So, as we go through the book of Nahum, we are going to, we're going to read verses, chapter 1, verse 15 through 2 .13.

So, if you want to follow along in the scriptures and your Bibles, please open them up. Alright, starting at chapter 1, verse 15. Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace.

Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again will the wicked one pass through you. He is cut off completely. The one who scatters has come up against you. Man the fortress, watch the road, strengthen your back, summon all 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 vine branches.

The shields of his mighty men are colored red, the warriors are dressed in scarlet, the chariots are enveloped in flashing steel when he is prepared to march, and the cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly in the streets, they rush wildly in the squares.

Their appearance is like torches, they dash to and fro like lightning flashes. He remembers his nobles, they stumble in their march, they hurry to her wall, and the mantlet is set up. The gates of the rivers are opened and the palace is dissolved.

It is fixed, she is stripped, she is carried away, and her handmaids are moaning like the sound of doves beating on their breasts. Though Nineveh was like a pool of water throughout her days, now they are fleeing.

Stop, stop, but no one turns back. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold, for there is no limit to their treasure. Wealth from every kind of desirable object, she is emptied, she is desolate and waste.

Hearts are melting and knees are knocking. Also anguish is in the whole body and all their faces are grown pale. Where is the den of lions and the feeding place of the young lions? Where the lion, the lioness and the lion's club, club, prowled with nothing to disturb them.

The lion tore enough for his cubs, killed enough for his lionesses, and filled his lairs with prey and his dens with torn flesh. Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of Hosts. I will burn up her chariots in smoke, a sword will devour her young, your young lions.

I will cut off your prey from the land, and no longer will the voice of your messengers be heard. These are devastating words to Assyria. So let's just do a quick recap of last week. The Medes, the Babylonians, are knocking on the door of the Assyrians and they are feeling, the Assyrians are feeling the pressure of being overwhelmed, like God promised.

You'll be overwhelmed, like a flood. This has never happened to Assyria before because they were the dominant power. Now the foot is on, the shoe is on the other foot. The Assyrians are frantic, racing around like madmen within the walls of the city as the Medes are approaching, and as they started these initial skirmishes.

The Mede army appears as flashes of fire, like lightning, which is a symbol of God's judgment upon Nineveh. Remember last week we talked about the lightning coming, it was a flash, that's a sign of God's judgment upon the Assyrians.

The walls of Assyria will be opened and the city will be flooded. This again is a symbol of God's judgment upon Nineveh. You remember God uses water, the flood, as a judgment. God flooded the entire world and only saved eight people, Noah and his family.

So water again is a sign of judgment from God upon whoever it's aimed at. The flood would have a dual fulfillment. The Medes would come into the city like a flood and then, additionally, water would be literally be used to erode the city.

Remember they had the water gates, either that water was directed towards them to erode the foundations of the city or away from them so as to keep them from being able to drink. God's ministers are as a flame of fire.

Remember God poured out his spirit at Pentecost. John the Baptist says, there is one who's coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. When God poured his spirit upon the earth, that was fire.

Remember the 120 in the upper room had tongues of fire above their heads, symbolizing the fact that they were going to preach the gospel and that gospel was either going to soften the heart of the hearer or harden the heart of the hearer.

So when the gospel is preached, God's people are given ears to hear and eyes to see. The others are going to be hardened once they reject that. Okay, so let's get into this morning's scripture. Verse 7, it is fixed, she is stripped, she is carried away, and her handmaids are moaning like the sound of doves beating on their breasts.

Here, Nahum the Prophet tells us about the effects of the capture of the city. It is decreed that the city be exiled and carried away. Just as Assyria had captured many towns and taken their citizens away into exile, so the people of Nineveh would be treated in a similar manner.

Again, we know that the scriptures say the measure with which you use will be used against you. God fixed, and that's what the word chazab means, it is decreed or determined. And when God decrees or determines something, is it certain?

Certainly. Yes, when God decrees something, there's no way that it will not happen. So God fixed, decreed that Nineveh should be led away captive with her maids, which is her female slaves, following after, weeping and beating their breasts in grief.

This decree will be fulfilled when Nahum's prophecies come to pass. It's a certainty. Not a few versions and commentators have proposed that the first phrase of this verse is to be taken as referring by a name chazab, a queen of Nineveh.

But the context in no way prepares for the mention of an otherwise unknown Assyrian queen. So where you see that that first part, it is fixed, is that word chazab. Now many commentators think that that's that's a proper name referring to a specific queen.

So it's not that it's a textual variant, it's just a problem understanding what the original author meant when they wrote that. So we're going to talk about that for a second. The King James Version puts it, and chazab shall be led away captive, right?

You see how they use that, they capitalize it and use it as a proper name. The Lexham English Bible, her goddess is taken out and taken into exile. Even the ESV, its mistress is stripped, she is carried off.

So in these three prominent versions of the Bible, they're taking that word chazab to mean a person, okay? Whereas we're going to learn in a minute that is not what it's intended to mean. So in 1964, a man by the name of Godfrey Driver announced the demise of a legendary Assyrian queen in his article, Farewell to Queen Chazab, referring to that particular word.

This queen had appeared in the King James Version of the Bible as the recipient of God's judgment in Nahum 2 .7, and chazab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of Doz, tabering upon their breasts.

The men who translated the King James Version were brilliant scholars and literary geniuses, but the Hebrew word that begins verse 2 .7 so thoroughly stumped them, they were forced to take a guess at what it meant.

They transliterated the Hebrew word as a proper name, generating a queen ex nihilo. In other words, there was no queen Chazab. Historically there was no queen named Chazab at that point in time. They took a stab at it.

Of all the difficulties in Nahum, this one word has the distinction of being debated the longest. The debate about Chazab extends back more than 400 years. In 1949, one scholar wrote that the issue of Chazab has consumed a flood of ink, and reams of paper have been spent since time immemorial.

By 1964, Driver had had enough and declared her demise. His article did not settle the issue, however. It represented a moment of agreement. Most scholars now disregard the idea that this is a proper name.

There is only negative agreement, though. Without the slightest scrap of evidence that Nahum named a person, few are willing to hold any longer to the King James Interpretation. So now there's negative agreement.

In other words, they all agree that that is not a proper name. Okay, we're going to get into why it's decreed fixed. The first word of the verse, Chazab, is a passive perfect form from a root meaning to set, establish, or determine.

The destruction of Nineveh is settled by the Almighty, and so it can be announced with the gusto displayed by this anointed prophet. So it is. In other words, this is what's going to happen, and so shall it ever be with all of God's enemies.

All of God's enemies will eventually be exiled away from his presence. So this word means it is decreed. It is fixed. So it is. It's not referring to a queen. And now there's there's pretty much widespread agreement that the fact that this is not a queen.

The Moaning of the Slave Girls and the Echo of Jonah

Okay, next. And her handmaids are moaning like the sound of doves beating on their breasts. This is interesting, too. Now stripped and carried away into exile by an international policy which Assyria itself made famous.

Remember, Assyria would go into a nation, they would disperse, they would capture most of their people and disseminate them across a large portion of the nation, okay, to try to break up their genealogies, to try to disseminate them and make them conform with everyone else.

So that, like, especially for the Jews who were very concerned about lineage, if you deport the Jews and had them intermarry with other people from other nations, now you're diluting the bloodline. This is why the Jews at the time of Jesus hated Samaria, because Samaria was overtaken by the Assyrians, dispersed, and now intermarried with them.

So the Samarians were not full Jews. They were half Jews. And this is why the Israelites in Judah hated them. Okay, so nothing is left of the hustle and bustle of the once-great city, nothing that is except the moaning of a small remnant of female servants.

An expression of deepest agony and heartfelt emotion, they smite on their breasts at the hopelessness of their once-glorious habitation. So this great conglomerate of corruption comes to its appointed end, Assyria.

God's people had suffered much at the hands of the kingdom of Assyria because of their own sin. But finally the messenger of the Lord, Nahum, is released to tell the good news. The destruction of the wicked city is so certain that the prophet may use all the powers of his prophetic office to depict the certainty of the city's fall.

It is fixed. So it is. Assyria will be taken down because God has appointed that they will be taken down. Now this is really interesting. Remember in Jonah, the moaning of repentance was heard across the country from the king to all the animals.

Remember the king repented, okay, and he called a fast for all the animals. In Nahum, the slave girls moaned like doves. Yonim, the name Jonah, is formed from the same word as dove. Okay, remember Nahum is Jonah 2 .0.

It's the conclusion of Jonah's message. Jonah started with the Assyrians who repented and gave Israel a reprieve. Now Nahum is coming in and saying, God used the Assyrians to come in but their hearts went further than what God wanted and now he's going to destroy Assyria.

Assyria also has the opportunity to repent but they won't. The ancient reader could not have missed the play on words or the echoes of Jonah's earlier encounter at Nineveh. The reference adds exile to the weight of the picture since its avoidance through repentance was possible.

In other words, if Assyria repented, God would relent and bring them back into his good graces, but they don't. Remember when Rabshakeh came and spoke to King Hezekiah at the wall? He says, thus says the king, right, in defiance to what all the prophets say, thus says the Lord.

These kings of Assyria thought that they were deity. They elevated themselves and their power beyond what they actually had. To the original hearer of the oracle, the possibility of repentance may have been considered.

In Nineveh, however, the moaning is too late and it comes from the slave girls, not the king. So when Jonah goes into Nineveh initially, the king begins to repent and it works top-down. Now as God's coming in to sack the Assyrians and destroy them, even the slave girls are moaning.

Nineveh Like a Pool of Water That Is Emptying Out

Verse 2 -8, though Nineveh was like a pool of water throughout her days, now they are fleeing. Stop, stop, but no one turns back. From ancient times, Nineveh had been a pleasant city resembling a pool of water, a city surrounded and protected by rivers, canals, and artificial lakes.

But in the day of battle, her citizens will flee away panic-stricken, not looking back, ignoring the commands of their military leaders to stand their ground and fight against the enemy. Nineveh and Assyria was a picturesque place.

They had beautiful pools of water, rivers. Remember, all four rivers that the book of Genesis describes were in Assyria at this point in time. Nineveh had been a pool or reservoir collecting people and wealth.

Now the flow is reversed and there's no stopping the rushing outflow. The pungency of expression, the tenseness of the passage graphically captures the drastic, unexpected, and rapid turn of events. Remember, Assyria was always used to being dominant.

They were the ones who were the aggressors. Now they're being the prey. Okay, and they're not being the prey by, well, they are being attacked by another nation, but again it's another nation guided by God.

This is God's doing. This isn't the Babylonians just deciding, hey, you know, let's take over Assyria. This is God coming in and saying, I am going to punish the Assyrians. I am going to destroy them.

That the supply of plunder is endless is echoed in the Babylonian Chronicle in its description of the sack of Nineveh. The spoil that was taken was a quantity beyond counting. Now as the Babylonians were going in and conquering Assyria, they had scribes who were taking notes.

And this, it's actually called the Babylonian Chronicle. So you can actually look this up online and read through these things about what they said about the Assyrians and the lands they conquered. Nineveh's defenses are compared to either irrigation, water draining from a pool, which is useless, or water gushing through the breaches in a dam, troops deserting their posts.

So as the troops are leaving, it looks like water leaving the city. The latter is the idea in the second half of the verse. Rather than heed the order to stop, the frightened soldiers ran for their lives, afraid to even look back lest they be overtaken by the invaders.

We know of anybody who looked back when they were told not to, right? These people, they didn't even want to look back because they knew it was God who was pursuing them. This is judgment upon Assyria.

Leaders shout, stop, but with little effect because many are running away. No one looks back. Nineveh, like a pool, collapses as it empties. The speed and surprise of its collapse are expressed in the ineffective shouting.

This is in contrast to God's voice, where Yahweh rebukes the sea and it turns back immediately. The commanders of Assyria are saying, stop, stop, and nothing stops. At God's word, He can stop the waters.

He could stop the storm. He could stop the rushing flood because that's a word from God. These commanders are yelling, stop, stop, and they can't stop it. Again, this is God coming against His enemies.

This is God judging the Assyrians for their heart going further than what God intended. We need to recognize that there are people who are in rebellion to God and they need to hear the gospel. Otherwise, they're going to be exiled from the presence of God for all eternity.

We need to be loving and compassionate towards people, remembering the Great Commission. Nineveh is described as a leaking pool whose major resource, water, is leaking away, leaving the pool empty. The mighty waters of Assyria are no longer a threat to anyone.

The tide has turned. Assyria's hosts have fled and Nineveh is left high and dry. Who did I think of when I read that sentence? The waters of Assyria are no longer a threat. The tide has turned. Assyria's hosts have fled and Nineveh is left high and dry.

You think that might be a pun? Right? Okay. No one's laughing, but that's all right. I laughed. It's all about me. As people flee in panic, authorities cry for them to stop, but no one pays attention.

Panic reigns. Order is dissolved. And what did God come to bring the Israelites? What's the opposite of order and panic? Peace. Right? Jesus is the Prince of Peace. While the Assyrians are frantic and out of order, Israel can now be at peace because the Assyrians are not going to be their captors anymore.

As Ammerding describes it, the image of water defines Nineveh's fate with vivid irony. Nineveh was a place of watered parks and orchards. As at the flood, however, water became a source of death, overflowing its boundaries and bringing chaos to the inundated city.

Again, as Christians, we've survived the judgment. We've been judged in Christ already. That's why in baptism we go underneath the water, showing that we've been judged, but then we come up out of the water, showing that now, because of Jesus, we are declared innocent.

Because of His perfect work on the cross, imputed to our account, we can stand before God just. It doesn't mean that we're not sinners anymore. We are legally declared innocent in God's sight. Now we have to work out in practicality what we've been declared legally.

That's the process of sanctification. So just because you've declared innocent doesn't mean you're righteous in and of yourself. It's a foreign righteousness. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ that gets imputed to our account that enables us to stand before God confidently.

And what does that word confidently mean? With faith. Con, with, fide, faith. We stand confidently with faith because Christ took our payment, took the payment for our sin on the cross. So now we need to act righteous, okay, through faith in Jesus.

No one here, anywhere in the world, is going to be perfect or live a perfect life, but we live a life of faith in obedience to God because of what He's done for us already. If God could bring an end to the most powerful nation in the ancient Near East, then the Lord God must truly be the Lord of all history.

Nahum's message contains a number of underlying theological messages. The Lord God of Israel reigns over history, requiting the oppressor and delivering the oppressed, okay. So there's only going to be two, and ultimately there's only going to be two groups of people in the world.

Those who place their faith and trust in the Lord of history, and those who are enemies and rebel against Him, right. Again, it goes back to what side of the cross are you on? Are you on the side of the repentant thief that says, truly you are the Son of God, or are you the unrepentant thief who says, come on, get us down from here, get me out, you're God, come on.

Self-centeredness. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold, for there is no limit to their treasure, wealth from every kind of desirable object. Nahum here turns to address the attackers who can take what they want from Nineveh, now that the defending soldiers have fled.

Plunder the silver, plunder the gold. Silver and gold would be the most obvious and most valuable items to attract the attacking soldiers. The word plunder refers to violent action, like taking by force or seizing.

Similarly in verse 2, where the plunderers occurs. It just brought to mind Proverbs 11, when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. You know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Well, we have to recognize who God is. Our pride is what can kill us. Pride is saying, me, I know better than God. You need to submit to God's wisdom, okay. It's a humbling thing, especially for a guy like myself who grew up, I thought, you know, I was going to heaven and it wouldn't be heaven if I wasn't there, right?

Until God opened my eyes and said, you fool, you you realize just how sinful you are? Once that happens and you recognize your own sin, your own sinfulness, you humble yourself quick. You recognize that God is the one in control and He does not, does not need you in heaven, nor does He owe you heaven.

It is a gift. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them, right? Crookedness, disobedience, lying, cheating, stealing, these are things that those in rebellion to God practice daily.

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. Hear the Assyrians, they had all the silver, all the gold, all the incredible things that the world would pursue. None of that delivers from death, only righteousness.

Faith in Christ alone and His perfect righteousness delivers us from the eternal death, the eternal separation from God. Job 20, utter darkness is laid up for his treasures. A fire not fanned will devour him.

What is left in his tent will be consumed. The heavens will reveal his iniquity and the earth will rise up against him. The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God. Remember, your possessions here don't count a lick towards your salvation. What did Jesus say in the parable to the man with the storehouse?

He says, the man built the storehouse, as he started, he says, today, today you fool, you're gonna enter into eternity without all that stuff. None of that stuff matters, okay? We have to build with gold, silver, and precious jewels, not wood, hay, and stubble, right?

This is 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul says, your works are going to be tested, wood, hay, and stubble, gold, silver, and precious jewels. What do wood, hay, and stubble represent? Works of the flesh, say again?

I'm sorry? Decay, okay. Bad foundation. What did they build Pharaoh's house with? Wood, hay, stone, stubble, right? He had the Israelites gather up the twigs and the pitch and to build Pharaoh's house.

What is God's house built with? Gold, silver, precious jewels. Now, this is not to say that we build with literal gold, literal silver, literal precious jewels. When we sow into somebody, when we give them the gospel, when we teach them the Word of God and guide them in God's wisdom, that's the gold, silver, and precious jewels that we build up in the person.

We are the spiritual house being built up as a temple of the Holy Spirit. So, what we need to do is sow into people because God has made a name for Himself and placed it in His house. Jerry, reflective of what truly is, right?

This is the truth. It's not literal gold, silver, and precious jewels, but it's symbolic, right? Of what's in heaven, right? Gold, silver, precious jewels, or wood, hay, and stubble. Yes, sir. Sure, absolutely.

We talked about that last week. You know, you're gonna build your house on the rock or your house on the sand. Only the one that is built on the rock is gonna last. It's that foundation that we're standing on that makes all the difference, right?

God's Word is firm. It is fixed, right? Where the sand is shifts, it constantly moves. Any way the wind blows, the society blows with it, that's gonna be eroded. That's gonna be destroyed. You have to build your house on the rock.

Good point. The kings of Assyria boasted repeatedly in their annals of the massive treasures they had collected in their robbing of other nations. For 200 years, from the time of Ashurbanipal to the time of Sinatra, the stone engraved inventories of treasuries taken from all the nations continue endlessly.

Not only through the spoils confiscated at the time a new nation was conquered, but through annual tributes, the wealth of Nineveh increased beyond all measurable proportions. Carved in stone, the annals of Assyria's sovereignly mentioned, watch, in their annals they would talk about the chariots supplied with the equipment for men and horses, how they amassed that.

Numerous talents of silver, gold, lead, copper, and iron that they would go into a nation and take with them. Brightly colored garments of every fabric. Those were expensive things at that point in time because the only way you could color the fabric is by getting the dye, and getting the dye was very difficult.

So those clothes would be worth a lot of money. Golden bowls, golden beakers, golden goblets, golden pitchers, camels, oxen, elephants, monkeys, apes, all worth a lot of money back then. Ivory couches inlaid with bejeweled.

Elephants, hides, lambs, birds, horses, mules, cattle, sheep, camels. None of this benefited them as far as their salvation went, and none of this will benefit us as far as our salvation goes. You are not, what you are is not based on what you have in your bank account.

What you are is based on what God says you are in Christ, okay? So if you're in Christ, you are redeemed. If you are not in Christ, you are judged. You are judged already. You need to repent, place your faith and trust in Jesus, and receive the free gift of salvation.

Receive the perfect righteousness that you need to stand before a holy God. And once you do, you'll have confidence. I can stand before God because it does not depend on what I've done, it depends on what he's done for me.

Praise God that God gave us his son Jesus. The fabulous wealth of the city, the spoils of war hoarded in Nineveh down through the centuries, will be seized by the invaders and formerly proud and wealthy city will be empty, void, and a waste.

The citizens left in the city, after all the other citizens have been slain or deported, will be left terrified, fainthearted, pale-faced. That which the cruel Assyrians for centuries had inflicted upon the cities of the Middle East, will now be inflicted upon Nineveh, their capital city.

Again, they're going to fall into the pits that they dug for others. What they did to others is going to come back upon them. Plunder. A glimpse of Nineveh's treasures appeared in 1988 through 1990, when Iraqi archaeologists opened tombs of Assyrian queens at Nimrod, ancient Kala, 25 miles south of Nineveh, and discovered masses of gold jewelry, dishes, bowls of gold, and other valuable objects.

For the first time, modern eyes were able to see the reality of Assyria's wealth. Again, the Babylonian Chronicle notes the heavy plunder Babylonian forces took in Nineveh and other places. Far more awaited the conquerors in palaces of Nineveh, garnered from conquered kingdoms and harvested as tribute.

I love the fact that we can go to archaeological evidence and it always, always confirms what the Bible says. This is another evidence for the truthfulness of Christianity. Archaeologists, prominent archaeologists, when they go and do a dig, what is the first book they go to to see if their dig is valid, if their conclusions are valid?

They go to the Scriptures. It's amazing how people who don't know God use God's book to validate their conclusions. So we have abundant archaeological evidence that point to the truthfulness of the Scriptures, so much so that they use it to verify their conclusions.

Nineveh Emptied, Desolate, and Fainthearted

She is emptied. Yes, she is desolate and waste. Hearts are melting and knees knocking. Also, anguish is in the whole body and all their faces have grown pale. Nineveh's wealth from its looting of the nations was incalculable.

Assyrian kings boasted of the plunder taken in war and nations that submitted were drained of their wealth by the extraction of a heavy tax, a heavy tribute, right? That's tax. During the 7th century, Nineveh had become the richest city in the ancient Near East.

Now the nations would plunder her of its silver, gold, and accumulated wealth. As the Median and Babylonian soldiers ravaged the city, its citizens were terrified. Four expressions capture the horror of the situation.

Their hearts melted, their knees gave way, their bodies trembled, and every face grew pale. The treasure that Assyria gathered went to Media and Babylon. When Nineveh fell, the treasure of Media and Babylon became the wealth of Persia.

Then, ironically, the wealth of Persia helped to rebuild Jerusalem. God waited, though, until two men humbled themselves, fasted, and reminded God of his written promises. Ezra and Nehemiah knew that there is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all of all precious things.

For the one who desires it for God's glory will use God's means to get his provision, right? Ezra and Nehemiah prayed that God would rebuild the walls of the city. And what does God do? He uses the plunder that the Medes took from the Assyrians, who took it from all the other nations, to come back and use that to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

God is smart, right? Think about what he's done. He's taken the evil of the Assyrian Empire and how they plundered all the other nations and now uses the the product of that to go in and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

So now, do you see anything similar to this in the New Testament? Do we have a New Testament version of this? Think for a second. It's real obvious answer. Let's move on. This would be a foreshadow of what would happen to Israel.

Matthew 11 24, but I tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, this is the city named after Nahum, you will be exalted to heaven. Will you be exalted to heaven?

You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.

So now, think of it. This city, who tradition has it, was named after Nahum, who told the Assyrians that the scatterer is back, okay, and is going to disperse his enemies, is now saying that the Jews, you're going to reject your king and you are going to be dispersed.

Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if they saw what you had. You have the Christ in your midst and you're going to be given a sign, the sign of Jonah, okay, and they still rejected him. I just want to refer you to last Wednesday's teaching by Pastor.

Again, he hit on this very topic. The last two weeks have been standouts in his series on hermeneutics. If you've missed the last two, go back on the YouTube channel and watch them, because this has incredible significance for Israel and the church.

Mark 121 and 22, and they went into Capernaum and they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them, Jesus, as one who had authority and not as the scribes. That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.

And the whole city of Capernaum was gathered there together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Isn't it amazing? The demons knew him, but his people didn't. Yes, Jerry. Incredible how God weaves this whole thing together. Matthew 21, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, meaning the Israelites, the Jews, and given to a people producing its fruit.

And the one who falls on this stone, Jesus, will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. So either you will fall upon Jesus, the stone, in mercy, asking him for mercy, or that stone, Jesus, is going to fall on you and crush you.

The weight of the law is going to crush you. If you cannot stand before God innocent, you are going to end up paying for your own sins. You don't want that. You need to receive the gift that God offers you in Jesus.

John 19, Pilate said to the Jews, behold your king. And they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered Jesus over to them to be crucified. The promised Messiah, standing in their midst that they were waiting for, for thousands of years, is now standing in front of them, and they're saying, crucify him.

Pilate took water, washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood, see to it yourselves. And the people answered, his blood be on us and our children. The pastor talked about this last week.

He said it's a maledictory oath. They called down an oath upon themselves, and now this seals their doom. God is going to judge Israel the same way he judged the Assyrians, and disperse them, cast them out.

Jesus would say, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.

See to it your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Desolate. Assyria, desolate, empty, they're dispersed, scattered.

Jesus is going to leave the temple. He says, I leave you your temple desolate, empty. In other words, God has left the building, gone. He's no longer in your midst. You crucified him. You said his blood be upon our heads and our children's heads.

What we need to remember is that Jesus is Lord. He's ruling and reigning right now. He rose from the dead, sits at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

You need to recognize, ask yourself, am I a friend of God or am I an enemy of God? Assyria was left stripped, fleeting, plundered, empty, emptied, and desolate. Same as Israel. Same as every other enemy of God.

Any questions? We're clear? That's good. All right, let's close in prayer.