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Bro. Bill Nichols
I thought I would let the people that were here last week hear a little bit of what we did last week because most of us have not heard it. And we're jumping into a new book today, the book of Nahum. Before we do, let's pray.
Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this time and this place where we can come together and study your written word. Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit that will help us in interpreting the word and understanding the message that you have for us.
But most of all, thank you for your Son that you've given us. Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So for the past several weeks, we've been studying the book of Jonah. And it's a book that detailed an account of a prophet with a message of doom for Nineveh.
The message was, can be found in Jonah 3 verse 4. And Jonah began entering into the city a day's journey. And he cried and said, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And that's a message that the entire city heard.
And upon hearing it, every man, woman, and child of sufficient age to make a decision repented. And that's a response that did not surprise God. He knew they would repent. And he forgave the entire city.
And we spent a long time talking about that last week. I'm not going to do that today. But I did consider this. I began wondering how the citizens of Nineveh must have felt as time passed. Not the ones that were in the city when God forgave it.
Not the ones that heard the prophet of doom, the prophecy of doom, and asked for forgiveness and were forgiven. But their children, how they must have felt as time went forward. God had forgiven them and their parents.
He had shown them mercy. He had shown them grace. He had blessed them. And I'm sure that they thought his blessings would last forever. And then I thought further and thought this. That could be the way the people of the U .S. feel today.
We are indeed a nation blessed of God. And we may also feel that those blessings will last forever. But that's not likely. No more likely for us than it was for Nineveh. And we're going to see in the next book that we take up what happens to Nineveh.
Not yet 40 days, but about 150 years later. So the years pass. And the people of Nineveh change again. First they repented from their sin and the Lord forgave them. And now over the course of time, they changed again.
Now more than 100 years later, God sends a new prophet, Nahum, with a similar message, but this time with a different result. So we'll begin with the book of Nahum, chapter 1. The Burden of Nineveh, the book of the visions of Nahum, the Elkosite.
That's all we know about Nahum. The book forms a sequel to the book of Jonah. Over a century earlier, Jonah recounted the remission of God's promised judgment toward Nineveh. Now more than a century later, Nahum depicts the execution of God's judgment.
And that prophecy that he makes is a prophecy of doom. Now Nineveh was proud of her city. It was a city that they thought to be invulnerable. It had walls reaching 100 feet high. It had a moat 150 feet wide and 60 feet deep surrounding it.
But Nahum established the fact that the sovereign God would bring vengeance upon those who violated his law. Nahum said that Nineveh would end with an overflowing flood. And that happened when the Tigris River overflowed, destroying enough of the wall to let the Babylonians through.
Nahum also predicted that the city would be hidden. After its destruction in 612 BC, the site was not rediscovered until 1842, more than 2 ,500 years later. Verse 2, God is jealous and the Lord revengeth.
The Lord revengeth and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked.
The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm and the cloud. The clouds are dust of his feet. You gotta understand, God is far more patient than man. However, there is a time and a place where he does display his anger.
This is the way Charles Hayden Spurgeon described the event. God is not like an unjust judge who simply lets the guilty go out of a false sense of compassion. He says, we can't just figure that God will say, let's let bygones be bygones when we get to heaven.
Sin must be accounted for because God will not acquit the wicked. Every sin will be paid for, either in hell by the sinner or at the cross. But the payment will be made. But God will not acquit the wicked.
Never once has he pardoned an unpunished sin. Not in all the years of the most time, not in all of the days of his right hand, has he once blotted out sin without punishment. That was an interesting insight to me.
I never really put that into perspective that every sin ever committed is paid for. It's either paid for by the sinner and he'll pay for it eternally in hell, or it was paid for by Jesus Christ when he was on the cross.
And there's no other ground. There is no other way that sin can be accounted for. God is not an unjust God. He won't simply say, well, okay, you're in heaven now. Let's let bygones be bygones. Any comments?
Verse 4, He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and dryeth up all the rivers. Bashan languisheth. Carmel and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence.
Yea, the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.
When God is resisted long enough and rejected strongly enough, his judgment will come. He is slow to anger, but when his anger does come, his fury is poured out like fire. Understanding this should make man quick to repent and wary of presuming on God's patience.
If you knew that when God finally loses his patience with you and pours out his wrath, that his fury is poured out like fire, one would think that you would be more careful in presuming that his patience will last forever.
But that's not the case. Most often that doesn't happen. Most often we do presume on God's patience. We're not quick to repent and wary of presuming on God's patience. Verse 7,. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
And he knoweth them that trust in him. Those who love him and trust him see the goodness of God. Those that do not love him and those that do not trust him see the fury of God. And those that love him and trust him and see the goodness of him find protection in his stronghold.
And his stronghold is the Lord himself. That's where you will find your protection. Not in anything you do, not in anything that anyone can do for you, but only in the Lord himself. He is our stronghold.
But with an overflowing flood he will make an utter end to the place thereof and darkness shall pursue his enemies. That overflowing flood was fulfilled both figuratively and literally. According to secular accounts during the final siege of Nineveh by a rebel army of Persians, Medes, Arabians, and Babylonians, unusually heavy rains caused the rivers to flood and to undermine the city's walls.
The walls then collapsed and the invading armies were able to enter the city through this breach in its defenses. Verse 9, what do you imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end. Affliction shall not rise up the second time.
The utter end of the place was also literally fulfilled. Not only were these people lost from history, even the city was lost until it was discovered by archaeologists at the middle of the 18th century, 1840s.
And the promise the affliction will not rise up a second time might sound encouraging until you realize that it will not rise up the second time because the judgment was so severe the first time. The city does not even exist anymore, nor the people.
That's why it will not rise up again. For while they be folded together as thorns, while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. Like in Texas, this week, if you go out to a field and throw a match into a field, the whole field will be destroyed.
One little match and if the fire department doesn't get there quickly enough, acres and acres will be destroyed. Fully destroyed. Totally destroyed. And now verse 11 is a verse that gave me some consternation last week.
And as we were going through last week, something occurred to me that I want to share with you and I want feedback on this. And again, I probably should quote Acts 17 and 11. Hear what I say, but study to see if those things are true.
There is one come out of thee that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. That, I believe, is a near and a far prophecy. The near prophecy relates to the completion of God's wrath, which began when an emissary of Sennacherib, one of the rulers of Assyria, delivered a threat to Jerusalem.
He came up to the wall and shouted out a lot of blasphemous material. He delivered the threat, after which the Lord intervened and destroyed the entire army. You probably remember, if you don't, it's in 2 Kings 19, chapter 19, verse 35.
After the emissary has made his speech and told how the Lord would not be able to deliver them from the army of the Assyrians, no one else had been able to. And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand.
That's 180 ,000 men. One night, one angel. Probably the angel of the Lord, probably Jesus Christ incarnate, but it doesn't matter. It could have been just another angel. 185 ,000. And when they arose early the next morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
I thought that was a funny way of saying it. So they go to bed and there's 185 ,000 men there ready to lay siege to Assyria. Next morning, they awake and they're all dead. So Sennacherib takes his army back to Assyria and begins rebuilding.
And he doesn't recover in time, but his sons do. And Assyria again acquires great power. Okay, so that's the first part. Assyria has had this destruction of their army, but that's not the entire destruction of Nineveh.
Nineveh then regrows, regains power, and are now sitting in this secure village. Not secure village, secure city of about two million people. And that prophecy began when Christ... that destruction began when Christ intervened and was completed as prophesied by Nahum with the complete destruction of Nineveh.
Now, that's the two pieces of the near prophecy. The prophecy of the army that was destroyed and then the prophecy of the city that was destroyed. All of that is the near prophecy. Then we have what I believe is the far prophecy.
This is still future today. And it is, I believe, the prophecy of Antichrist. He's named in several Old Testament books as the Assyrian. We're going to refer to Micah 5, verse 2. And you'll recognize right away who we're talking about in the first part.
And then what his role will be later. But thou, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose going forth have been from old, from everlasting.
Everybody knows who that is. That's Jesus, the Messiah. Verse 3,. Therefore will he give them up until that time that she which travaileth. Now, who is the she that is travailing? That's Israel. That's the people of Israel.
Until she which hath travaileth hath brought forth. Then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel, and he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall abide, for now he shall be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man, what man? Jesus, shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into the land. And when he shall tread in our palaces.
This is not talking about the destruction of Assyria at the time of Nahum. It's got to be talking about a time after the Messiah. So it's got to be talking about a wicked counselor that is in the end times.
Antichrist. I think that's who it's talking about. I think that's another reference to the nature and the origin of Antichrist. Now, something to consider. Nineveh was located near. That is to say just across the river from what is now Mosul, Iraq.
In the heart of what was then the Assyrian Empire. And that Assyrian Empire extended all the way from the corner of Iraq and Iran all the way through the Middle East, even to Syria where the Kurds are fighting right now.
They are part of what was the Assyrian Empire. They would all be classified as Assyrians. So anyone from that area might very well be the Antichrist. I know that's not the current identification of the Assyrian.
Just something to think about of Antichrist. That may not be from Europe at all. He may be from the Middle East. That's just free for nothing. It's not biblical anymore than just what I've read. This is all I know.
Verse 12. Thus saith the Lord, though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted, I will afflict thee no more. For now I will break his yoke from off thee, and I will burst thy bonds asunder.
And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee that no more of thy name be sown out of the house of thy gods. Will I cut off the graven image and the molten image, and I will make thy grave for thou art vile.
Part of that was talking about Israel. I will afflict thee no more. I will break his yoke from off thee. That's talking about Israel, both Judah and Israel. But the last part is about Nineveh. I will make thy grave for thou art vile.
The city of Nineveh was once instantly recognized as one of the great power cities of the world. God promises to bring this wicked city so low that they will lose their legacy and their name among nations.
And behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publish peace. O Judah, keep thy solemn feast, perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee. He is utterly cut off.
Now that is Nahum's projection, his prediction, his prophecy of what's going to happen to Assyria. Now Nahum chapter 2 deals with the actual event itself. Even though the fall of Nineveh in 612 B .C. at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar is still future to Nahum, it's described vividly in the present tense terms.
So we're going to begin with verse 1, chapter 2. He that dasheth in pieces is come before thy face, keep thy munitions, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power. Who's he talking to? He's talking to the people of Nineveh and he's telling them.
I'm going to tell you how Matthew Henry wrote it. An alarm of war is sent to Nineveh. Nahum speaks of it as if it is just at hand, for it is neither doubtful nor far distant. He says, look about thee and see, he that dasheth in pieces is come before thy face.
That's Nebuchadnezzar who is noted and will yet more so for dashing nations to pieces. Begins with thee and will dissipate thee and disperse thee. So some render the word. Jeremiah will call Babylon the hammer of the whole world.
Later when he calls, when he prophesies the destruction of Nineveh. He says, how is the destruction of Babylon? How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken? How has Babylon become desolate among the nations?
So Nebuchadnezzar was known as the hammer of all nations. The one that destroyed and beat to pieces all other nations including Nineveh. He's going to start at Nineveh and go through. This attempt by Nebuchadnezzar upon Babylon is public and bold.
He has come up before thy face, avowing his design to ruin thee and therefore to stand to thy arms. O Nineveh, keep the benedictions. Secure thy towers and thy magazines. Watch the way. Set guards upon all avenues to the city.
Make thy loins strong. Encourage thy soldiers. Animate thyselves and them. Fortify thy power mightily as cities do when an enemy is advancing against them. Do the uttermost that thou canst, yet thou shall not be able by the stroke of this judgment, for there is no counsel or strength against the Lord.
That's what Matthew Henry said about this call that Nahum gave to Assyria to prepare yourself. Verse 2,. For the Lord has turned away the excellency of Jacob as the excellency of Israel, for the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vine branches.
The Assyrians have been abusive to Judah, the two tribes, as they already have been to Israel, the ten tribes, and emptied them of all the things that they possessed. For God will reckon with them, though done long since, it shall come to the account now against that kingdom and Nineveh, the head city of it.
This is Matthew Henry still speaking. God's quarrel with them is for the violence they had done to Jacob. Verse 3, He's describing the events that are happening in Nineveh Nineveh as the Babylonians and the rebel army is approaching Nineveh.
The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet, the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, the fir trees shall be terribly shaken. What the old soldiers did, they overlaid their shields with copper making them shiny and the reflections of the sunlight would make it appear like there's more of them.
Or they were covered with hide that was dyed red so as to extinguish burning arrows and to minimize the sight of blood and scarlet clothing would have the same effect. The interesting thing here is the fir trees shall be terribly shaken.
That's the King James Version. The English Standard Version translates that phrase this way and it makes a little bit more sense to me at least. In the English Standard Version this phrase is translated, The cypress spears are brandished.
They have spears made of cypress and they're waving them around denoting their eagerness for war and readiness to battle. Verse 4, chariots shall rage in the streets. They shall jostle one against another in the broad ways.
They shall seem like torches and they shall run like lightnings. There are those who take this verse and stretch it a little bit to say that Nahum predicted the coming auto age, that these are cars on freeways running around bumping into one another with their headlights flashing and zooming down the road at 70 -80 miles an hour.
That is a little far-fetched I think. What I think it's talking about is this. Inside the city confusions shall reign. Chariots designed for creating havoc among the enemy in open warfare will instead dash through the streets bumping into one another in a futile attempt to defend the city.
But instead only adding to the chaos. These machines were designed to work in open fields against the enemy and now they're running up and down the streets trying to protect the city just bumping into each other adding to the chaos.
Nahum sees all of this in his vision back inside the city. He shall recount his worthiness and they shall stumble in their walk and they shall make haste to the wall thereof and the defenses shall be prepared.
This continues the thought in verse 4, depicting Nineveh's royalty and military leaders dashing to one of her many defense towers built into the wall which according to a Greek historian numbered 1 ,500 towers reaching a height of 200 feet built into the walls.
But even though the defense is prepared they'll be conquered. The gates of the river shall be opened and the palace shall be dissolved. Nineveh lying at the merging of three rivers, the Tigris and two smaller rivers constructed dams to minimize the damage of seasonal flooding to her walls.
The latter part of verse 6 suggests that these dam gates were left open causing the walls to be breached by the flood and the palace was taken. And Huzab shall be led away captive. She shall be brought up and her maidens shall lead her as with the voice of doves tapering upon their breast.
Now there's two ways to see this. Nahum not only sees the battle, he sees the outcome. Nineveh will fall before this mighty army and she will be humbled and led away captive even as the Assyrians led other nations captive.
Matthew Henry says this, and I think Matthew Henry is probably right. The queen of Nineveh, the queen shall fall into the hands of the enemy. Huzab shall be led away captive. She that was established, so some read it.
So the queen who was established as queen of the kingdom shall be led away. That's what he thinks they're talking to, not the whole city. Although the whole city was in fact carried away. She that was established thought herself safe because she was concealed and shut up in secret.
She shall be discovered, so the margin reads, and shall be led away captive in greater disgrace than that of the common prisoner. She shall be brought up in mock state and her maids of honor shall lead her because she is weak and faint, not able to bear such frights and hardships which are doubly hard and frightful to those who have not been used to them.
They shall attend her, the maids, shall attend her not to speak cheerfully to her and to encourage her, but murmuring and moaning to themselves with the voice of doves. Morning doves in the Valley of Doves.
Noted for the morning they shall be tapering upon their breast, beating on their own breast in grief and vexation, as if they were drumming upon them, for so the word signifies. So he thinks it's the queen taken away, escorted by her maidens who are attending her, but not cheerfully, not concerned about her, concerned more about themselves, murmuring about what they know is going to happen to them.
But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water, yet there shall flow away. Stand, stand they shall cry, but none shall look back. Though Nineveh was like an oasis in the desert that attracted many people, they fled from the devastation.
Now here's an interesting verse and an interesting point made by a commentator. Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold, for there is none end of the store and the glory out of all of the pleasant furniture.
An impressive confirmation of this prophecy is that in all this gold and silver that nothing has been discovered in the ruins of Nineveh by archaeologists. No silver, no gold, no precious furniture, Nineveh was indeed stripped bare.
They find things, but no silver and no gold, it was all taken. She is empty and void, waste. The heart melteth, the knees smite together, and much pain is in all the loins. The faces of them all gather blackness.
Matthew Henry said this,. The soldiers and people have no heart to appear for the defense of the city. Their spirits shall melt away like wax before the fire. Their knees shall smite together as Belshazzar's did in Daniel 5 -6.
The faces of them all shall gather blackness, like that of a pot that is every day over the fire, so the word signifies. Verse 11, Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions?
Where is the lion? Even the old lion walked, and the lions whelped, and none made them afraid. John MacArthur said this,. Archaeologists have found a carving from a palace showing an Assyrian king on a lion hunt, and a lion was one of the emblems of Assyria.
Nahum rhetorically asks where Nineveh has gone. No longer describing Nineveh's fall, he is now taunting her, ridiculing her fall from power and glory. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelp, and strangle for his lionesses, and fill his holes with prey, and his den with raven.
Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts. And that's a terrible thing to hear from God. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts. The principle of Romans 8 .31, which is true for the believer, I'm going to read that to you.
Brother David might be to this verse today, I'm not sure. What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? That's the principle of Romans 8 .31, which is true for believers.
It implies the opposite for the non-believers. You could read the opposite this way. If God is against you, who can be for you? And I will burn her chariots in the smoke. Nineveh, known for burning captured cities, would receive the same fate.
They'd be burned. And the sword shall devour thy young lions, and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers should be heard no more. Nineveh enjoyed its status as a power center of the world and relished the fact that the voice of her messengers commended attention in palaces all over the world.
That they would come to an end under the judgment of God. And that's the end of chapter 2 of Nahum. There's one more chapter remaining. It's a small chapter. Are there any questions or comments, anything you'd like to add?
When we were studying Jonah, we looked and said, was Nineveh actually destroyed? And the answer is, yes, totally, completely, without anything left. But not just in the 40 days. The people repented, and then their children failed to follow the lead of the parents.
That's kind of what's happened to the U .S. today. We were a blessed nation. Blessed because of what our forefathers did. And we've let that slide away. And we should not be surprised if the Lord brings to us the same kind of judgment that He brings to or brought to Nineveh.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, as we leave this scripture and proceed into the worship service, we humbly ask You to continue to bless us, and to protect us, and to nurture us. And finally, it is my prayer that our country will repent and return to You.
And maybe You will see fit to spare us the judgment experienced by Nineveh. In the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, we pray. Amen.