Mar. 18, 2018 PM The Mighty Have Fallen by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Nahum’s Judgment on Assyria and Nineveh

We'll turn, please, if you would, to Nahum once again. We'll, this afternoon, look at Chapter 2 of this prophecy. In Chapter 1, we had what amounted to a psalm extolling the virtues of God and telling of His wrath and His anger at sin and the might and the power with which He executes His own will.

And as I read these verses, you will hear more of the detail of what that will is specifically and how it is going to be brought down upon the Assyrians. Assyria and the word Nineveh are synonymous. Nineveh was the capital or the chief city of the empire of Assyria.

So they really both refer to the same nation. Nahum. Chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts. Watch the road. Dress for battle. Collect all your strength.

For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel. For plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches. The shield of His mighty men is red. His soldiers are clothed in scarlet.

The chariots come with flashing metal on the day He musters them. The cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly through the streets. They rush to and fro through the squares. They gleam like torches.

They dart like lightning. He remembers His officers. They stumble as they go. They hasten up to the wall. The siege tower is set up. The river gates are opened. The palace melts away. Its mistress is stripped.

She is carried off. Her slave girls lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. Halt! Halt! they cry. But none turns back. Plunder the silver.

Plunder the gold. There is no end of the treasure or the wealth of all precious things. Desolate. Desolation and ruin. Hearts melt and knees tremble. Anguish is in all their loins. All faces grow pale.

Where is the lion's den? The feeding place of the young lions where the lion and lionesses went. Where his cubs were with none to disturb. The lion tore enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses.

He filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh. Behold, I am against you declares the Lord of hosts and I will burn your chariots in smoke and the sword shall devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard.

God Uses Wicked Nations to Judge His People

So God had used a wicked nation Assyria as His instrument of judgment against His own people. Against Israel. And as we learned, as we've been going through this book, and even Jonah, as we gain more insight into the historical context, we remember that it was about a century before Nahum's prophecy that Assyria had finally conquered Israel.

The northern kingdom, also called in Scripture Ephraim, or the ten tribes. Those tribes that had departed from the southern part, Judah, after the rebellion of Rehoboam, or excuse me, the rebellion that occurred under Rehoboam, King Solomon's son.

When ten tribes went and joined to Jeroboam to the north and Judah and the Levites stayed to the south. Well that northern kingdom began to sin immediately. When their king set up the golden calves, a sin that they never departed from.

Until finally God sent this nation, this very nation who is the subject of this whole book of Nahum and particularly here, chapter 2, Assyria as His instrument of judgment against His own people. And there's a question of God's use of wicked people, wicked nations, in order to accomplish His will.

Habakkuk is the prophet who hears about the coming of the Babylon. Babylon who will finally judge the southern kingdom. And he says, how can you do this Lord? Now I'm paraphrasing. How can you, God, who are of two pure eyes, than to even behold evil?

How can such a God as that use such evil people for His judgment? How can this be? Lord willing as we continue in this series in the mind of prophets, we will pick up Habakkuk and we will look at that question and the way he looks at God and asks that question as with the other eye, he looks at this evil nation that's going to come.

But the fact is that God does use sinners to judge sinners. And the heart of the king is always in His hands, so the heart of the Assyrian king, who would give no worship or no credibility to God at all, yet accomplishes, even if unknowingly, God's will.

What does it mean that the wicked are used to judge God's people? Well God's people should actually look and say if God is using a people such as this against us, how deep and how bad is our sin in His eyes?

Because this nation is somehow a picture, it's a symbol, a paradigm, if you will, of where we, in our own sin, are heading or perhaps have even headed and ended up. Assyria was a wicked nation. They were the most arrogant, violent, and cruel nation to exist up to that time.

And this is what people should look at. This is what Israel should have looked at. To see if God would use such as this against His covenant people to bring them to repentance. If a nation like this would be used by our mighty God, our holy God, just how deep is our sin and how profound the need to repent.

Assyria’s Fall Prefigures Babylon’s Conquest

Well this oracle against Assyria you recall is about Assyria, about Nineveh. They are the subject of it, but it wasn't delivered to them. It was delivered as a message of comfort to Judah. And this word of comfort tells them that the destroyer of their northern brethren, the ones who took out Israel and those ten tribes, that nation who had then attacked Jerusalem, you read about this in 2 Kings 8 under King Hezekiah, that nation would soon be destroyed.

They would soon reap from the Lord's hand what they themselves had sown. God's people who were then in Nahum's time, I believe under Josiah's reign, they had a real life demonstration of the consequences of their own sin.

Now Syria is not the nation that would be allowed to bring judgment against Judah, but they could have looked at that time and seen this nation and gotten an idea, gotten some picture from God as just how deep their sin was.

If God would use Assyria against Israel, what might happen to Judah? Should they continue in the sins in which they were then involved? A prophetic word against them should have made God's people then as now tremble at the word of a God such as ours, one who brooks man's insults and his rebellions for only so long.

The scatterer has come up against you, this is their warning. Man the ramparts, watch the road, dress for battle, collect all your strength, for the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches.

This is Assyria preparing to defend itself against this coming enemy. And the enemy in verses 3 and 4, the next two verses is none other than Babylon, the shield of his mighty men is red, and that was Babylon's military color of choice.

For Syria it was yellow and purple. For Babylon it was the shield is red, her soldiers are clothed in scarlet, their marshal colors of choice. And then it has this picture of these chariots coming with flashing metal on the day he musters them, Cyprus spears are brandished, this is a powerful, effective, efficient, conquering army.

And then verse 4, the chariots race madly through the streets, they rush to and fro through the squares, they gleam like torches, they dart like lightning, there's just nothing you can do to stop them.

I think the closest analogy that we have today would be a battle tank, like what is the one we have, the American tank is the M1 Abrams. Can you imagine being in the street and having one of those come in anger towards you?

I think that would be the feel in that day of a chariot coming at you. If it was a two-man chariot, one man would be an archer, the other would be guiding two to four horses. It would be a terrifying sight.

They're racing madly through the streets, they're going through the squares, they gleam like torches, they go where they want to go. Verse 5, Assyria's defenses, he remembers his officers, this is either the king of Assyria or perhaps their general.

They stumble as they go, they hasten to the wall, the siege tower is set up, the river gates are open, the palace melts away, its mistress is stripped, she's carried off. It's a picture of chaos, this once mighty and efficient army.

You can hear the trumpets calling the men to muster, get into your squads, your platoons, your companies, your brigades, your battalions. But they're bumping into each other, they're tripping over their own feet, they don't know where to go, they're stumbling around.

And what is this? This is this mighty army brought low. Now it could be you could look and say, well, with the mighty Babylonians coming, of course they'd be terrified and running around and confused, but that's only a small part of the answer.

Because it is God who's bringing this confusion upon them. It is God who's bringing this terror to them. It is because God's will is coming upon them that they are confused and terrified. And the Babylonians are having any success at all.

It's the humbling of the proud Assyrians. And part of their humbling is by highlighting that they can't even protect their women. Moaning like doves, beating their breasts, their slave girls are being carried off and they're lamenting and there's nothing that they can do to stop it.

It could be also that the prophet is alluding to the judgment of their goddess, their national goddess Ishtar. In which case the breast beaters are the women who served in her temple. But it's all coming to a close.

It's all coming to an end. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. Halt, halt, they cry, but none turns back. This is the men who can't stand on the ramparts anymore. This is people defecting from the city.

It's the soldiers or the officers or the governors, whoever it is calling them back come back and defend the city, but they can't. It's like water being poured out of a pitcher. Once it's on its way down, there's nothing you can do to bring it back up.

They're departing from the city. They are abandoning it. They plunder the silver, plunder the gold. There's no end to the treasure or the wealth of all precious things. It's clearly the plunder that they had extracted from others including Israel and even Judah where they've been paid what we today would call extortion.

Tribute money is what the scripture calls it. Really it's extortion. Pay this money or we're going to come and do something worse than bop you in the nose. The wealth that they had plundered from others which financed the plundering of yet others, all that was being now plundered from them.

It's very consistent with God's working. You remember that the Egyptians when Israel was finally let go, when Pharaoh finally submitted himself for just that moment we know he changed his mind, submitted himself to God and let the people go.

That God put it on the heart of the Egyptians to give the Israelites their gold, their jewelry, their earrings, their rings, their necklaces, their bracelets and so on. And it says in the scripture that therefore Israel plundered Egypt and now again the plunderer Assyria being plundered by a new plunderer which will be Babylon.

The Lion’s Den and the Beast-Like Cruelty of the Assyrians

Verse 10 says desolation and ruin, hearts melt and knees tremble, anguishes in all their loins, all faces grow pale. Simply a picture of terror. Just terror. There's nothing you can do about it. This enemy coming at you, this Babylon who was in times past conquered by Assyria.

And perhaps now this terror is that they're going to get their revenge. They're going to make these Assyrians pay for what had happened before when Babylon was conquered by them. They ask where is the lion's den, the feeding place of the young?

The lion was their national symbol. Ishtar's temple was adorned with lions. And the point here is that the Assyrians have become something less than people with their cruelty, with their pride, with their avarice, with their plundering.

They've become like beasts. They're like what this national symbol is. They're like lions themselves. They become something less than people. They treated their victims as less than people. As if they were animals of prey.

The Assyrians vacated humanity in the way they treated conquered people. The point here is that none could disturb their lion-like practices. Their beast-like practices. The lion's den refers to a practice that they had of publicly torturing and killing their captives.

An Assyrian king named Ashurnasirpal. Ashurnasirpal. He burned a city that had surrendered under a promise of leniency. And they cut off the legs of their military leaders. And he had the governor publicly flayed alive with things like this.

The prophet asks, where is their cruelty now? As they're stumbling and fumbling through the streets. As they're tripping over each other. As the ramparts are being unmanned. As people are departing from the city and none can bring them back.

Where is your cruelty now? Asks the Lord through the prophet. They become beasts. They were still God's image bearers. Yet had so far shed the things that make that image real. Things like compassion and justice and mercy and fairness and restraint.

It has to be no better than lions or beasts. Mindlessly and savagely tearing at their prey. And the lion tore enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses. He filled his caves with prey above and beyond their need.

Sent as God's instrument of judgment. And even if not acknowledging God who sent them. Yet still going so far beyond anything necessary to bring their vanquished foes into submission. It is a warning to God's people.

In how far we go in punishment. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 and verses 5 -7. Paul refers back to a man who we were introduced to in 1st Corinthians 5. The man who was caught in a sin. Having to do with his father's wife.

And they punished him for it. They were finally brought him into discipline for it. And in 2nd Corinthians Paul says that you have punished him enough. Now this is going to turn to too much sorrow. That the offense has been covered.

That he has repented. Now you can forgive him and move on. Don't go too far. I think it's appropriate for us to look at the way the Assyrians treated people. Alluded to in these verses in Nahum. And realize that God says there's an end to punishment.

When we have brought someone in the church to repentance. When we've pronounced forgiveness as a body. Let's be sure that we've truly forgiven. And we don't bring too much sorrow upon someone. And then in verse 13 Behold I am against you declares the Lord of hosts and I will burn your chariots and smoke and the sword shall devour your young lions.

And I will cut off your prey from the earth and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard. 2nd Kings 8. When Assyria came against Jerusalem in their failed expedition to bring Judah to their knees.

How the chief spokesman for Assyria spoke out to the wall of Jerusalem. I'm not going to read the whole thing now. You can look that up for yourself later. But he basically insulted Yahweh. The God of Judah.

The God of Israel. He said where is your God now? What God has been able to stop us from carrying off the gods of all these nations and throws all these insults at them. And Nahum says the voice of this messenger, all your messengers will no longer be heard.

God's putting an end to it all. I am against you. You know the prophet or the psalmist said, Paul repeats it, if God be for us who can be against us? But think of it a different way. Behold I'm against you if God is against us.

What does it matter who is for us? Doesn't matter at all. The chariots burned means their armors are destroyed. There's no more chance for a counterattack. There's no more defense. The sword that they wielded against others is turned against them.

They are now prey. They were once lions. Now they are prey to others. They're proud messengers who called others to surrender. Now they will not even be heard. Let's remember that Nahum, the prophet's name means comfort.

And this must be a word of comfort. Even as we talk about all these violent and sinful things that are coming to an end and we need to understand what God has done. He didn't wink at sin. He wasn't unaware of what they were doing.

He knew that they went so much further than he ever intended. All this has to be a word of comfort to the people who heard this and to us. Remember how God has fought for us. He is always Yahweh Tzva 'ot.

He is always our Lord of Hosts. He is always the God behind whom are all the armies of heaven ready in an instant to come. Jesus said, do you not know that I could call upon my Father in heaven? He would send legions of angels to rescue me even now from the cross.

Should that be my desire which of course it was not. Praise God it was not. This is the God though who has always fought for us. Sometimes he sends hard providences. Sometimes we have an Assyria type come at us and that brings out our sin.

That brings our punishment. That's God's chastising hand. And yet in the end it's always the Lord of Hosts. It's always our God in the name of whom we come to in the name of Jesus who is for us if God be for us, who be against us.

Those who go too far like the Assyrians if God's against us, who can ever be for us. It's this word of comfort by believing in God's final victory and with it our vindication where we're released from bondage to anger against those who have hurt us.

Much of Nahum is what we call imprecatory. And many of the Psalms are imprecatory. An imprecatory Psalm or an imprecatory statement is something like, oh Lord Nehemiah does this quite often. Give to them what their sins deserve.

Basically it's the worshipper asking for revenge. C .S. Lewis said something about these. He said if we look at the railings of imprecatory Psalms or things like what the prophet Nehemiah said, we find they are angry not simply because things have been done to them but because these things are manifestly wrong, are hateful to God as well as to the victim.

The arrogant, those who do these things that are manifestly wrong, those who do things that are hateful to God and to the victims. They're fairly warned. Anyone who is a subject of behold I am against you says the Lord of hosts is in a tragically dangerous position.

The Final Judgment Prefigured by Nahum

I think the other thing we can learn from Nahum and from chapter 2 and from this coming of Babylon against Assyria is that it's just a prototype. It's just a prefigurement of God's ultimate battle and victory against his enemies.

And when God in the end sends his army it won't be a wicked nation like Assyria or Babylon. In Revelation chapter 4, or excuse me, chapter 6 the first four seals that are open, they reveal this army with Jesus as its head.

You remember the first rider that is seen? It's the one with the bow and he's going conquering and to conquer and he's on the white horse. That's Jesus. And behind him are the other three riders who bring the destruction, the inhabitants of the land in Joshua's day and afterwards they were the Canaanites, they were enemies they're all to meet their final demise.

You remember in the book of Revelation the fifth seal? When it's opened John sees those who died as martyrs, those who died for the word of God and they call out, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

And they're told just to rest for a little while longer, more martyrs are on their way but the army of the Lord of hosts has been released and the time of the enemies is at hand. Ultimately we're not told when Jesus will return, we're only told that he will return and the timing of that great day is none of our concern.

If history means anything at all it means that God's word is true and forever cast in the heavens. It means things like what Nahum prophesied and we know from biblical and extra-biblical records actually did happen.

It's only a precursor of ultimately what will happen. This history, this thing this prophecy which can be confirmed actually did happen tells us that God's word is true and all his warnings against his enemies and his promises to his people are secure.

Nation after nation has been raised up by God, sent as a rod of correction against his people and then cast aside by the Lord's design after his will had been accomplished. So the Assyrians had once conquered Babylon and would be used of God to chastise Israel and so Assyria who had conquered Babylon would be soon conquered by Babylon and Babylon would be sent to punish Judah.

Then Babylon would fall to Persia, Persia to Greece, Greece to Rome, Rome to the Vandals and on and on and on. So one of the great comforts we can take from this book by the prophet whose name really is comfort is to know that our God is the God of history.

Our God is the God whose will is going to be be completed no matter what. We are those who cry out to God wondering how long with the saints who were revealed with that fifth seal. We say even come how long will we have to cry out even so come Lord Jesus.

Our comfort is from our faithful assurance that the prototypes such as the doomed Assyrians prove in history that God's word is true and certain. He will punish all who refuse to obey his son's gospel.

He will if we should die before then or see the sword he will bring us to himself and while we wait we serve him by serving each other by comforting each other with words like these. While we wait what do we do?

We follow his commands. While we wait we obey his word. One command we obey regularly is when we take this table faithfully set by the servants here at this church and one thing this table reminds us of is that the greatest enemy which is the devil and the death to which he turned the first couple and brought to all of us this entire reign of sin and death that has been defeated.

That our Lord Jesus Christ at the cross defeated this law of sin and death. The bread which is Jesus' broken body broken by the beatings, by the thorns, by the floggings the wine, his life given up for us.

Nahum provides us a word of comfort. It reminds us that in history God has accomplished his will. He brought an end to Assyria. In history God sent his son. In history Jesus Christ actually did die on the cross and when he said it is finished the whole work of redemption all that was needed the atonement to cover our sins brought to a final and glorious conclusion.

The Assyrians are just a picture of this cycle in history that we see so often. When we come to the table in a few moments this is what we see here. That God sent his son the ultimate victor against the ultimate enemy.

So this is a word of comfort to God's people. It's a word of reminder as God uses wicked armies to confront his people with their sin to look upon those and wonder why God would use such as that because sin is so egregious in his sight.

Because sin takes so much to cover it. And then we look at the table and we know the ultimate penalty paid for sin was paid for our Lord Jesus Christ. So we can all say praise God and hallelujah and thank you Father that the death that I deserve is passed over and was placed upon Jesus Christ who conquered the ultimate enemy which is as I said sin and death and the devil and all his works.

Well let's prepare ourselves for taking the table. Let's turn to hymn number 175, Man of Sorrows. We have...