Justice for God’s Beloved People
Study Scripture: Nahum 1:1 – 3, 6 – 8, 12 – 13, 15
Background Scripture: Nahum 1
Lesson 3 December 18, 2021
Key Verse
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. Nahum 1:2
INTRODUCTION
It is very popular among believers to dwell on God’s wrath which He has promised to all those that reject Him, those that count as nothing the blood of Jesus Christ that has been spilled for the salvation of men, and the pleading of the Holy Spirit as He persuades men about sin, righteousness and judgment.
That protective attitude to their own can be understood for believers all belong to families, tribes, and nations and they do not like the idea of jettisoning the pride that they feel when these groups do something that the group considers exemplary.
Even when the nation state that we are so proud of, whose national flag we venerate, and whose national anthem we loudly sing with an overflow of emotion coming up in our throat, human beings seem prepared to think that our cherished group is standing in a sacred space.
Sadly though we seem to forget that God is a God of justice and a God who is not partial when He deals with men individually or with nations collectively. We seem to think that we have a special protection with our moral values when a larger grouping does something with which we all agree, and/or which we do not want to fight against or to change.
It is so thrilling when we see our armies marching before us in a grand parade followed by displays of missiles, tanks and other military paraphernalia, with the latest aircraft flying overhead in magnificent formations.
But we do not like to consider that the ancient empires and kingdoms all did the same things, and their peoples assembled together to praise their gods that watch over them and that give them the victory from time to time.
Our Study Lesson today from the book of Nahum is designed to bring us back to reality and to remind us that evil in any form, whether by individuals, tribes, families, nations, or any kind of world order or Empire will be judged by God with the same powerful spiritual standards
People will be judged on the basis of what they have done, and nations will also be judged on the basis of what they have done.
It is amazing is that the Book of Nahum was written during the reign of King Manasseh one of the most evil of the king that ruled Judah. He had a long and sordid history and he ruled longer than any other king overseeing the darkest period in Judah’s history. During that period the times were filled with all kinds of violence, oppression, and idolatry. The nation was led to completely turn its back on the Lord God of heaven without any thought that there would be an impending judgment. During this reign all the red lines were crossed and Judah could not be saved even with the valiant attempts to do so by the massive reform by godly king Josiah.
It is therefore important for us in our modern world to remind ourselves of the humiliation of the powerful world ruler Nebuchadnezzar after he served seven years as a beast in the field as commanded by the watchers in heaven. He then stated:
“And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever:
For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom is from generation to generation.
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the Army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to him, “What have you done?”
Despite these, his successor forgot the force of this testimony and he came under the wrathful hand of God for we read the prophet Daniel telling him:
“God has numbered your kingdom and finished it. Tekel. You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. Peres. Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians”.
It is quite important therefore to understand what the apostle Paul meant in Romans chapter 1:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
because, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened”.
This Study Lesson really also deals with the amazing grace and mercy of God for the prophet in a long oracle addressed the nation of Assyria as well as the nation of Judah. Two of the so-called Minor prophets devoted their writings solely to the Assyrians and their capital Nineveh.
You will recall that the prophet Jonah, the most reluctant prophet one can ever imagine, was sent to Nineveh, around 760 BC to preach repentance to the people of this powerful, intensely cruel, and aggressive power. This was an act of sheer grace for Yahweh showed Himself to be compassionate and caring as opposed to the cruel, fierce, violent, abuse, blood loving, torture loving and murderous gods the Assyrians worshipped.
Note carefully that the oracle from Nahum also was a call to hold to point Nineveh and its people to this past event, for if their predecessors had listened to the message of Jonah and repented and avoided destruction they now similarly could listen and have a chance of eternal life and salvation.
Their nation repented before but over 100 years later during the time of Nahum the Assyrians were back to their intensely evil ways, not only ripping to shreds the nations of the world around them but after conquering and exiling the northern kingdom of Israel, turned to lord their power over the small southern kingdom of Judah. We read all of this in 2 Kings 17 through 19. The Assyrians had a tight grip on Judah during the reign of Manasseh and he gladly went along with worshiping every god he could find, and in true Assyrian fashion made the streets of the city of Jerusalem run with blood.
When the Assyrians ceased to repent and returned to their evil ways, and Judah ruled by Manasseh returned to their evil ways, God’s mercy and concern for the people showed up in His willingness to punish those guilty of wickedness. God made everyone see that He desired both nations to have a concern over sin for in the absence of which there would be judgment.
These were dark times indeed with evil boasting in Assyria and in Judah. God intended to deal with the wickedness to which the Assyrians had returned, and to the increasingly idolatrous behavior of Judah.
There might have been a few people in the nation of Assyria that remembered their history but they were helpless to counteract the tide of iniquity there. There were certainly some in Judah that remembered the tender mercies of God but they were also unable to resist the increasing misery brought by idolatry and corruption on the nation by Manasseh.
So the question before us is, What will you do when the darkness in your nation, in your people, and in the world come about?
Will you be faithful and resist spiritual and cultural compromise with what is happening around you?
Will you have the will or the energy to do what is right?
Will you see that despite the doom the hand of God is active, working to bring about justice and health for your people and for yourself?
Do you see that there are consequences to the negligence of the repentant Assyrians in this time of their history?
Do you see that there are consequences to the negligence of the faithful people of God and others in the time of Manasseh?
The general stress therefore, when we realize that Nahum the prophet was talking about how God would destroy the powerful but quite bloody, cruel, oppressive and violent Assyrians and their capital Nineveh, should alarm us.
But you should also note that in this time of revenge God will ensure that the idolatrous environment in which nations have ever existed would come to an end.
So there is hope. The God who lives forever will never allow nations to continue forever on the path of iniquity. The remnant of God’s people must have hope for they know that God is orchestrating the events of history and He will use the wrath of men to praise the Lord. He will save His people. Times might be dark, violence might be increasing, idolatry of one sort or another might be increasing, but we must remember that God does care for His people and for the death of those that are innocent of evil. He will not leave injustice unpunished. God is good.
This book of Nahum reminds us forcibly that we must care about our nation, or family, and our tribes. Our task is not only to bring the message of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ to the individual people that we meet.
We must not shy away from teaching our nation about the character of God. It does no good to our nation to sugar-coat who God really is. We cannot simply tell people that God is a God of love and because of that He will accept whatever our nation and ourselves want to do. That is just not the reality of things. God is not only a God of mercy, kindness, grace, patience, and a God that is long-suffering but He is also a God of wrath for He does not like iniquity and cannot and will not live with unholy things and unholy behavior, whether it is from individuals or from nations.
People will be judged and nations will be judged. We very well know that there are some nations and peoples that have been wiped off the face of the earth because of the judgment of God and we should not want our nation to suffer the same fate.
Nahum certainly stresses the patience of the Lord God. But so that we do not relax too much he also stresses the fact that God is present and that God has power. He will certainly therefore declare salvation, and He will also declare doom when His divine forbearance comes to a close.
So to all Gentiles we say as the Apostle Paul related the words of God:
“I was found of those who did not seek Me;
I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.
But to Israel he says:
All day long I have stretched out My hands
to a disobedient and contrary people………
Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith.
Do not be haughty but fear.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness”.
Part of our more difficult message is to find ways of getting the message across to the nation and our leaders that there are consequences for evil and disobedience to the commandments and testimonies of God.
But different from our reticence and shrinking from declaring the warnings of God the prophet Nahum makes clear that there are general principles with respect to divine judgment. There are also general principles which relate to the deliverance of the people of God and in this case the nation of Judah.
We therefore will examine God’s inevitable judgment and His wrath at iniquity, and God’s goodness to those that belong to Him. The awesome God will save His people, give Peace to His people despite the darkness around them.
There is of course a controversy because some people compare Nahum’s denunciation of Assyria with possible denunciation of the behavior of powerful nations which currently exist. But there is no doubt that the average person in most of the powerful modern nations do not generally support the type of bloody and cruel behavior in which the Assyrians specialized. The leaders nowadays certainly have in fact promoted torture and other disreputable kinds of behavior but when they do come to public attention it generally creates a stir, scandal, and opposition. There is no evidence that the people in Assyria behaved in that way except one can says that when the people took the lead and repented they would have denounced the way that the leaders behaved when oppressing other nations
But it cannot be denied that modern nations through the way they operated their colonial empires and the oppressive controls of lands and people, through slave labor and through allowing harsh working conditions in poorer countries have behaved poorly in order to increase their wealth.
In this argument between scholars comparing the West with Nineveh we must however bear in mind that Nineveh was in opposition to God’s people. The issue with the Western world however therefore is whether or not the West is persecuting the church just as Nineveh was persecuting as well as corrupting Israel, the people of God. The issue as to how the modern Western countries treat the Jewish people is of course a related issue. But it can’t be denied as one writer puts it:
“Historically, more committed Christians have been killed by the West in colonial times and more recently, the West has been rather more tolerant of Christians that have many other nations. Instead (and tragically), many of her sins have been committed under the banner of Christianity……
Having considered the West in various ways it is possible to say that the West and Nineveh have similarities. The West may not persecute the church at present and she may not be as deliberately intentionally cruel as Nineveh but her oppressive cruelty has reached more people than Nineveh’s every did”.
It is therefore incumbent on Christians to look closely at injustice for that was at the root of Nineveh’s treatment of people and very often injustice underlies Western economic and political practices. We certainly do not want our country to come under the judgment of God for practices of injustice. So there is a place for us to call for repentance for our nations if we see them doing things that are against the commandments and the people of Israel and as well the people of the church for as one writer states there is “emotive aversion to brutality is located in the heart of Yahweh”.
In this call to repentance of course we must point out that this might be a very risky venture, so we would advise that you make sure that your actions are directed and guided by the Holy Spirit.
One writer summarizes the book of Nahum by saying Nahum said, Goodbye Nineveh. But then we remember that God also said to Judah, Goodbye Judah, it is time for exile. But by my grace you will return and be restored.
Such is the word of comfort to God’s people whom He has chosen.
THE TEXT
Verse 1. Our Study chapter begins with the declaration of the prophet Nahum that he has a “burden against Nineveh”.
The accepted word meaning is that this is a heavy message, one of weighty importance for it produces sorrow or grief. This is definitely an “Oracle” or “utterance” but the emphasis is that it is heavy and so it is called a “burden”. One writer states an additional meaning:
“But also a thing lifted up, pronounced, or proclaimed, also a message. It is used by the prophets to signify the revelation which we have received from God to deliver to any particular people” (Clarke)
The burden concerns Nineveh the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Now this city was certainly one of the most powerful and beautiful cities of the ancient world. Scripture, Genesis 10:11 tells us that it was founded by Nimrod, the man considered the world’s first dictator. He also founded Babylon. One writer describes Nineveh:
“From Nineveh’s walls, temples, palaces, inscriptions, and believes, mute yet elaborate witnesses given to a city that flourished up to its destruction in 712 BC. Accordingly, the magnificent buildings, artistic designs, and water supply projects of Nineveh have resulted in it being likened to ancient Versailles”. (Major Cities of the Biblical World)
This was a vision and it was a vivid recording of what God meant to say. It was the time of Nineveh’s ascendancy and it was at the height of its power.
But it had a bad reputation despite the fact 150 years before Nahum’s prophecy God had sent the prophet Jonah to call them to repentance and the forsaking of their incredibly vicious methods used in terrifying and subjugating the nations around them. The people of Nineveh had repented at Jonah’s ministry but that prophet was disgusted at this display of God’s mercy for he knew or suspected that God might even use them to discipline his own nation, the erring 10 tribes that had gone from time to time into serious idolatrous practices.
Nahum was therefore called to address the city and the nation that had gone back into sin and rejected God’s grace.
The warning for us therefore is for parents and grandparents. Your spiritual position in Christ and your behavior will not guarantee that your children and their lineage will follow on your path. It is therefore essential that we keep reminding them of what is important in life and to do our level best to stop sin from encroaching again into our community life.
It also tells us that God certainly will deal with individuals as individuals and He requires that individuals repent of their sins and submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit. But Scripture is quite clear in telling us that the commandments of God and the truth about the wrath of God for those that disobey God has a national application. The entire body of Scripture that has been revealed by the Holy Spirit make this quite clear. People can face the wrath of God and nations can face the wrath of God.
As a matter of fact even when God uses a nation to discipline His people (the Babylonians were used as God’s instrument to do just that), when they went too far in their cruelty to the people of God they were called to account and they were disciplined and destroyed by God for crossing the boundaries established by God.
Clearly therefore we know that God holds nations to account. Nations are not free to do whatever they want.
Verse 2. In this famous poetic statement Nahum deal with the characteristics of God. The characteristic that the prophet Nahum stresses is God’s right to bring judgment.
God is the only living God and therefore He refuses to share His people would any other rival. He wants us, one writer reminds us, “All for himself, because he knows that upon that loyalty to Him depends our very moral life….. God is not jealous of us. He is jealous for us”. (Redpath in Law and Liberty).
Note however that mention of God’s jealousy is always stressed and is associated with people’s idolatry for that worship is connected with evil spirits. Human beings cannot plead they do not know the difference between good and evil and so God’s attitude to sin has always been consistent.
No one can fight against God and hope to win. All those who fight against God will end up experiencing His vengeance for the prophet says that God avenges and when He does avenge He is furious. Whenever people become adversaries of God He will take vengeance on them and to make matters worse, we are told that
“He reserves His wrath for His enemies”.
The people of God do not have to worry about the wrath of God coming on them, for what they experience is God’s discipline, and that discipline is designed to purify them and change them so that they will become mature in their spirituality. God’s discipline is sometimes quite painful but it certainly is not the same as God’s wrath.
We will therefore advise each other not to do anything to attract even God’s discipline, for we often will not like it. But we know that it brings the peaceable fruit of righteousness and that is a good thing.
Verse 3. The prophet reassures his people that one extremely important character trait of God is God’s patience. This was told to Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 34:6-7. God’s patience is absolutely incredible. His patience makes our patience look like nothing. But we are still required by God to learn patience for the book of James tells us it is the most important characteristic we can develop for it is essential to spiritual maturity, for that is where it will lead us.
Remember that God’s patience has a reason behind it. God is Patient but He does not wants us to disbelieve in His final judgment. Psalm 10 was written expressly for the purpose of warning us not to make that mistake. We therefore know that there is a time and a place where this characteristic of God to be slow to anger will lead to judgment. Charles Spurgeon tells us:
“God’s sword of justice is in its scabbard: not rusted in it- it can be easily withdrawn- but held there by that hand that presses it back into its sheath, crying, ‘Sleep, O sword, sleep; for I will have mercy upon sinners, and will forgive their transgressions”.
So we know that God’s anger doesn’t come quickly. He does not forget His patience for He is slow to anger. Because of God’s patience we have a ray of hope. He does not want the wicked to perish but He wants all to come to repentance.
We remember therefore that God has infinite characteristics. His power is great or infinite. So His mercy is everlasting for His people. We must trust God but we must also have godly fear of His judgments for He judges with power.
God does not have a false sense of compassion and so He will never let the guilty go scotch free and tell them that no matter what they did they can keep on doing it for He will forgive them. God will never acquit the wicked for He has decreed that every person or nation will either pay for their sins in Hell or have their sins paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ at the Cross.
Charles Spurgeon comments:
“Never once has he pardoned an unpunished sin; not in all the years of the Most High, not in all the days of his right hand, has he once blotted out sin without punishment”.
The prophet reminded us in this magnificent poem of praise that God’s power is so great that He will have His way for His power is unlimited. He controls the whirlwinds and the storms and He uses the clouds as the dust for His feet. This means that God controls the clouds and that He travels on the clouds.
Verses 4 and 5 declare that God is so powerful that He rebukes the sea and makes it do His bidding, and He dries it up. He dries up all the rivers and He makes the strongholds of the pagan nations who are determined to really worship their gods wilt and come to nothing. God wilts the famous beauty of Lebanon and the mountains and the hills quake when He’s present. The earth and the people in it shake at the presence of God. We are reminded of the frightening events in nature and they are said to be manifestations of God’s indignation at sin. Such is God’s power.
But note that these ideas were declared to make the Ninevites again run to God in repentance. Disasters in nature should turn us to God.
Verse 6. God is all-powerful and God’s anger burns intensely against all sinners. No one can stand before God or survive the fierceness of His anger when His fury is poured out. God’s anger is like a fire which destroys the seemingly indestructible rocks and everything else in its path.
Verse 7. But the Lord is good and because of this He is a stronghold in the day of trouble for all those who know Him and trust in Him. We should recognize that these people are in a relationship with God and so they trust Him. He knows His people and He knows their prayers and wishes as well as their tears. He hears when they groan and He knows the secret longings of their heart. He knows when they fail and He knows when they repent. So Spurgeon says:
“He knows our aspirations, or sighs, our groans, our own chastenings of spirit when we fail; he has entered into it all. He says, ‘Yes, dear child, I know all about you; I have been with you when you thought you were alone. I have read what you could not read, the secrets of your own heart that you could not decipher. I have known them all, and I still know them”.
Being good is a part of God’s nature and He is eternally good and cannot change. Because God is good He is gracious and acts in Grace at all times. His plans and purposes for us and for His creation is good.
But Verse 8 reminds us that God’s goodness and slowness to anger does not mean He would always overlook the sin and rebellion of the Assyrians and other nations. His judgment will come like an overflowing flood.
Nahum’s prediction was fulfilled for Nineveh was overcome by its enemies when there were unusually heavy rains which caused the rivers to flood and the impregnable city walls were undermined and then they collapsed allowing the invading armies to enter the city and kill and destroy those that were there.
James Boice reminds us that God made the utter end to Nineveh literally and the people were lost from history until the city was discovered by some archaeologists in the 1840s.
Interestingly, some descendants of the Assyrians have survived but they were all now converted to Christianity in the Eastern orthodox religion. They are quite proud of their history but they are now generally converted to Christianity.
Verses 9 to 11 rebuke Nineveh for conspiring against God, an action which guarantees that they would have a certain end. Their destruction would happen at one time and they would not have a second chance to become a nation again. They will be devoured like fully dried stubble for they planned wickedness against the Lord and against His people, rejecting God’s counselors and warnings. TheIr judgment and destruction will be devastating. They thought they had allies but that was a pipe dream.
Verse 12. The Lord now turns to discuss the deliverance of Zion. The people of Nineveh thought that they were powerful and safe and numerous and so they could continue doing what they wanted but God had determined that they would be cut down.
Verse 13. The people of God were certainly afflicted because of God’s direct actions but He had decided not to afflict them anymore. He would destroy those that were oppressing them and break off their yoke from them.
They would not be trapped anymore for God will break the bonds asunder. God therefore promised that He would restore the people of Israel.
But notice the words of God to the wicked nation of Assyria.
This is a solemn warning for all nations that routinely unconsciously break all the commandments of God and practice injustice. The word of God was so blunt and direct and so incapable of being misunderstood that it makes sense for us to write as it is. The prophet said:
“The LORD has given a command concerning you:
“Your name shall be perpetuated no longer.
Out of the house of your gods
I will cut off the carved image and the molded image.
I will dig your grave,
For you are vile”.
This city of Nineveh was one of the great cities of the world and power was concentrated there. But the city was so wicked and was also so low that they had lost all their rights to exist.
In powerful and extreme imagery therefore God warned Nineveh that He was coming in judgment and He would destroy them. They were vile. They were incapable of being restored. They had made up their minds to be evil. They would call evil good and good evil. Therefore there was nothing left for them. God would have to use them to teach other nations of the earth there would be a sure end when they do evil.
Should we therefore consider this a warning for our nations?
Do we think that we are different in the sight of God?
Do we think that we can practice cruelty, abuse, murders, and other forms of forbidden actions and get away with it?
Do we ask the question, Does God see?
If we continue to follow the path of evil that Satan and his demonic forces laid out for us God will dig our grave.
We can of course adopt the position that times have changed, that God has changed, that He will treat us differently from how He treated the unrepentant and vicious nations such as Assyria in times past.
But if we do that we might be making a grave mistake. We want our nation to survive and to prosper and to do well. We want to meet the people from our nation in the New Heaven and the New Earth where we will be together praising God, walking along the streets of gold and eating from the Tree of Life with God wiping away our tears. We want our nation to be in a place where there will be no night and we will see our Savior face-to-face throughout all eternity.
Verse 15. God now contrasts the fate of the wicked with the faith of those that belong to Him. We were told that God has given a command concerning His people, a command which says that their name will last. Like the expression in Isaiah 52:7 the prophet Nahum agreed that the feet of those that brought good news and good tidings were beautiful feet for they were bringing the news of the salvation of God to the people.
The feet of those bringing new of the defeat of the enemy, the Assyrians, were similarly to be regarded as bringing good news and beautiful feet would be among them.
God had proclaimed peace in Judah. Shalom with all that meant to Judah had come.
Judah should therefore turn to their God, keep their appointed feasts, perform their vows, for the wicked would not be among them any longer to prevent them from worshiping God.
The enemy Assyrians had been utterly cut off.
CONCLUSION
The advice therefore is that we should take pleasure when God fulfills His promises and vindicates us. We know the grace and mercy of God and so we should not be casual and careless in our behavior. We should faithfully follow every requirement and every word of the LORD. We must obey.
God has told us that the feet of those that brought the gospel are beautiful. We know therefore that when our feet are used as actively, continually working to preach the Gospel we have beautiful feet.
The wicked will one day be cut off and they will no longer be remembered. God will dig their graves.
God broke the Yoke on the kingdom of Judah and Israel.
Do you not believe that God can break the yoke of sin that has oppressed you?
Do you think that you have to stay trapped and oppressed by sin?
Simply remember that the Holy Spirit is there to take you to the Cross. He will keep you in the family of God. He will transform you.
He requires that you are completely willing to walk in the new freedom that God gives.
Remember God is the only one that can break the power of sin and the power of the things that oppress you.
Coming to the Lord Jesus Christ is not as difficult as Satan tries to make us believe. We are told that the Lord Jesus Christ is always knocking at the door. All you have to do is to open your heart, a very simple move, and invite Him in and He will be with you forever. The beautiful thing is that the Spirit will open your heart. If you express any interest in Jesus your heart will be opened. Then lean on Him.