The Predicting God Nahum 2:1-13

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1 Nahum 2:1-13 page 1 Nahum 2:1-13 page 2 The Predicting God Nahum 2:1-13 People are fascinated with the future. In particular, they'd like to know what's going to happen in the future. People read their horoscopes. They have their palm read. They go to people who look into crystal balls. They use Tarot Cards and Ouija Boards. They examine tea leaves. They even try to consult the dead in séances. They want to know what's going to happen. And they want to know that for two main reasons. Reason #1: so they can take advantage of it now. Reason #2: so they can have security. If I knew what next week's lotto numbers were going to be, I could use that to great personal advantage. If I knew the location of the next big earthquake, I could avoid that place and warn others to leave. If I knew the date of my death, I could take out a massive insurance policy the day before. And so it goes on. Many of these scenarios only work if I'm the only one who has the information. God tells us the future. And He does it for those two same reasons. So we can take advantage of it now. So we can have security. Strangely enough, many people aren't that interested in what God says about the future. For some, they don't like what He says. For some, they don't like the implications for how they are to take advantage of it. For some, they prefer to find security elsewhere. For some, they simply don't believe God. They don't think He can predict the future. Last week, when we looked at Nahum 1, we saw that God told His people back then something about the future. The Fall of Nineveh In one sense, there's nothing new in chapter 2. Nahum told us his basic message in chapter 1. It has two prongs: God will destroy His enemies: Nineveh. God will rescue His people: Judah. You have that same two-pronged message in chapter 2. God will restore Judah verse 2. God will destroy Nineveh the rest of the chapter. So why say it all again? And why have another sermon on it? Why does any teacher repeat a lesson? There are several reasons. Sometimes it's to drive a lesson home. Sometimes it's for those whose minds drifted away from the topic the first time. Sometimes it's to reinforce that this is an important lesson you really have to get this one. Sometimes it's to add some subsidiary points to the basic lesson to give additional information. Sometimes it's to approach the material from a different direction to allow for the different learning styles of various students. Sometimes it's just to get people ready for an exam. There are all sorts of possibilities. Why should it be any different with God's word? This chapter is one big picture of the siege and overthrow of Nineveh and it's done in poetic form. Now, I suspect some of us like poems. Some of us don't care one way or the other. And some of us only have painful memories of

2 Nahum 2:1-13 page 3 Nahum 2:1-13 page 4 them from being forced to endure them at school. This poem is God's word. So, while it may not be our favourite form of literature, we dare not ignore it. Some say that poetry is best heard not read. And I guess the ideal would be to hear it read in Hebrew by people who knew ancient Hebrew culture and Hebrew poetic forms. But that ideal wouldn't do most of us any good. And I'm sure God can overcome our limitations to help us appreciate His word and its implications for us this morning. Verse 1 in the NIV describes the advancing enemy. An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength! The short staccato lines give a sense of urgency. War is coming. The enemy is on the move. She approaches the city itself. You need to get the defences ready. Verse 3 pictures the enemy army: The shields of his soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of pine are brandished. It's typical of the well-equipped armies of those days. They didn't have armoured vehicles or warplanes or submarines. They didn't have machine guns or missiles or hand grenades. Their state-of-the-art weaponry consisted of chariots and spears. This army has them. In verse 4, the invading army has penetrated the outer defences. The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning. The attackers now occupy the outer suburbs. They're coming closer and closer to the inner defences. Verse 5 has been interpreted in two ways. He summons his picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place. The big question is: Who is the "he"? Some think it's the King of Assyria. Eventually he wakes up to the fact that his magnificent and impregnable city is under attack. What's he been doing up to now? Sleeping? Partying? Attending the cinema? Whatever it was, his attention's now on the serious task at hand. He gets his crack troops organised. He makes sure all his defences are in place. Or, at least he tries to do it. His crack troops bumble around in their panic. There are two difficulties with that identification. First, he seems very slow to act. Secondly, he had no need to throw up a protective shield. His strong defences were already in place. So, others prefer to think of the "he" as the attacking general. That corresponds to the "he" back in verse 3 the shields of his soldiers. It continues the build-up of the attack. The advancing soldiers are now preparing to tackle the inner walls the last and strongest defences.

3 Nahum 2:1-13 page 5 Nahum 2:1-13 page 6 They put up a protective shield to protect themselves from the defenders on the wall. The difficulty with that interpretation is the word stumble. It's suggested we read it in parallel with the word dash it's a picture of the mad scramble to get in place for the final assault. Verse 6 brings us to the city's capture: The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses. If the palace is taken, you know the enemy is essentially defeated. The symbol of the place of power has been overthrown. The authority of the ruler is beaten. Nahum then describes the consequences of defeat for Nineveh. Verse 7: It is decreed that the city be exiled and carried away. Its slave girls moan like doves and beat upon their breasts. Nineveh is like a pool, and its water is draining away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one turns back. Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! The supply is endless, the wealth from all its treasures! She is pillaged, plundered, stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale. It's all pretty straightforward. It's the routine expectations for those defeated. They're totally devastated pillaged, plundered, stripped. The Impact on Judah Nahum brings this as a word of comfort to God's people, Judah. How would they react to this? We're not told but try to put yourselves in their shoes for a moment. What's Nineveh like? It's the city of its times. Its population was huge. Greater Nineveh had a 100km perimeter. The massive wall around the inner city measured 12km and it's estimated 175,000 people could live within that area. It had an advanced water system which was also part of its defence structure. The king had his magnificent palace there. It had a well-stocked armoury with plentiful quantities of state-of-the art equipment. It was expertly defended. It was considered impregnable. Now, few from Judah are likely to have travelled to Nineveh to see this first hand. But what they had seen firsthand was the Assyrian army. That army had come to them. They'd swept through Judah several times. It was a huge army. It was a powerful army. It was a cruel army. No one stood in the way of Assyrian might. They swept all before them with devastating consequences. They did nasty things to anyone who showed any resistance. That they'd be defeated was unthinkable. They're invincible. Can God really do this? That's the question that would plague their minds. Or are the Assyrians too powerful? Are they too big for God? For some reason, God's people often seem to face this question. I'd be surprised if that question's never crossed your mind. And it's usually in

4 Nahum 2:1-13 page 7 Nahum 2:1-13 page 8 some sort of crisis that it comes, isn't it? An impossible situation at work. A teenage rebellion. Lack of money to pay the bills. Some medical condition. Not quite in the same league as what Judah faced, but very significant to us at the time and very pressing on our thoughts and our very thought processes. And we sometimes wonder: Is this too big for God? Can God really deal with this for me? Or maybe a slight variation: Will God really do this for me? And at that point we do well to ask two other questions: What is the "this" we want God to do? What is the "this" God's promised to do? Nahum here gives Judah God's promise to deal with her enemy the Assyrians. You will search the Bible in vain for God's promise to remove your enemy at work or at school or at home or at hockey. You may want that very much. And God may even do it. But you have no promise from God that He will do it. The promises we have from God, like Judah, have to do with saving us. But our enemy what we need saving from is sin. God is committed to that task. There are two broad categories of promises as to how He does that. First, there are the promises to do with changing us with overcoming sin in our lives and moulding us into the image of Jesus. Among those promises is the one about using our difficulties to achieve His good purposes. Those crises are one of the ways God uses to purify us. Removing that enemy from your life may hinder that more important purpose. God's already working at bringing these promises to reality now but they won't be complete until Jesus returns. Secondly, there are the promises to do with changing the world with the renewal of the world and the judgment of God's enemies and the enemies of God's people. That too has a current element. There are various ways in which God already acts in judgment against different people. We sometimes wish He'd do more. And sometimes we fail to recognise the nature of His judgments and what He is already doing. And then, with some people, He gets them to change sides people like us; people who may currently be our enemies. But the final judgment is still future. That's what corresponds most closely with what God's going to do to Assyria here. And, as in Nahum's day, its exact timing is unknown. Nahum doesn't provide the year of Nineveh's destruction not even the decade. He simply assures them of God's promise that it will happen. The Significance for their Future How does Nahum encourage them to hang onto God's promise? We often face the tyranny of the present. It's what's in front of us now that seems most pressing. That often drives our decisions. The advertisement that offers instant satisfaction. The phone that rings in the middle of a meeting. The person knocking on our door. The salesman with the great deal now. We jump to deal with the urgent without thinking of the long-term picture. Judah was looking for ways to deal

5 Nahum 2:1-13 page 9 Nahum 2:1-13 page 10 with Assyria now. It's all well and good for Nahum to promise Nineveh will fall some time down the track, but how do I live today? How can I cope with my current problems until that happens? It's important to focus on what's really real. Assyria looked like ultimate reality. She was the superpower. She had the military might. She had the latest technology. She had the wealth of the nations. She ruled the world. She was unstoppable. She was invincible. There are always empires like that. In Jesus' time, it was the Romans. In the 19th century, it was the British. 30 years ago, it was the Soviet Bloc. Today, it's the Americans. Think back to the year America looked almost invincible, didn't she? The Cold War was over. She was the only superpower left. She had the wealth. She had the technology. A few cracks have appeared since then. 9/11 shook things up a bit. The slow war on terrorism saps her resolve. The global financial crisis takes its toll. But even without those cracks, she'd still be exactly the same as Assyria just one of the many empires that have come and gone throughout history. And it's not just nations that form empires before our eyes these days. They aren't the only ones claiming ultimate reality. There are all the isms. Hedonism ultimate reality is found in pleasure. Materialism ultimate reality is found in things. Secularism ultimate reality is what we humans make of the world and our lives. These are constantly before our eyes. They demand our attention. They demand our action. They demand we live under the rule of their empire. How does Nahum convince them not to see Assyria as ultimate reality? How's he persuade them not to dance to her tune? Back in chapter 1, Nahum gave us a picture of God's power. When God comes, there's upheaval in the very earth itself. The whirlwind is the dust of His feet. The valleys buckle. The mountains quake. What's puny Assyria compared with God? In chapter 2, he does it by picturing the destruction of the mighty city of Nineveh. One commentator writes: Now this accumulation of words was by no means in vain; for it was necessary to confirm, by many words, the faith of the Israelites and of the Jews respecting the near approach of the destruction of the city Nineveh, which would have been otherwise incredible; and of this we can easily form a judgment by our own experience. If any one at this day were to speak of mighty kings, whose splendour amazes the whole world if any one were to announce the ruin of the kingdom of one of them, it would appear like a fable. This then is the reason why the Prophet, by so many figures, sets forth an event which might have been expressed in few words, and confirms it by so many forms of speech 1 That was John Calvin but it's no different today. We live on the other side of Nineveh's destruction. We see how God kept His promise to Judah. We know why Nahum is considered a true prophet why his writings 1 John Calvin, Commentary on the Prophet Nahum (AGES Digital Library, 1998) 46.

6 Nahum 2:1-13 page 11 Nahum 2:1-13 page 12 are preserved in our Bibles. The historical details of Nineveh's destruction that come to us from various sources are not totally clear. But some things seem significant. The Babylonians and the Medes overthrew Nineveh in 612BC after a three month siege. They used the colour red in their uniforms. They carried off the great wealth of the city. They levelled the city to the ground. Many bodies were left unburied. Many were deported to other nations. Afterwards, the site remained largely unoccupied. The Tigris River was part of Nineveh's defence system acting like a moat near part of the wall. Another river ran through the city. The Babylonian account of the siege doesn't mention this, but there's a Greek story that states this defence strategy was turned against the Assyrians that either there were heavy rains and floods or the Babylonians controlled the River Gates such that they flooded some areas and that this caused a significant part of the walls to collapse. God fulfilled His promise. The Significance for our Future What should we take home from this? What relevance does this ancient prophecy have for us today? For this morning, three things. First, God directs history. How do you predict something like this? You can come up with all sorts of suggestions. If you keep it vague, you're sure to be able to squeeze some fulfilment into it some time. If you have enough guesses, you'll get lucky every now and then. The answer the Bible gives is that God directs history. And, because He directs it, He's able to tell us about it beforehand. You can look back at these events and say: It's all just political manoeuvring. One nation accumulates power and wealth, the other nations get jealous. Sooner or later, one of them will be successful in beating the top nation. That's how the Babylonians would have viewed it. They didn't see themselves doing God's bidding. They just wanted the power and the money. And that's all true. But the Bible says this is God working to deliver His people. He tells them beforehand what He will do. He then goes ahead and does it. And He does this sort of promise and fulfilment thing again and again and again. He brings empires into being. He destroys empires. The Bible claims He still directs history and He will bring about what He's promised to do namely, overthrowing all opposition to His rule and establishing His perfect kingdom. That's the end-point of history. God is sovereign. This is His world His universe. He rules over the nations. He rules over us. He has told us the future not the next winner of the Melbourne Cup or the best company to invest in on the Stock Exchange, but the future that really counts. There will come a day when He will call everyone before Him to give an account of how they have treated Him. Secondly, it's important that we work out what's ultimate reality. It's no good Judah aligning herself with Assyria. Even though Assyria looked like the ultimate reality in those days, she wasn't. Anyone on Assyria's side when she was beaten discovered that pretty quickly. They shared Assyria's destruction.

7 Nahum 2:1-13 page 13 Nahum 2:1-13 page 14 It's exactly the same with all these things that pose as ultimate reality today whether they be nations or isms or any other thing apart from God. Sure, they offer various things pleasure, fun, security, satisfaction, power, wealth, significance. And, to some extent, they deliver otherwise no one would be sucked in by their promises. But, just like Assyria, they'll come under God's judgment and those who align themselves with those things will share that judgment. This is where it's so important to listen to God's word. If we rely solely on our own observations, we won't work it out. The superpowers look so impressive and strong and solid and permanent. They look like they're worth trusting. And the isms are just the same. Materialism looks like a sure winner in terms of how to get the most out of life. But those things aren't ultimate reality. They can't explain life to you. They can't provide you with meaning or purpose. Only God can do that. of Babylon the Great. But the place where we see most clearly the seriousness with which God takes judgment is the cross. At the cross, God pours out His great anger against human rebellion. At the cross, God Himself bears the judgment for our sin. Sin is that serious that the only way for God to save a people for Himself was for Jesus to die in our place. But that's what God, in His love, has done. And so He offers life to all who take refuge in Jesus. But you must take refuge in Jesus for outside of Jesus, there is only the prospect of God's judgment. And that judgment is far worse than what is described for Nineveh in Nahum 2. And that brings us to the third thing: God will judge. We don't know exactly when that will be. Jesus said that only the Father knows that and He's chosen not to share it with us. But we do know it will happen because God keeps His promises. The Bible shows us that again and again and again. God takes this judgment thing seriously. He did with Nineveh. He did with Nineveh's successor, Babylon. In the New Testament, Nineveh and Babylon become pictures of the final judgment. In Revelation 18, when God shows John a vision of the final overthrow of all opposition to His rule, he shows him a picture of the destruction