shall the worthless pass through you; the wicked, corrupt, vile, or unclean will never again pass through your land and destroy your peace.

Transcription

1 The Gospel to Judah in the Judgment of Nineveh (Nahum) WestminsterReformedChurch.org Pastor Ostella June 5, 2016 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. 2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. 5 The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. 6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. 7 The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. 8 But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness (Nah 1.1-8). Introduction Nahum is an unusual book in the canon of Scripture because it identifies itself as an oracle concerning Nineveh (1.1), the capital city of the Assyrian empire that destroyed the northern kingdom and threatened the southern kingdom. It clearly predicts the fall of the great city. However, in the context of this vision, mention is made of the feet of him that brings good news to Judah (1.15). Therefore, the title of Nahum should reflect the connection of this oracle concerning Nineveh with the blessing of Judah. To preserve both ideas, we can title it The Gospel to Judah in the Judgment of Nineveh. A survey of the contents reveals two main ideas: a proclamation of good news and a prediction of judgment. I. A proclamation of good news to Judah At a fundamental level, the announcement of good news turns out to be a description of the Lord of the covenant. The gospel message proclaimed to Judah is about the Him, about who He is. Therefore, immediately after announcing his oracle about Nineveh, Nahum begins to describe the Lord with the thought of Nineveh ringing fearfully in the ears of all who hear. What he says about the Lord has the theme of wrath at its core, but it is nuanced on one hand by patience and on the other hand by goodness. A. On one hand, the Lord is patient in His wrath Without question, He is a God of wrath. This fact is affirmed, reiterated, and unpacked for emphasis in 1.2: The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. In this list of qualities, the odd man out seems to be His jealousy, but it is only odd if we think of it in negative terms such as being envious or suspicious. Of course, envy does not apply to God since He is the greatest and best of beings, and envy implies someone or something greater. Suspicion is ruled out by His perfect knowledge. For God to be jealous means that He is fiercely protective of His honor. Therefore, it is an inescapable truth that He takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies (1.2b). However, that is not the whole story; He is also slow to anger: the greatness of His power in taking vengeance is qualified by His patience (1.3a). In conjunction with His patience is the unquestionable fact that the Lord will hold every guilty person to account. Therefore, His slowness is not forgetfulness. We are not to take His patience to mean slackness. In other words, don t think for a moment that He will fail to manifest His glory by taking vengeance on the guilty because, as we read in 1.3b: the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. They will drink the full cup of His wrath because He rules over all of creation (over whirlwind, storm, clouds,

2 !2 mountains, the hills, the earth, the world and all who dwell in it (1.3b-5). So, no one can stand before His indignation or endure the heat of His anger (1.6). B. On the other hand, the Lord is good in His wrath If we welcome the fact that God s wrath is conditioned by His patience, how much more ought we to welcome the fact that His wrath is carried out with perfect goodness. Again, note that His goodness is not put in tension with His wrath, as show: The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. 8 But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. The Lord who is good will pursue His enemies into darkness. Another subject often thought to be in tension with God s wrath is His love. Nahum expresses no tension here whatsoever when He introduces God s love in the language of His knowledge of those who take refuge in him (1.7b). This text is rich with nuances. It is not saying that He loves people because they take refugee in him. It is the other way around: people take refuge in Him because He knows them with a special electing love. As Amos (3.2) and Isaiah (42.6-7) have shown us, those who take refuge in the Lord are the objects of His covenant love that causes them to know Him. On that basis, it is deeply reassuring to those who entrust themselves to Him to know that they are loved with a powerful, efficacious, saving love. Thus, this connection of goodness and wrath are put back to back in a number of ways in that climaxes with the explicit mention of the good news for Judah. 1) That Assyrian plots will be caused to fail puts goodness with wrath The question (9a), What do you plot against the LORD? expresses the truth that sin has to be viewed objectively. In this way, we recognize that all sin is against the Lord (against you and you only, as David states it in Ps ). Therefore, it is the Lord who will judge sinners in a complete and final way; soon Nineveh will be destroyed and she will never rise up to cause trouble anywhere again (9b). In judgment, the city will swagger, stumble, and fall like a drunkard and become entangled in painful confusion (like entangled thorns), finally to be consumed like stubble fully dried (9b-10). The point of the question of 9a is that God frustrates the plans and plots of men. This thought carries through into verse 11: From you came one who plotted evil against the LORD, a worthless counselor. A king arose among the Assyrians, like Manasseh in Judah, that did greater evil than all the kings before him. The assessment regarding the leader of the imperial Assyrian empire is that he so counsels wickedness that in a fundamental way all his counsel, planning, strategizing can be reduced in summary to the advancement of evil pointedly against the Lord. This king of paramount wickedness plotted in warfare across the Ancient Near east against the covenant Lord of Israel who is the ruler of all nations and the Lord brought his counsel to nothing for He frustrates the plans of men (Ps 33.10). 2) That Assyrian military will be cut down like sheep puts goodness with wrath The large and strong war machine of the Assyrians by which it dominated the international scene for hundreds of years ( BC) will be sheared like sheep and disappear (cut down like sheep and pass away, 12a). In their domination, they continually caused trouble for Judah, but there is to be no mistake, Assyria is God s instrument by which He has afflicted His people; when these enemies are cut down like sheep, the Lord s affliction of Judah will end (1.12b): Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. That is surely a point to ponder. 3) That Assyrian enslavement of the Lord s people will end puts goodness with wrath Their slavery to the Assyrians will end (1.13), by breaking the yoke and bursting the bonds. This break of the Assyrian yoke and bursting of shackles happened decisively in 612 BC when vile Nineveh fell to the Babylonians, which was a fall into the grave God prepared for her (1.14): The LORD has given commandment about you: "No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the

3 !3 house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile." In 2.1-2, Nahum anticipates the coming of the Babylonians (those who scatter) and why it is time for the destruction of Assyria, which is for the restoration of Israel: The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle; collect all your strength. 2 For the LORD is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches. Accordingly, Judah will look to the mountains at the feet of a messenger who is coming with good news and a proclamation of peace (1.15; cf. Isa 52.7, ): 15 Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you; he is utterly cut off. Listeners (those who hear) have to be struck by the decisive nature of the destruction of Judah s enemies: never again shall the worthless pass through you; the wicked, corrupt, vile, or unclean will never again pass through your land and destroy your peace. II. A prediction of judgment on Nineveh The Lord gives us a look into the attack on the great city and its fall, no doubt, for a good purpose for our perspective and sanctification. After a summary of the attack on the great city that left Assyrian soldiers drenched in blood (2.3-10), the prophet describes the wholesale defeat of the great city in the rest of the book ( ). Thus, addressing Nineveh in personal terms, the defeat and destruction of the city can be listed under the heading of what you will be. 1. First, the Lord says, you will be the prey of a lion in a reversal of roles, Formerly, Nineveh, you were like an undisturbed lion s den where the lion (an army of hunters) brought human prey, torn and strangled ( ), but I am against you declares the Lord, so, you will be prey of a lion when I devour your young ones with the sword (2.13). In 3.1, the idea continues in a pronouncement of a woe to the den that at one time had no end to the prey of human captives and plundered goods, but now is simply, the bloody city. 2. Second, you will be a city of blood with heaped up bodies, The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! 3 Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end-- they stumble over the bodies! 3. Third, you will be a disgrace like the whore s disgrace when she is exposed (3.4-7). 4. Fourth, you will be as the mighty Thebes that fell at your hand in 664 BC (3.8-10). Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall? 10 Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity and all her great men were bound in chains. What you did to Thebes will be done to you exile, captivity chains. 5. You will also be like drunkard in hiding who reels and stumbles from one affliction to another ( ). Your fortresses will fall like ripe figs from a shaken tree into the mouth of the eater (3.12) and the gates of your land will be left wide open to your enemies (3.13). 6. Moreover, you will be like a plant devoured by locusts ( ). You have multiplied like the locust and like the grasshopper in the prosperity of your conquests but your merchants, princes, and scribes will fly away like locusts who disappear when the sun rises on a cold morning, to never be found. 7. Finally, you will be a scattered people ( ) You will experience unceasing evil (and hurt) like you forced others to experience. Addressing the king of Assyria, the Lord speaks of the future in the present tense: Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. 19 There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. The book closes (3.19b) with a bottom line

4 !4 explanation. These things will come upon you, Nineveh, because there is no nation across the Fertile Crescent that has been spared from your unceasing evil. Applications Now we turn to applications regarding the gospel to Judah presented in the prophecy of Nahum; from that root let s move up the tree to some fruit. Nahum is about the Lord, about who He is and what He does. He is a God of wrath who in the midst of wrath proclaims good news. The convergence of wrath and good news raises a number of questions. A. First, how can the fact that He is a God of wrath be good news? This is a good question to ask because the book presents the Lord in this way so strongly upfront. The truth is affirmed, reiterated, and unpacked for emphasis in 1.2: The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. He is avenging, avenging and wrathful, the Lord takes vengeance, and keeps wrath. This emphasis is geared in a single direction that opens the door to good news: He keeps wrath for His enemies. But thankfully, He is patient and good in the execution of His wrath. Pursuing His enemies into darkness and bringing them to a complete end (1.7-8) is accomplished at His wise timing in accord with His determined purpose for He is the Lord of history who decrees (1.14 says commands) the end of Assyrian enslavement of nations by the advancement of the Babylonian scatterer (2.1-2). His rule of the nations exemplified in the fall of Nineveh by His wrath is good news because He is patient and good in fulfilling His purpose of electing love toward those who take refuge in Him (1.7). B. Second, Nahum causes us to ask, who is the bringer of good news with blessed feet? From the famous text of Nahum 1.15 about blessed feet on the mountains, Who is in view as the publisher of peace? Because of the destruction of Nineveh, Judah will look to the mountains and behold there the feet of a messenger who is coming with good news and a proclamation of peace (1.15; cf. Isa 52.7, ): 15 Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! And He promises the decisive nature of the destruction of Judah s enemies: never again shall the worthless pass through you; the wicked, corrupt, vile, or unclean will never again pass through your land and destroy your peace. This never again in the context of the other prophets of this time (Amos, Micah, Hosea, Isaiah), teaches us that these words look past not only the Assyrian exile but also the Babylonian exile yet to overtake Judah for her corruption and uncleanness. Anticipated here is the coming of the messianic Son spoken of by Isaiah, God the Son and Son of God, the prophet like Moses (Deut 18.18) who will open His mouth with parables (Ps ) in His proclamation of good news to gather together a new Israel. You will remember that the offspring of the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 includes people efficaciously called by God from all nations through a universal offer of good news for He is a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isa ). In this context, we can understand the prophecy that the Christ, the anointed, is the conqueror of all nations to proclaim liberty to captives and to announce in the future the day of vengeance and final judgment ( in Lk ). Thus, when He said, Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Lk 4.21), He established the kingdom in an already and still to come form in which the tares and the wheat will remain together until the harvest at the end of the age. Now, in the time between His comings, the nations have the gospel preached to them. Clearly, this is the context for Paul s citation of Nahum (and Isaiah) in Roman 10:11-15: For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For

5 !5 "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news! The good news is about Jesus Christ who was the first to announce the fulfillment of Scripture, which He did everywhere His feet took Him. That is the message that is proclaimed now to the ends of the earth through His apostles and the preachers that come after them. C. A final question will round off the nature of Nahum s message of good news about the Lord of wrath who proclaims good news: how can such a message exist when His wrath is rooted in His just determination to in no way clear the guilty? How can there even be an elect people who find refuge in Him? So, we have the hard and unmovable fact, the day of God s wrath is coming. The judgment of Nineveh looks beyond the historical event of 612 BC to the Day of Judgment when all cities and all nations will experience the zealous indignation and jealous wrath of the Almighty Lord of heaven and earth. Again, this is a reminder that God is a God of wrath who works His will of vengeance down to the details. Nahum allows us to enter into the events of a judgment past, into what happened inside the city to experience in part what transpires when God takes action in judgment. Once His decree has gone forth, no one can recall it. The Assyrians appeared impregnable, but their destruction was sealed by the determined will of God. Speaking of the future in the present tense, Nahum gives us insight into God s knowledge of the future that is providentially certain in its unfolding. No one can escape His vengeance and wrath; the cities of the world will all become bloody cities with bodies piled up in heaps. And yet, somehow, there is an elect people because the deliverance from Nineveh and the Assyrians points ahead not only to the day of judgment but also to the day of final salvation. Simply put: if there is a foreloved people and if the guilty will not be cleared, then the umbrella theme is redemption by the work of the redeemer, the promised seed of Eve. Our guilt will not be cleared away without the exercise of God s wrath and vengeance. Therefore, the good news that Jesus proclaims is that He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the last dregs of suffering the judgment of God in our place. As Isaiah 53 tells us (10-11): Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Accordingly, in the words of Peter we can say: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. (1 Pet 2.24). Is it a wonder then that as recipients of this good news we are called to keep the appointed feasts and fulfill our vows (1.15)? Surely, it is easy to understand that the mercies of God call us to present our bodies to the Lord as living sacrifices (Rom 12.1). Surely, such love that flows from the head, hands, and feet of the suffering servant demands my life, my soul, my all. May we fall down before the majesty of the covenant Lord who through judgment restores the majesty of Israel; may the Holy Spirit embed the truths of both wrath and good news deep in our hearts that we may find the comfort of knowing that Jesus is our redeemer who saves us from judgment and who protects us from all His and our enemies, as He pursues them into darkness and takes us ever forward into the light of His glory and grace; to the glory of the triune God, now in His church and forevermore, amen.