God and Judgment I. Introduction. A. Today s sermon will focus on the prophet Nahum. a. Not much is known about Nahum outside of his prophecies recorded in his book. b. Nahum prophesies about the fall of the Assyrian Empire and in particular the destruction of Nineveh. c. Assyria fell to Babylon in 612 B.C.; so Nahum prophesied sometime prior to this date. B. The book of Nahum in relation to the book of Jonah. 1. Recall previous lessons regarding Jonah. - Jonah was commanded to go and preach to Nineveh. - a message that they would be destroyed in 40 days. - Jonah initially disobeyed but eventually went and preached to them. 2. Read Jonah 3:5-10. - the people of Nineveh repented, and God relented from the disaster that He was going to bring upon them. 3. Nahum prophesies to Nineveh some 100-200 years after Jonah. - evidently, the Assyrians had returned to their evil ways. - and now Nahum prophesies again that they were going to be destroyed. - this time, they did not repent, and God did not relent from the disaster. C. Plan for lesson. 1. We will read through much of the book of Nahum. 2. And we will examine three main lessons as we go. II. Chapter One: Who is God? A. Read verses 1-15. 1. General message of the chapter. - An announcement of the end of Assyria. - Vs. 14, The Lord has given a command concerning you: Your name shall be perpetuated no longer...i will dig your grave, for you are vile. - At the same time, good news is coming to Judah. - because of the upcoming fall of Assyria. - Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace! O Judah, keep your
appointed feasts, perform your vows. For the wicked one shall no more pass through you; He is utterly cut off. 2. Two distinct, almost contradictory, pictures of God in this chapter. - A vengeful and destroying God. - A merciful and loving God. 3. From these two pictures of God come several lessons that we can learn. B. Various lessons regarding God. 1. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges. - Verse 2. - this is part of the first picture of God. - This is a part of God that most people refuse to see. - The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies. - If people truly believed this, they would do everything in their power not to be an enemy of God. - Of course, Assyria is the enemy that Nahum is directly referring to. 2. The Lord is great in power. - Verse 3-6. - Nahum describes the greatness of God. - As an exhibit of His power and to lend credibility to the idea that God has the power to destroy the great nation of Assyria. - Consider the greatness of God. - the clouds are the dust of His feet. - the mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and earth heaves at His presence. - God is great, and He should be feared. 3. The Lord is slow to anger. - Verse 3. - Nahum also describes another side to God. - He is slow to anger; that is, He is patient and longsuffering. - He doesn t want to punish anyone. - He shouldn t be viewed as a Tyrant who gets pleasure out of causing pain. - God is patient, but His patience does have a breaking point. 4. The Lord is good. - Verse 7. - A simple description of God: He is good. - a stronghold in the day of trouble. - God is good and He is there when we need Him. - Even while we see that God is jealous, and He avenges, we also see that God is loving, gracious, and kind. 5. God can be your best friend or your worst enemy. - How can He be both? - He will be one to one set of people and one to another set.
- To the people of Assyria. - God was going to be their worst enemy. - But to the people of Judah. - God was going to be their avenger. - Vs. 19, good tidings. - they are going to be rescued; their oppressor is going to be punished. - God can be your Savior or your Destroyer. - Saviour of Judah. - Destroyer of Assyria. - The same God; we make the choice of which He is to us. III. Chapter Two: The Assyrians would not be able to withstand God s Judgment. A. Read verses 1-7. 1. He who scatters has come up before your face. - the destroyer of Nineveh is on His way. - God, through the nation of Babylon. 2. Instructions to prepare a defense. - Man the fort! Watch the road! Fortify your power mightily. 3. What we see in verses 3-6 is the preparations for battle. - the men of the city of Babylon are scurrying around getting ready for the coming attack. - it is as if the look-outs have seen the oncoming army, the trumpet is sounded, and everyone scurries to their positions to try to defend the city. 4. He remembers his nobles; they stumble in their walk; they make haste to her walls, and the defense is prepared. - they re having to do this quickly. 5. Verse 7 tells us that this defense is not going to work. 6. The city is going to fall. - they re going to be led away captive. 7. The Assyrians were no match for God. - They are preparing a defense. - But they are no match for the judgment of God. - No matter what they do, they are going to be destroyed. - Complete helplessness when compared to God. - We will not be able to avert the judgment of God. 8. This point reminds me of a proverb. - Proverbs 11:21, Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished. B. Read verses 8-13. 1. This is a picture of the aftermath of destruction. 2. Everyone is fleeing from the city. - they don t stop to take of the gold and silver or treasure.
3. Gold and silver won t mean much in the day of judgment. - these people don t care about the gold and silver. - they know it doesn t mean much when their lives have been destroyed. - how much would their physical treasures mean when they stood before God in judgment? 4. Notice the despair of the people of Nineveh. - Vs. 10, She is empty, desolate, and waste! The heart melts, and the knees shake; much pain is in every side, and all their faces are drained of color. - These people are devastated; they have lost everything. 5. The day of God s judgment will be a day of despair. - For those who are punished on the day of judgment, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. - Agony for all eternity. 6. In verses 11-13, Nahum uses an analogy to describe what will happen to Nineveh. - Nineveh is the dwelling of the lions. - The Assyrians are the lions, and their children are the young lions. - Vs. 12, the lions filled his caves with prey and his dens with flesh. - But vs. 13 states that the Lord would devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth. - Nineveh would be punished for what they had done to others. 7. Even the strongest nations will be punished for evil. - Assyria was the world empire. - They are depicted as the lion, the king of the jungle. - But even the lion is no match for God. - Our country needs to learn this lesson. - Though we are powerful, God will punish us for our evil. IV. Chapter Three: The Wicked will not be able to Escape God s Judgment. A. Read verses 1-7. 1. In these verses, we get an idea of why they were being punished. 2. The first four verses describe Nineveh as a bloody city. - full of lies and robbery. - a multitude of slain, a great number of bodies, countless corpses, they stumble over the corpses. 3. The Assyrians had become a cruel nation and a vicious country. - they took advantage of people. - they were violent towards people of other nations. 4. Because of this, God says He is going to destroy them.
- He is going to shame them. - He is going to make them a spectacle. 5. God will punish the wicked. - It s as simple as that. - God will only allow it to go on for so long, before He will come to the aid of the oppressed and punish the wicked. B. Read verses 8-13. 1. In verse 8, Nahum asks the people of Nineveh a question. - Are you better than No Amon? 2. No Amon was a large and powerful city. - it had strong allies (Ethiopia, Egypt). 3. Yet Nahum makes the point that it was destroyed, and her people were led away captive. 4. The point is this: If it can happen to No Amon, it can also happen to Nineveh. 5. Do we think that we ll escape? - Maybe we need to ask ourselves the same question. - Are we better than...? - We know that others are going to be punished. - We know that others have been punished in the past. - But, do we think somehow that we are going to escape the wrath of God? 6. Nineveh did not escape, and neither will we if we live wickedly. C. Read verses 14-19. 1. These verses are similar to the ones at the beginning of chapter two. 2. God is giving them warning, and He is telling them to get ready. - Fortify your strongholds. - Make yourself many like the locust! 3. We could make the same point that we made earlier. - that man is no match for God. - though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished. 4. But I want you to look at verse 19 for our last lesson of the evening. - Assyria is going to be dealt a death blow by God. - Your injury has no healing; Your wound is severe. 5. An injury that has no healing. - There will be no recovery after the day of judgment. - It will be an injury from which we will never recover. 6. We need to be making plans now to avoid that fate. V. Conclusion. - Have you made your plans? - Will God be your Savior or your Destroyer? - The choice is yours.