The Jealous God, Part 2

Adoration

Confession

Thanksgiving

Message

Nahum 1:9–15 ESV

9 What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. 10 For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried. 11 From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. 12 Thus says the Lord, “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. 13 And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.” 14 The Lord has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.” 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.

Nahum opens with a shocking portrait of God: “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.”

We often love to dwell on His mercy, like we saw in Jonah.

But Nahum shows us another side of God that our world desperately needs to see.

Nahum’s audience lived under the cruel shadow of Assyria.

An empire infamous for brutality.

These were people who had torn out tongues and fed human flesh to dogs.

They were unmatched in arrogance and violence.

And yet, God says: I have seen. I am not indifferent.

The Divine Warrior is Jealous for His Glory

Nahum 1:2–3 ESV

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.

The jealousy of God isn’t petty or insecure—it’s the burning love of a husband for his bride.

His jealousy flows not from need, but from overflowing love.

He is jealous for His name, for His glory, and for His people’s holiness.

To tolerate rivals would make Him unloving.

Like a warrior who defends his wife from an attacker, God’s jealousy leads Him to act.

He avenges evil, not out of rage alone, but because love demands justice.

The Divine Warrior Assures Justice and Protection

Nahum 1:6–7 ESV

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.

The same God who shatters His enemies shields His people.

The same fire that destroys the guilty becomes warmth and refuge for the faithful.

For those who trust in Him—He is fortress, shelter, and peace.

Nahum reminds us that God’s justice and God’s goodness are not opposites—they are two sides of His perfection.

The jealous warrior who avenges evil is the same God who protects His own.

Nahum 1:8 ESV

8 But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

Judgment is certain.

Evil will not endure forever.

If Nahum 1:1-8 revealed that Yahweh is a God who is a Divine Warrior jealous for His glory…

The Divine Warrior’s jealousy demolishes defiance and distributes peace.  

How does God protect His people and pursue adversaries?

The Message of Obadiah, Nahum and Zephaniah: The Kindness and Severity of God c. The Lord Is Good—He Defeats Those Who Oppose Him (8–15)

‘A neighbour who was wise in down-home treatment wouldn’t allow them to take the lad for such surgery. The pain became severe, so Whyte’s mother called for the neighbour to come again. She examined the arm and said: “I like the pain. I like the pain.” She was correct. The arm healed. The pain was a component of the healing. The two went together.’

The Message of Obadiah, Nahum and Zephaniah: The Kindness and Severity of God c. The Lord Is Good—He Defeats Those Who Oppose Him (8–15)

‘That is the way it is in our text. If the kingdom of God under God’s chosen King is to be saved, then the enemy who assaults that Kingdom must be destroyed. God gives no secure salvation to his church unless he brings decisive judgment on her enemies. We must stop praying, “Deliver us from evil”, unless we yearn for its destruction (see

Nahum will now turn his sights toward denouncing the nation of Assyria.

Nahum 1:1-8 focused on God’s charcter.

Nineveh is only mentioned a couple of times in this book.

Nineveh is a microcosm of how Yahweh will deal with the nations.

The Divine Warrior Demolishes Defiance

We must again consider the kind of nation that Assyria was.

They were a world super-power.

They were strong enough to be still remembered to this day.

They had military prowess.

They were political astute.

As nations go, they were thought to be unsinkable.

Who could challenge such a people?

Nahum 1:9 ESV

9 What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time.

Defeats Defiance through Deception

There are no schemes that will stand before Yahweh.

There are no military plans that will trick Him.

Psalm 2 is a Psalm that reflects upon this reality.

Psalm 2:1–3 ESV

1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

The kings of the earth desire the destruction of God’s people completely!

They want them gone entirely!

What is Yahweh doing?

Psalm 2:4 ESV

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

Yahweh laughs in the heavens at His enemies.

There is no one or nothing that will threaten His purposes.

He will make them a complete end.

Nahum 1:9 ESV

He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time.

The question though is, “How will God make them a complete end?”

Immediately we have these scenes in our minds of transcendent thunderstorms and cosmic rumblings.

And there is a sense of this that is correct because at the LAST day when God’s final judgment comes, that’s how it will be.

Prophets & Mountain Ranges

If you stand at the base of a long mountain range, and someone were to ask you,

“How far away is that one point on the mountain range?”

It is virtually impossible with the naked eye to determine how far away they are.

The prophets make predictions and those predictions have a temporary and “short-range” fulfillment.

But those prophecies also have more long range fulfillments.

Instead of always having in our brains this cosmic bully that comes to “kick in doors and beat up bad guys.”

Psalm 18:25–26 NET 2nd ed.

25 You prove to be loyal to one who is faithful; you prove to be trustworthy to one who is innocent. 26 You prove to be reliable to one who is blameless, but you prove to be deceptive to one who is perverse.

God judges people by handing them over to their sin.

From time to time we look at the decision decisions from a person’s life and think to ourselves,

“What were they thinking?”

It’s easy to look at an individual’s life and see the foolish decisions.

But the same thing can be set of nations.

Nations will make dumb decisions and we may wonder,

“Why would they do that?”

God judges people by allowing their folly filled minds to believe falsehoods.

God judges people by allowing them to have bad counselors.

He gives them over to “worthless counselors.”

Nahum 1:10 NET 2nd ed.

10 Surely they will be totally consumed like entangled thorn bushes, like the drink of drunkards, like very dry stubble.

God described Nineveh as though they didn’t know their “right hand from their left hand” (Jonah 4:11).

But now He will let them go.

Nineveh will be plunged into intellectual folly.

Yahweh will consume His enemies as quickly as a thorn bush is burnt, as quickly as a drunk drinks his drink, and consumed as fast as dry stubble.

This consumption will be total, complete and without end.

How will Yahweh do this?

Nahum 1:11 ESV

11 From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor.

Now the subject here “from you” is implied to be from Nineveh, but it’s important to see this is left vague on purpose.

It’s left vague to allow us to see how God will always frustrate the plans of his enemies.

The Bible gives us numerous examples of God, frustrating wicked peoples through bad counsel.

In David’s life, after his affair with Bathsheba.

His son Absalom tried to rip the kingdom from his father.

His son Absalom was surely going to take the kingdom from his father.

Absalom even possessed Israel’s wisest man.

A man named Ahithophel.

Ahithophel is a dangerous man because he possessed wisdom.

He advised Absalom.

2 Samuel 17:1–4 ESV

1 Moreover, Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue David tonight. 2 I will come upon him while he is weary and discouraged and throw him into a panic, and all the people who are with him will flee. I will strike down only the king, 3 and I will bring all the people back to you as a bride comes home to her husband. You seek the life of only one man, and all the people will be at peace.” 4 And the advice seemed right in the eyes of Absalom and all the elders of Israel.

If his advice is followed, David would certainly have lost his life.

Yet Yahweh’s sovereign purposes extends even over those who possess wisdom.

David had a friend among the royal court that still had David’s best interest.

He offers counsel that he knows will undermine Ahithophel’s.

By appealing to Absalom’s pride and encouraging him to build a large army, Absalom is deceived and David is safe (2 Samuel 17:7-13).

2 Samuel 17:14 ESV

14 And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring harm upon Absalom.

As in David’s day, when God overruled the ‘good counsel’ of Ahithophel through Hushai’s deception (2 Sam 17:14), so here Yahweh frustrates Assyria’s plots through their own foolishness.

When God wants to destroy a nation, sometimes it’s done through natural disasters.

But more often than not it is done through bad counsel.

Instead of bringing destruction through his own violence, the Divine Warrior destroys nations through morons.

‘The plot against Yahweh’s king has gone to pot. Why? Yahweh has ordained it. More often than not that is the manner of God’s work. His sceptre is unseen, his sovereignty hidden behind the conversations and decisions and activities and crises of our lives. We see only grocery lines and diaper changes and school assignments; but through and over and behind it all Yahweh rules. He is not absent, but neither is he obvious’

Application for Believers

God’s Sovereignty worked even underneath the confusion of the nations.

When the world looks like chaos, we can have confidence because we know that Yahweh Reigns!

Yahweh demolishes defiance and NO scheme can stand!

Notice that Yahweh turns His attention now to addressing the remnant and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Delivers the Downtrodden

Nahum 1:12 ESV

12 Thus says the Lord, “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

Yahweh promises that he will break the yoke that the Assyrians have placed upon their back.

He will burst their chains apart and bring liberty.

An aspect of delivering God’s people who have been under the heel of the Assyrians demands that God breaks the “heel” of the oppressor.

Nahum 1:12 NIV

Although I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more.

God allowed Israel to be temporarily afflicted.

Their affliction was short lived.

Application for Christians

God disciplines us for a purpose.

His purpose is our holiness.

Hebrews 12:10 ESV

10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

God never seeks the destruction of those who find refuge in Him.

He may discipline for a time.

But destruction is never His goal.

Even when we have come through a season of discipline.

It’s not that we have endured it, but that His purposes have been fulfilled perfectly!

Yahweh delivers the downtrodden and NO chain remains unbroken!

Nahum 1:13–14 ESV

13 And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.” 14 The Lord has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

The Divine Warrior Distributes Peace

The Assyrians were thought to be an unconquerable people.

The symbol of the Assyrian’s in the ancient world was of their king strangling a lion.

The king would symbolically every year be put in a ring with a lion.

Lion was weakened through sickness

Lion would be symbolically killed.

To say that the Assyrians would “be cut down and pass away” is equally as shocking as hearing a prophecy saying the United States of America will “be cut down and pass away.”

But this battle cry to the Ninevites is a cry of liberation to the people of Judah.

Nahum 1:14 ESV

14 The Lord has given commandment about you…

Notice that verse 14 highlights the singular “you”, likely referring to the king of Assyria.

This king was likely a man named, Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC), who once wrote of his future generations…

“May any future prince, during whose reign this work falls into disrepair and sustains damage, repair its dilapidated state! May he write my name with his own name, look at my royal inscription, anoint it with oil, offer a sacrifice, and place my royal inscription with his own royal inscription! …

But as for the one who erases my inscribed name … or changes its position and does not place it with his own royal inscription — may the god Nabû glare at him angrily and make his name and his descendants disappear from the lands!”

This king arrogantly believed that he would be sustained for a long time.

Dismantles Darkness

Nahum 1:14 ESV

“No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

Yahweh says his name will be no longer sown!

His name will end!

His fame will perish!

He will be forgotten!

In Nineveh, the king perpetuated idolatry.

This sort of idolatry rose to a position of prominence and greatness that is difficult to surpass.

Sacrificing food to deities in order to appease them while your family starved.

Killing children to sacrifice to their deities.

This gross idolatry was destroying this people, and yet here Yahweh promises that He will destroy it.

“You think you’ll be sustained by all the ‘gods’ of the nations, but I will dig your grave!”

“You will no more be able to ransake the earth because I’m going to get rid of you!”

Applications for all those yoked up with evil tyrants.

God promises this to all who have joined themselves with those who are “vile” and unbelieving.

How much more could be said for every abortion doctor?

How much more can be said for pimps? Porn managers?

Managers of brothels?

And all the rest.

Now imagine being Nahum for a moment.

Your people have been ransacked and destroyed.

You’re opposing the king of the known superpower.

The king who made a spectacle of his enemies.

Like John the Baptist, who lost his head to Herod, Nahum will throw caution to the wind to speak God’s Word.

His message will not be popular.

He will be disliked.

As the prophets in every age stand, “Against the World” when they faithfully proclaim the Word of God.

Applications for Believers to Speak Prophetically in a godless age.

Yahweh dismantles darkness and NO idol endures!

Nahum 1:15 ESV

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.

“upon the mountains” show that Nahum will announce peace to all of Judah.

All those remaining in Israel will hear a message of peace.

Distributing Peace to His people

The “good news” brought to the people of Judah is that their oppressor, the Assyrians, will be utterly destroyed.

Romans 10:15 ESV

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!”

Paul picks up on this “good news” preached in Isaiah which focused on the positive side of deliverance.

Whereas Nahum and says that it’s this same “good news” that accompanies the preached gospel on the negative side.

The “good news” will accompany all those who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus has judged and defeated all of our enemies and this will include those who oppose God (Revelation 19:1-3).

Just so we don’t dismiss this and think this is merely an Old Testament thing…

In the book of Revelation, at the end of time, God promises to defeat His enemies.

The world, the flesh, and the devil.

All three of this “unholy trinity” will be destroyed.

Revelation 18:21 ESV

21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more…

John describes how the sounds of the musicians, the work of the craftsman, and wedding parties will be destroyed.

No more joy from the WORLD.

No more laughter.

Revelation 18:24 ESV

24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

And do you want to know how the people of God respond?

Revelation 19:1–2 ESV

1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2 for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

At the end of days, there will be no more mourning.

There will be no more sadness.

And the righteous will sing that the blood of the Saints has been avenged.

Yahweh distributes peace and NO enemies remain!

The Divine Warrior’s jealousy demolishes defiance and distributes peace.  

Benediction