A Timely Judgment

Nahum 1-3

Introduction:

So far I have covered six of the Minor Prophets:

The first triad - Obadiah, Joel, Jonah - Belong to the 9th to the 8th century BC, called the pre-Assyrian prophets.

The second triad - Amos, Micah, Hosea - Belong to the 8th century prophets when the Assyrian empire was at its height.

The third triad—Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk—comes from the seventh century, when the power of the Assyrian empire faded rapidly and then was eclipsed by Babylon.

These three books are quite different in scope from one another, though they were written within a 41 year span.

Nahum - 650 BC, Habakkuk - 609 BC, with Zephaniah sandwiched in the middle at 630 BC.

All three books are only three chapters long, and yet as I said completely different in scope and style.

Nahum - deals with the impending judgment on Nineveh

Zephaniah - deals with the future judgment of all in the Day of the LORD.

Habakkuk - deals with the impressions of the prophet himself, regarding God’s Judgments.

In this second half of the Minor Prophets, we begin with God’s judgment and condemnation upon the nation He sent Jonah to about 140 years earlier to save.

The contrast between the two books is astonishing.

Now that Jonah is dead and buried, the prophet that didn’t want to extend God’s mercy on this heathen nation of Assyria; God is now ready to punish them for their cruelty and ignorance of His mercy for them 140 years earlier.

Just thinking out load, but God’s timing couldn’t be worse, right?

I mean, this was the prophecy for Jonah!

Why didn’t God save Jonah for now?

Instead He uses Nahum, who seems to be obedient and complacent.

If I were God, I would have saved Jonah for this time when He brings destruction on Nineveh.

But thankfully, I’m not God!

As His own word says- Isaiah 55:8 “8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.”

Here is the greatest wisdom!

His ways are not our ways!

The sooner we get this the better off we will be.

I. No evil will go unpunished.

Someone might well assume that if we apply the logic of Nineveh’s repentance in the book of Jonah to every evil nation today, then it would seem that all any nation needs to do is repent, and God will spare them the judgment to come.

Such passages like 2 Chronicles 7:14 “14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” are used universally to apply to any Christian nation today.

Except in that verse God was speaking directly to Solomon and warning Him of the Israelites duty to obey God under a Theocracy. This is not a one size fits all verse.

Also, there is as we have seen often, a time when God grants repentance and a time when repentance will no longer assuage the wrath of God.

We need only look to the prophet Jeremiah for instruction here.

Jeremiah 14:11–12 NKJV

11 Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for this people, for their good. 12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.”

Yet, God is always merciful when it comes to salvation and the individual.

It matters not what one has done, how bad the sin is, nor what any man thinks of them; God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And, He will not turn away from any who call upon Him.

Efforts by well meaning Christians to tip the scales of good over evil either through judicial means or sheer numbers of believers in any country, will not accomplish what they set out to do.

Somehow believing that if our nation becomes a Christian nation, then God will bless it and keep it safe from enemy invasions, or all sorts of problems, is pie in the sky thinking.

We don’t even have a pure enough church to accomplish that!

No! God is going to punish evil nations today, just as He did with Nineveh.

America is not mentioned anywhere in prophecy for a reason, unless of course it is what Revelation chapter fourteen calls Babylon the great, in which case we know its outcome.

II. No amount of time will forget.

Here is another thought, time does not forget.

One hundred forty years had passed since the prophet Jonah brought repentance to Nineveh.

Some could say that God had spared them and that’s that.

But even though they had repented under Jonah’s preaching, they had 140 years to live in wickedness.

They might even believe their own lie, that they were forgiven and now are not as bad.

They might think that if they were, God would send another prophet like Jonah in a very dramatic way.

And there’s the deceit of the human heart, always believing that it can’t be as bad as it really is, and that they know what God will do.

As Americans, we look back over time and we ignore all the warning signs.

We believe that we were once a Christian nation and that all we need to do is to turn back to God as a nation.

We believe that God will do something special preserving our way of life or give us another sort of savior.

We have a Savior.

We have salvation.

We will escape the wrath to come

But, the nation as with every other nation that has ever existed, or will exist, shall be judged.

Which means that even though Christians abide or even account for a great demographic of that society, that nation will still be judged, and that judgment many times comes before the Day of the LORD.

So to think that we’ve gone on now for almost 250 years and God is still blessing us, not mean He has forgotten all the evil done under the flag.

III. None can thwart its inevitability.

The day of reckoning is coming for the world, but we shall be saved.

This is the ultimate message of Nahum, and it is the message for today’s christian.

In a day in which relative truth seems to prevail in the thoughts of humans, God’s word is anything but relative.

In fact it is objective truth, not given to the whims of feelings, ideology, or philosophy.

Everywhere around us we see people, groups, organizations, trying desperately to change the moral parameters of society.

Yet, even morals are never relative, though many cultures differ in moral standards.

The standard whether you are a religionist, an atheist, an agnostic, muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, from another planet, it really doesn’t matter; because the standard is found in the decalogue.

Yes, the Ten Commandments, the only standard for morality that was revealed by the God of the Universe, the Most High God!

Mine, yours, or any person’s belief, makes no difference to the standard that will judge every single person and every nation since the beginning of time.

God revealed His standard to the Jews, and it was fulfilled in Christ.

I don’t have to prove it.

I don’t have to accept any alternative.

I am compelled to obey it, or face the consequences.

God’s church is commanded to be a holy church, which means we obey the commands of God which are found in His moral standard found in the law.

Some would argue that we are holy when we are in Christ, and they would be correct.

However -

Every church that substitutes God’s moral standard for its own moral standard will answer for it in the judgment.

The standard is the law of God, and we are here to point people to the one who fulfilled the law, Jesus Christ.

You see, when we point people to Jesus, we are not telling them about the God man that paid for their sins, so they can have redemption and continue living in sin.

We are pointing them to the Savior, the God man, who fulfilled the law (God’s moral absolute) by living it perfectly, and sacrificing Himself as an offering for sin, so that we could be free from sin and its penalty.

If then we are free from it, how can we live any longer in it?

So, this nation, with all its inclusivity, will not stand at the judgment of God.

And, dare I say, that we are on borrowed time, just as Nineveh was in Nahum’s time.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, as with the prophets there was usually a blessing for those who followed Yaweh, there is also for the Christian today, a blessing, a glorious blessing for those who follow Christ.