Sermon Tone Analysis
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One of the puzzling things about being a Christian is the fact that we who trust in the Lord often have many troubles,
while some who never even think about the claims of Christianity appear to have everything go smoothly for them.
They are seldom ill.
They have plenty of work,
while many of the Lord’s people just seem unwanted.
The unsaved never give the impression that they are ever depressed about much and
all that they turn their hands to appears to prosper.
The psalmists spoke about this kind of situation in and 73 and other psalms.
The people of Judah in the seventh century B.C. must have felt as frustrated as we often do in our day,
when they saw the advances that wicked men were making in their land.
The invading Assyrians gave the impression that they were achieving one victory after another
as they advanced through country after country.
Every town which they attacked seemed to crumble before them.
Their influence and power were such that there is no doubt that they were the major power throughout the Middle East at that time.
Year after year oppressive Nineveh grew stronger and stronger.
We saw God’s response to that, two weeks ago when we last met in this text.
Where in v2 God is presented as jealous, vengeful and angry, in addition to being a fierce destroyer who has enemies.
presented as jealous, vengeful and angry, in addition to being a fierce destroyer who has enemies.
His global power renders nature and nations powerless.
Everything convulses before his wrath (1:3–6).
One would be reluctant to approach or worship such a God.
However, these verses serve an important foundational function for the rest of the book, presenting an aspect of God’s being which is too easily forgotten: his justice and righteousness in not countenancing sin.
Whoever opposes his will, whether a pagan or one of his own people, is in danger of encountering this aspect of God’s nature (*cf.
; ).
His global power renders nature and nations powerless.
Everything convulses before his wrath (1:3–6).
One would be reluctant to approach or worship such a God.
However, these verses serve an important foundational function for the rest of the book,
presenting an aspect of God’s being which is too easily forgotten: His justice and righteousness in not overlooking sin.
Whoever opposes His will, whether a pagan or one of His own people, is in danger of encountering this aspect of God’s nature (*cf.
; ).
Fortunately, wrathful judgment is not the only aspect of God’s nature encountered either in this book
or in the lives of those who seek Him.
Judgment is tempered by grace, and is at times delayed, though not cancelled (1:3).
Ultimately, justice and righteousness will result in peace (1:15; ; ; ).
Something to remember is, that as this curse is called down upon the heads of the Assyrians,
does not reflect a low view of them as people, but a high view of the importance of right and wrong.
Let’s look this morning that some of those wrongs and how God reacts.
Look first of all, that THE GREAT PROVOCATION.
— One has gone out from you, who plots evil against the Lord, and is a wicked counselor.
Sennacherib framed an evil letter and and evil speech, not only against Hezekiah and his people but against God Himself.
This account of Sennacherib’s lying, deceit and wickedness is recorded in and 19.
Wicked statements there about God being at the same level as the other gods of the nations which had been delivered into the hands of Assyria already.
This was an attempt to sway the people, so that when Hezekiah would lead the people to seek the help of the Lord our God, that they would doubt God Himself.
The people of the Lord were being persuaded by Assyria’s king to come under his “protection” and not God’s.
This is wicked counsel.
To seek protection in anyone or anything is to plot evil against the Lord.
— Whatever you plot against the Lord, he will bring it to complete destruction; oppression will not rise up a second time.
What a foolish wicked thing it is for you to plot against God, as if you could outwit divine wisdom and overpower omnipotence itself!
Henry, M. (1994).
Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p.
1546).
Peabody: Hendrickson.
We’ve learned that there is a great deal imagined against the Lord by the gates of hell, and against the interests of his kingdom in the world;
but it will prove a vain thing,
— Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his Anointed One:
He that sits in heaven laughs at the imaginations of the pretenders to scheme against Him, and will turn their counsels head over heels.
This is to provoke God.
Whatever you plot against the Lord, He will bring it to an end, complete destruction.
Next we have THE GREAT DESTRUCTION BY GOD.
Which God would bring upon them for provoking Him.
This great destruction is going to land first upon their army.
— says... he will bring it to complete destruction;
It shall be totally cut off and ruined by one swift strike from the Lord.
One fatal stroke of the destroying angel slayed them on the spot.
— That night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.
When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!
v9 says that, “oppression will not rise up a second time.”
oppression will not rise up a second time.
And we know that they hav laid themselves open to divine wrath by their own actions and deeds:
— “For they will be “consumed like entangled thorns,
These thorns are entangle one another.
They make one another worse, and help each other to become more established against God.
They harden one another’s hearts and strengthen one another’s hands in their sin and therefore God will do with them what any greens-keeper does with a bundle of thorns.
He throws them into the fire.
“like the drink of a drunkard”
2. Those who are intoxicated with pride and rage; and the like shall be irrecoverably overthrown and destroyed.
Like drunkards, they shall they make themselves fools to be laughed at, at the last, they stumble and fall to their everlasting ruin.
“like straw that is fully dry.”
3.
They shall be devoured as dry stubble when fully dry.
This is to be irresistibly consumed by the flame.
Between v8 and 10 we have five metaphors to describe a sinners end.
v8, “with an overwhelming flood,” “into darkness,”
v10 “entangled among thorns,” “drunk from their wine,” and “consumed like dry stubble.”
Each metaphor in v10 isn’t bad in itself.
Bruckner, J. (2004).
Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (p.
149).
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
a thorn, wine, dry straw.
But when they are turn in on themselves and comes to it’s own fatal end.
thorns to a tangle,
wine to a wino,
stubble in flames.
The pictures form progressive images of trouble:
first tangled,
then in a stupor, and
finally, dried to crackle crisply in consuming flames.
The destroying end will be final.
Not just the Assyrian army, but their leader, the king himself.
Remember that he plotted against the Lord.
— “The Lord has issued an order concerning you:”
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