God > The World

Opening & Intro

Have you ever heard of a rip current?

Signs say stay away.

In Australia, on average 21 people drown every year and there are on average 87 major rescues due to people ignoring the signs and the safe places to swim.

Or

Last summer while we were on vacation in Halifax we went body boarding at Lawrenctown beach. They have big waves and a surfing school. There are signs and flags that separate the swimming areas fromt eh surfing areas...

Or

Peggy’s cove - Black rocks signs.

In each of those cases whose fault are the injuries?

Main Point

We need to understand 2 things: 1) God is NOT human (Who God is and who God isn’t).

Why Does it Matter

The world tries to judge God according their standards. Like they are the ultimate source of morality or right and wrong. When we try to pigeon-hole God into our standards of right and wrong or good and evil we put ourselves in a spot of moral superiority over God.

Scripture

A little Background:

This is another warning about the coming destruction of the city of Ninevah.

We could technically call this book Jonah 2.0.

What is happening. Well first let’s put it into perspective. It is likely that Jonah’s warning too place about 120 years ahead of this book. Jonah is thought by many to have taken place around 750 BCE.

Nahum is thought to have been taken place around 640 -620 BCE. Remember that BCE dates go in reverse as the get closer to the birth of Christ.

Since Jonah’s time there were soem significant changes to Ninevah.

The first being it was officially made the capital city of assyria.

The Second is that these people were known for the violence and disreguard for human life. They flayed people alive and stuck them on spikes in the ground. They would remove limbs and apendages just to watch them suffer. They were, at the time, considered to be the most violent people on earth.

This is key. Think back to Jonah.

These guys heard the warning and immeadiately changed their tune.

In important note to make is that Ninevah did NOT listen this time and the city fell in 612 BCE.

The book of Nahum is ultimately a celebration of the downfall of the city of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire, which had destroyed northern Israel in 722/721 bce and oppressed Judah for about a century.

Catch that?

Jonah likely prophesied around 750 BCE and not 30 years later they oppressed Israel AND Judea.

So we start as we always do in chapter 1. Which paints a picture of who God is. When I say picture I mean It is a detailed picture of everything God has proven Himself to be.

Nahum 1:1–3 NIV

A prophecy concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

I want to hone in on “slow to anger”.

He is slow to anger but this recooning was coming for a long time. Jonah had a hand in slowing it but ultimately they didn’t take YHWH seriously at all. In fact as we learned earlier, they oppressed God people.

Some more descriptive language from this chapter.

Feirce anger, Racks shatter before Him, God is good, a refuge in times of trouble, He cares for those who trust Him.

Nahum 1:14 NIV

The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: “You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.”

Chapter 2 continues to warn this city that pain is coming.

Nahum 2:1–2 NIV

An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength! The Lord will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.

Chapter 3 is much the same.

Nahum 3:14–15 NIV

Draw water for the siege, strengthen your defenses! Work the clay, tread the mortar, repair the brickwork! There the fire will consume you; the sword will cut you down— they will devour you like a swarm of locusts. Multiply like grasshoppers, multiply like locusts!

Then at the very end of the book Nahum tells us:

Nahum 3:19 NIV

Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?

“All who hear the news about you...” That is not just Israel and Judah. Mahum is referring to all nations. Ninevah will serve as an example. When people hear of the fall of this town they will celebrate.

How is that loving? How does this jive with the good news of Jesus? How does this wrathful God compare with the “God of the New Testiment”?

Application

We have to think about what I said our point was for today. The “if you rememebr anything, remember this.”

God is NOT human (Who God is and who God isn’t).

We have seen in Jonah that if they had of listened to His warning that they woudl have been fine. But they were treating God’s created people like they were animals. They were killing women, children, babies in cruel ways that I won’t get into. This kingdom was the stuff of your worst nightmares.

It had to be stopped and a civilization like this could only be stopped in one way.

Oppressors will continue to oppress until they are stopped (God warned them earlier through Jonah).

SO after were read basically 3 chapters of who God is and what He plans on doing with this city we see this celebration.

I always hold that God doesn’t delight or have joy at the destruction of His people. Israelites or not.

They celebrate the victory of good not the destruction of evil.

Most people in the USA would tell you that the revolutionary war and the civil war were horrible times. But when they ended do you think people just went home?

No. They partied in the streets. The British were defeated and they were declared free. Abraham Lincoln started the road to the imancipation of the Africain American people.

But imagine the loss every side suffered. Imagine the horror of the wars while they were happening. For most people they weren’t celebrating the death of the british or the South. They were celebrating a new day without the mass violence and destruction.

That is what this is all about.

What can we learn from this?

Who God is!

1) God is NOT human (Who God is and who God isn’t).

He openly invites everyone in creation into a relationship.

His justice gives us all a choice. Just like Ninevah. and for about 30 years they accepted the invitation. but then power changed and so did their attitudes.

We can’t base our opinion of who God is based on the standards of this world. The truth is I don’t know why God chooses to act one way sometimes and another way in others.

But I know this. His ways are higher than mine. Than ours. God sees the full big picture. He isn’t one of us.

Closing

Again it boils down to hear and live. If I tell you that door leads to a firey explosion and you choose to ignore me and walk through it anyway, whose fault is it?

God wants us all to hear and live.